BLANCHARDVILLE — After 31 years, Jim Strommen is retiring as athletic director at Pecatonica High School.
“It didn’t seem like it’s been 31 years, but it was time,” said Strommen, whose last day will be June 30. He will remain the school’s baseball coach, a position he has held for 40 years, which included a Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame induction in 2004.
Strommen first joined the district as baseball coach in 1980, and by the time he was teaching at the school he was also the head football coach and assistant boys basketball coach. When he became athletic director for the 1988-89 school year, Strommen decided he had too many responsibilities and stepped away from the basketball program. In 2006 he left the football team, and he retired from teaching six years ago.
“I’ve slowly kind of reduced my role in the school,” he said.
He said the Pecatonica School District and the Blanchardville-area community has always been supportive of youth athletics and extra-curriculars, which has helped make his job easier. He said the networking with other area ADs has also taken some of the stress out of his job.
“We’ve been successful thanks to the great student athletes and their coaches. The principals and administrators I’ve worked with, the parents, too, they’ve all done so much,” Strommen said. “All the secretaries that I worked with over the years also made my job easier, including the current ones of Angie Jorenby, Marlene Flannery and Kelly Olson.”
Pecatonica principal, Paul Manriquez, will take over the role of athletic director, according to Strommen.
Tannar Johnson, a 2011 Pecatonica graduate, said that Strommen “is someone who I will always look to as a mentor. He held all of his student-athletes to a very high standard, and if you embraced his principles and processes, you were going to be successful.”
Johnson’s observation was echoed by others that played for Strommen at one time or another.
“As knowing Coach Strommen as the AD, he always promoted sportsmanship when he was the game manager at basketball, volleyball and football games,” said Colton Schraepfer, a 2019 Pecatonica graduate. “No one ever stepped out of line if he gave them a look.”
Schraepfer said Strommen’s stance on sportsmanship has always been something that stuck out. After losing a six-run lead to Oakfield in the 2017 baseball sectionals, Schraepfer, then just a sophomore, untucked his jersey and didn’t clap for his opponents following the heartbreaking loss.
“I remember Coach Strommen approaching me and telling me tuck my jersey back in and to clap,” Schraepfer said. “It just shows the amount of class he had for his opponent even when things didn’t end the right way.”
Johnson said Strommen’s principles apply to all walks of life, and not just sports.
“The principles he taught are ones you could easily apply to life outside of sports, and have helped many of his former student-athletes be successful in their professional careers,” Johnson said.
The Vikings’ baseball program has a 587-214 record in Strommen’s 40 seasons. With 13 more wins, he will become just the third spring coach in WIAA history to achieve 600 victories. His teams have won eight conference championships and played in four sectionals. He was the District V coach of the year in 1995 and coached in the 1990 all-star game. He’s also spent over 20 years helping coach youth baseball in the summertime in the Blanchardville area.
Strommen said he has no plans at the moment for how to spent his newfound free time. He had planned to travel, but the current COVID-19 pandemic has paused those plans. He also plays in the Madison area senior softball league, which hasn’t started play this season, though he said there is optimism from many of the players.
“We’re still in wait-and-see mode until July 1 at the earliest,” Strommen said.
