When Sharon Cole Faust and her Wisconsin teammates reached the peak in 2006, little did they know that they were, in essence, building a base camp that would keep the Badgers near the sport's pinnacle for the next decade. Whether it's the high level of play today's Badgers put on display or the high-end rink they now call home, Cole Faust can clearly see the lasting legacy of that first national championship team. |  From Varsity Magazine
BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
When Sharon Cole Faust sits down to watch Wisconsin women's hockey games these days, she's not thinking about her extraordinary legacy.
Cole Faust was a senior winger and captain for the Badgers in 2006 when they won the first NCAA title in program history. She subsequently became a notable investor in LaBahn Arena, the modern on-campus hockey facility where that national championship banner now hangs with three others.
Observing games from the stands, her 4-month-old son Roman in tow, Cole Faust thinks in more humble terms. She sees the speed, skill and athleticism of today's players across the board and wonders if she would even make the current Wisconsin roster, much less rank as one of the top point-getters as she did a decade ago.
"They're just so good," Cole Faust said.
Bear in mind that Cole Faust, from Bloomington, Minnesota, was a top-line left winger as a senior who ranked third on the club in goals with 15 and third in points with 39. She finished with 105 points (37 goals, 68 assists) in 147 career games.
"My dad came and visited and saw the baby, and we went to a game and he turned to me and said, 'I'm not sure you would have made the team,'" Cole Faust said with a tiny laugh. "I'm like, 'Dad, you don't have to tell me that. I'm completely aware of how good they are now.'"
It's one thing to be good, but until you learn how to win there's always going to be a void on your resume. That's one of the enduring gifts the '06 club passed along and one of the things sure to be trumpeted when members of that outfit come to Madison this weekend for a 10-year reunion.
Also to be celebrated is the unique history that was made a decade ago. Two weeks after the women's team won the national title at Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis, topping host Minnesota 3-0 in the final, the Wisconsin men's squad claimed the sixth NCAA crown in program history with a 2-1 victory over Boston College at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.
The women's alums will be recognized Saturday during a Western Collegiate Hockey Association series with St. Cloud State at LaBahn. They will also be singled out later that day during a men's non-conference series with Alaska at the Kohl Center.
No other school before or since as swept the men's and women's NCAA Division I hockey titles in the same season. Minnesota and Boston College have had opportunities to match the feat, but failed. Cole Faust said she keeps track every year and quietly toasts the moment when it's determined that no one else will join the exclusive club.
"When I look at the players that are on the team now I'm thinking, 'Yeah, it was 10 years ago,'" Cole Faust said. "Just in terms of the women's game, it's gotten so much better. It continues to improve leaps and bounds."
Ten years? Cole Faust said she remembers just about every detail about that fabled club and that magical season "like it was yesterday, but when I look at the players that are on the team now I'm thinking, 'Yeah, it was 10 years ago.'
"Just in terms of the women's game, it's gotten so much better. It continues to improve leaps and bounds."
Cole Faust and her contemporaries had a lot to do with that. She was one of five freshmen who showed up to work with first-year coach Mark Johnson in 2002. They won 22 games as rookies and got better every season: 25 victories in 2004, 28 in '05 and 36 in '06.
A year after going on the road and losing to Dartmouth 4-3 in their NCAA tournament debut, the Badgers pushed the bar to a place it had never been before.
In addition to four national titles, Wisconsin has been to the Frozen Four on four other occasions, produced four Patty Kazmaier Award recipients as national players of the year — center Sara Bauer in 2006, goaltender Jessie Vetter in '09, winger Meghan Duggan in '11 and center Brianna Decker in '12 — and had 11 Olympians.
Johnson, who's on the verge of becoming the third women's coach to win 400 career games, said his players came back with a heightened sense of determination after the loss to Dartmouth in '05.
"The sense and the talk after the game was about this (being) a stepping stone, an opportunity to try and take the next step the next year, to prepare ourselves," he said. "They worked out that summer and put themselves in a position mentally to take that next step.
"It started that spring out in Dartmouth when we left there. Disappointed that we got defeated, but a learning process that helped us push forward and helped us win our first championship."
