BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — Denny Helwig spent 42 years of his life working tirelessly on behalf of Wisconsin student-athletes, so, yes, he has a lot of reasons to be proud.

There's one that stands out.

Helwig graduated from UW in 1974 and, after a brief stint in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, returned to Madison and became the athletic trainer for football and men's hockey in '75.

One of his first priorities when he became head athletic trainer in 1985 was to adhere to the law of the land known as Title IX, which prohibits gender-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.

To Helwig, that meant embracing the concept of women in all walks of sports on campus, whether as an athlete, coach, administrator or support staffer. Not a surprise when you know Helwig has three sisters and his wife, Jan, was a pioneering female athletic trainer at UW.

"When I had the opportunity after I became head athletic trainer, I really worked hard to open everything up to women athletes, making sure they were taken care of and had the same access as a football or a basketball player," he said.

Every time an athletic facility was built, Helwig said he "made sure that it was accessible and comfortable for women athletes." He also introduced co-ed training rooms and made the ground-breaking move of making a woman, Barb Pearson, the primary athletic trainer for football, something unprecedented in the Big Ten Conference at the time. On the flip side, when Helwig added Michael Moll — now the UW assistant athletic director for sports medicine — to the staff, he assigned him to the softball team.

 

Helwig dealt with blowback from bosses and colleagues who weren't as adaptable as he was. Helwig recalled one administrator objecting to one particular training room scene.

"You have women walking around with sport bras and shorts," the complainant said. "I just don't think that's right."

Helwig replied: "It's really hard to do an ultrasound treatment through a T-shirt. When you examine a knee, they have to have shorts on."

Helwig walked the walk, too. His final team assignment before retirement was with women's hockey and its iconic coach, Mark Johnson. Helwig not only worked with Johnson's legendary father, Bob, with the UW men's hockey team, he watched Mark evolve from a high school wunderkind and Olympic hero to the winningest coach in women's college hockey. In other words, Helwig came full circle.

"That was special to me," he said.

That sense of professionalism and fairness, coupled with four-plus decades working with thousands of Wisconsin student-athletes, help explain why Helwig is being inducted in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

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High Five

One: Helwig grew up in Columbus, Wis., but couldn't play sports because of a heart murmur. So football coach and physical education teacher Ray George, who played for the Badgers in the early 1960s, gave him responsibilities that laid the groundwork for the role he had at UW.

"I missed an opportunity to participate in sports," Helwig said, "but I was given an opportunity to be involved."

Two: Helwig was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame in 2001, but this latest honor caught him completely unaware.

"I was absolutely shocked," he said of the April phone call he got from UW athletic director Chris McIntosh. "I never saw something like this coming.

"It's extremely meaningful to me knowing the amount of talent that has passed through during my tenure and all the staff members that have worked hard and dedicated their time to taking care of athletes."

 

Three: A highlight of Helwig's career came in 1984 when he was asked to serve as athletic trainer for the U.S. men's hockey team that competed in the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. He was among the first in a long line of UW products who drew international assignments courtesy of USA Hockey, a list that includes athletic trainer Mike Johnson, equipment managers Nate LaPoint and Sis Paulsen and general manager Jim Johannson.

Four: Yes, Helwig has a favorite souvenir from his time at UW. He was a student athletic trainer working with men's hockey when he asked equipment manager Harold Anacker if he had something to keep him warm during practices at cold, dank Hartmeyer Ice Arena.

Anacker produced a thick wool sweater with an old-time UW logo on it. Apparently they were worn by Badgers football players in the early 1960s.

"I was never asked to return it," Helwig said.

Five: Helwig declined to ID favorite characters from his time at UW, but he did share the best advice he received.

"For years we wanted to upgrade athletic training in the state of Wisconsin and one of the goals was to get licensures," he said. "Every time we talked to people, whether it was the state legislature or someone who could help us, they'd say, 'This is the wrong time to do this.'

"I had an interview with another professional who had worked to obtain their licensure. He basically said, 'There's never a good time for anything.' You just have to go ahead and work towards it and if it's right, it will happen. And it did.

"If you have the right message and it's the right thing to do, just keep at it."