Butch's Bash -- Classic Wisconsin

Travel, History & Culture in America's Dairyland

HOME

No Boloney: Butch's Last Bash

Fish Frys

Butch's Bash, the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department's annual spring fundraiser, is calling it quits after more than 30 years. Somebody dressed in bright red and armed with a plastic spork will spear the last sausage on April 20, about 7 p.m., depending on how long the beer holds out.

That's too bad. Springtime camaraderie won't be the same. We will be less without Butch's Bash. Really.

The Populism of a Good Festival
Wisconsin folks are genetically programmed for events like this. Our immigrant ancestors loved the populism of a good festival, and they were artists when it came to creating heavy food and drink, though it may be gastronomically incorrect today. Combined with a winter season that generally runs about ten months long and what better way to greet the springtime than an orgy of sausage, suds and polka music? It's a seasonal rite that was once found in towns and villages all across the state: bare-chested men held wrestling matches in rings filled with smelt; springtime de-lousing was followed by organized cootie races; clergy blessed the newly brewed batch of bock beer.

For years UW-Stevens Point students were drawn to an unsanctioned rite-of-spring event called Brat Fest. Held beneath Bukolt Park's tall pines along the Wisconsin River, Brat Fest contained three crucial elements: A rickety snow-fence for crowd-control, brats on a grill, and beer. Truckloads of beer. Much merry making ensued. So much fun was had that Brat Fest was shut down in the late 1980s. The continued prospect of college kids returning to campus through Point's placid residential neighborhoods, often relieving themselves and worse on tidy lawns, prompted a little tête-à-tête between city fathers and the University administration. Brat Fest was resembling the parade scene from Animal House.

Of course, college students need little reason to unwind after a long winter of, er, studying.

But where else will you find events named Brat Fest? Butch's Boloney Bash? Smelt Extravaganza?

Genuflection at the Altar of the Fundraising
And Butch's took it to another level. People paid $30 just to get through the door. It cost more if you wanted a beer with Butch Strickler's complimentary sausages, which is another story altogether, since it was the only time beer was served in the Fieldhouse, a minor rule-bending committed on the part of the UW Athletic Department in the name of fundraising.

Ironically, it may have been the UW's genuflection at the altar of the fundraising that meant the end of Butch's Bash. In more than 30 years, the event raised $3 million dollars, by no means chopped liver to you and me, but a mere smudge of potato salad on the Athletic Department's balance sheet. Too much effort to plan, too little revenue. One direct-mail piece sent to alumni probably yields more cash at a fraction of the time and cost. Far be it for the University to underwrite our culture even if it was at-cost.

So, let's hold a good wake for Butch's Bash, one of the last great spring flings. Then make your way to the Lake Michigan coastal region. Smelt wrestling is gone, but you can still grab tradition by the tail and eat it whole, minus the head.

The Books