That breakthrough title ushered in a stretch of sheer dominance. Wisconsin advanced to the NCAA title game six times between '06 and '12, winning in '06, '07, '09 and '11. The lone exception to the string of Frozen Fours came in 2010, when Johnson was coaching Team USA to a silver medal in the Winter Olympics and had two of his best players — Duggan and winger Hilary Knight, the leading scorer in program history — with him.
"The legacy of the (2006) team is just the initiation of almost a dynasty," Cole Faust said. "We can, 10 years later, go back to games over and over again … and they're still dominating.
"It feels like the players on that team were the start of the powerhouse. It paved the way for all the following teams."
Cole Faust graduated with a degree in pharmacy and married Jesse Faust, a Madison firefighter. They live on a farm on the outskirts of the city. She's employed as a pharmacy benefits manager for Navitus.
One of Cole Faust's treasures is a framed canvas print of the opening faceoff for the 2006 national championship game. It was a gift from her husband and it hangs prominently in her office at work.
Speaking of gifts, Cole Faust followed up her on-ice efforts with one of similar value off of it.
When Wisconsin officials were soliciting donors for LaBahn Arena — the 2,273-seat multi-purpose facility that cost $27.9 million and opened in 2012 — she came through with $10,000. It's the largest donation from a former women's player and it was made despite Cole Faust's student loan debt that she said was in excess of $100,000.
"Part of me sees that donation as a gesture of appreciation, giving back just a fraction of how I feel to the athletic department and the school," she said. "The other piece of that is that there are young women coming up behind me and I want them to be able to maximize their time here or just get the most of out of it."
Instead of being headquartered at an aging facility like the Camp Randall Memorial Sports Center — instead of needing to bounce to a variety of competition rinks for practices and games — the Badgers now practice, play, eat, study and relax in a single state-of-the-art location adjacent to the Kohl Center.
"Leaving for college can be a scary thing for kids," Cole Faust said. "They may not have the maturity (now) to realize what they have in front of them, but there's a first step to making them have that realization.
"Being able to go anywhere and tell your story is something that I don't take lightly. I'm very proud of that and very humbled by the pure amount of opportunity that these situations have provided for me."
In addition to her degree, Cole Faust said the education she got being part of a championship program pays dividends every day.
"Interpersonal relationships, teamwork, communication and working toward a common goal," she said. "I can't really stress enough what some of those intangibles are that you hone, that are provided, through sport — especially a sport where you're kind of at the top of your game."
Cole Faust said that '06 team — featuring two future Patty Kazmaier winners in Bauer and Vetter and 22 student-athletes who earned their degrees — was great in part because everyone worked hard to relate to one another away from the rink.
"The legacy of the team is just the initiation of almost a dynasty," Cole Faust said. "It feels like the players on that team were the start of the powerhouse. It paved the way for all the following teams."
"We just put things out there and addressed issues," she said. "We were really good on the ice, but we also worked together to work through our issues off the ice."
Speaking of relationships, the men's and women's teams had a unique bond in 2006. One of the assistant captains for the women's team was senior center Nikki Burish. The captain of the men's team was senior winger Adam Burish.
"Having siblings on each team pulled us closer," Cole Faust said of the hard-nosed, fun-loving brother and sister who grew up in Madison.
When the women returned from Minneapolis with their championship trophy in hand, players good-naturedly challenged the men to match their feat.
"Once we won, obviously we were really rooting for them," Cole Faust said. "We kind of knew the adrenaline rush and all that was in store waiting."
Two weeks later, the men fulfilled their mission and shared a celebratory stage with the women.
"We got to party all over again," Cole Faust said, noting that "nobody was being showed up by the other."
When Cole Faust attends games these days she's sometimes joined by Phoebe Monteleone Turner, who was a junior winger on that '06 club. The two happened to be roommates on the road that season. Now they're wives and young mothers making their way in life.
"We kind of talk about everything coming full circle," Cole Faust said.
The friends now watch the Badgers play knowing that a lot has happened to their game in 10 years. But members of that first national championship team have something that will endure forever.
"The players on that team paved the way for the players coming up," Cole Faust said.
