BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
This article has 3 parts: 1 - Joe Panos | 2 - Michael Roan | 3 - Yusef Burgess
MADISON, Wis. — People were listening to Whitney Houston ("I Will Always Love You"); Tag Team ("Whoomp — There it Is"); and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince ("Boom! Shake the Room"). They were watching "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Groundhog Day" and "Rudy."
The Dallas Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII. Alabama won the national championship in football. The Toronto Blue Jays knocked out the Philadelphia Phillies on Joe Carter's walk-off homer in the World Series. Michael Jordan retired after the Chicago Bulls first three-peat.
Gas was $1.16 per gallon; a movie ticket was $4.14, and the average income was $31,000. Ariana Grande, Vince Biegel and Meghan Trainor were born. Paul Chryst was the offensive coordinator at UW-Platteville. Nick Saban was the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns.
1993.
This weekend, the Badgers will turn back the clock 25 years by recognizing the Barry Alvarez-coached 10-1-1 team that won a share of the Big Ten championship (only three seasons after going 1-10) and outlasted UCLA in the 1994 Rose Bowl (the school's first trip to Pasadena since 1963).
"Twenty-five years later, you can put us all in a room and it will be like we're all back in the locker room," said Joe Panos, one of the '93 co-captains. "Nothing has changed; we're the same group of people. I've got zingers ready for all my guys. Trust me, I'm going to get peppered, too."
Reluctantly, he did get around to mentioning the inevitable passage of time.
"We're all teetering towards 50, which is ridiculous," lamented Panos, 47.
Going on nearly a decade, he has been an NFL agent; for the last half-dozen years as a partner with Athletes First, whose CEO David Dunn negotiated Aaron Rodgers' record-breaking extension and whose president Brian Murphy took Panos under his wing and tutored him on the profession.
"It's like anything else, if you work hard enough and get enough at-bats at this thing, you figure out how to be successful at it," said Panos, a Brookfield, Wisconsin native, who still lives outside of Milwaukee. "Once you start getting a stable of some really good football players, you 'quote unquote' become a good agent. I've done some really big deals and a lot of them are Badgers."
Panos estimated that he has around 30 clients, including such former UW stalwarts as Travis Frederick, Rick Wagner, Rob Havenstein, Ryan Ramczyk, Joe Schobert and Ryan Groy. There have been others, too. In each case, they had unlimited selling points because of the program's track record.
"They know when they come in here," Panos said of NFL personnel staffers, "they're going to work hard, they're smart, they're well-coached and they know that they don't have worry about them off the field. I don't have to sell them on anything. All I have to do is tell them, 'They're typical Wisconsin kids.'"
That '93 team was built around typical Wisconsin kids.
Just like Panos, a walk-on from UW-Whitewater.
His impact was so profound that he made the Camp Randall 100 list.
"We were a very close-knit group of guys that would kill for each other and for Coach Alvarez," Panos said. "I know people are probably really tired hearing about our M.O. — the attitude, the work ethic, the toughness. But it's true. We were baptized by fire and Barry weeded out the weak."
There is no mistaking their historical significance.
"All the success they're having now has surpassed the success we had," Panos said. "There have been some unbelievable teams. But we were the first and I'm very proud of that. We were the first team to win the Rose Bowl. And our legacy is that we started the run and we started it the right way."
Here are the players scheduled to return for the 1993 reunion:
Tyler Adam, Kerwin Badie, Steven Baffico, Darrell Bevell, Donny Brady, Michael Brin, Jamel Brown, Yusef Burgess, Jason Burns, Theo Carney, Chad Cascadden, Azree Commander, James Darby, J.C. Dawkins, Lee DeRamus, Derek Engler, Terrell Fletcher, Jeff Forde, Kenny Gales, Mike Galletti, Damon Glenn, John Hall, Chris Hein, Reggie Holt, Alex Ilich, Joe Innis, Bryan Jurewicz, Nikki Kemp, Chris Kennedy, Steve Kouba, Matt Krueger, Mike London, Rob Lurtsema, Kevin Lyles, Jay Macias, Jason Maniecki, Ben McCormick, Jeff Messenger, Scott Mielke, Neil Miklusak, Mark Montgomery, Pete Monty, Scott Nelson, Matt Nyquist, Joe Panos, Brian Patterson, Mike Rader, Michael Roan, Joe Rudolph, Tarek Saleh, Dan Schneck, Rick Schnetzky, Henry Searcy, Lamark Shackerford, Haywood Simmons, Tony Simmons, Rod Spiller, Dirk Stanger, Steve Stark, Jason Suttle, Mike Thompson, Reggie Torian, Jamie Vanderveldt, Sam Veit, Mike Verstegen, Scott Wagner, Jeff Wirth, Jerry Wunsch, Scott Young and Vince Zullo.
Also returning are assistant coaches Dan McCarney, John Palermo and Dave Anderson.
Read Part 2 - Michael Roan, Tight End: Like fine wine, UW experience gets better with age
Read Part 3 - Yusef Burgess, Linebacker: 'Lunch pail mentality' still a Badgers core value
