KAUKAUNA — The Wisconsin Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Saturday included a moment that was nearly 80 years in the making.
One of the inductees was Patrick Flanagan of Kaukauna, who won three consecutive WIAA Class B shot put state titles from 1945-47. He set a Class B state record as a sophomore, then broke it as a junior, and established an all-class state record as a senior, when he and the Galloping Ghosts were the Class B state team runner-up.
But Flanagan never received the gold medal he earned with his first state championship in 1945. Two years earlier, with the country in the throes of World War II and resources nationwide being reallocated to the war effort, the WIAA stopped presenting medals to our state champions. Instead, they were given a certificate they could redeem “for a medal after the war.”
Flanagan went on to play football at Georgetown University and Marquette University and was selected in the 14th round of the 1951 NFL draft by the New York Giants, but opted to join another team when he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, for whom he served in Korea. After his discharge, he spent some time in the Giants’ camp in 1954 (New York’s offensive coordinator at the time was Vince Lombardi), before ultimately returning to the Fox Valley, where he died in 1979 at age 51.
His daughter Maggie attended Saturday’s WISTCA Hall of Fame ceremony at the Marriott Madison West in Middleton to accept her father’s honor on his behalf. In the process of searching for photos of her father to offer for the ceremony’s slideshow, she discovered the certificate he was given after winning his state title in 1945, the one he never got around to exchanging for his gold medal.
So upon the conclusion of her acceptance speech Saturday, WIAA assistant director Melissa Gehring surprised Maggie Flanagan by presenting her with a gold medal, fulfilling a promise made and honoring an accomplishment achieved eight decades ago.
