Westby High School Football

Adapted from a 1940 American Legion pamphlet

Due to the untiring efforts of Legionnaires Goettel, Nestingen and Bergtold, and of coach Wandschneider, eleven-man football received its start in our local high school. During the fine spring days of 1938, Coach “Bill” Wandschneider could be seen drilling many high school boys in the fundamentals of football, a sport they had never even seen played before. By fall of the same year an eight game schedule had been drawn up and twenty-two complete new football uniforms were ready to be checked out to the players.

During the first year Westby High School won three of its eight games and proved that the game of football was really liked by not only the boys but the city as well.

The 1939 season saw Westby High starting a seven game schedule and finishing the year with two wins, one tie and four losses. During this year we saw the local high school stage the first homecoming football in its history with the snake dance, pep meeting, bonfire, homecoming game with Viroqua, and its gallant homecoming ball the night of the game.

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Elmo Gulsvig in 1966.

The 1940s schedule proved to be more successful. However, Mr. Wandschneider left at the end of the 1941 season. During WWII Westby sports took a back seat to patriotism. High School boys enlisted in the service, some even leaving before graduation.

In August of 1945, the war ended and life began its return to normalcy. Elmo Gulsvig was hired as a science teacher and coach. Thirteen boys turned out for the first football practice in the fall of ‘45. By 1961 the numbers had grown to 82. Gulsvig also coached baseball, basketball, and in 1954 revived track as a sport which had not survived the war times.

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Gulsvig’s record as a football coach was 73 wins and 38 losses, with seven conference championships and two undefeated seasons. Recognized by a number of local and state organizations, the ultimate award came in Aril, 1989 when he was inducted into the Wisconsin High School Football Hall of Fame. His picture and record plaque now hang in the University Field House in Madison.

The Westby Kiwanis club honored Gulsvig with a banquet where they presented with the following framed message: “In recognition of Elmo Gulsvig: Enshrinement into the Wisconsin High School football Coaches Association Hall of Fame on April 1, 1989. Your seventeen years of coaching tempered with high ideals have brought tribute and honor to the Westby Area Schools. To win games was always your ambition; good sportsmanship was always your creed. A grateful community salutes you with the words of this familiar verse by Grantland Rice: ‘For when the one great scorer comes…To write against your name, He writes…not that you won or lost…But how you played the game.’ April 13, 1989.

Football has remained a popular sport in Westby with successes which have included being state champions in 1978, coached by Neil Hoven, and again in 1985 and 1986, coached by Art Brunje. Today’s Polly Rude’s colorful Velkommen signs on the entrance to Westby include the record championships — A Norwegian town proud of its athletes of all nationalities.