A three-year football letterwinner, Jerry Sinz parlayed his Stout experience into both a successful teaching and coaching career. Sinz, who played at Stout from 1968-71, was a two-year starter at safety and as a punt returner his junior and senior years. Since graduating from Stout, Sinz has put together a 272-65 overall record (before this season) at Edgar High School. He has led Edgar High School to four state championships, three state runner-up titles, 19 playoff appearances, nine undefeated years, 16 conference championships and has been named the region coach of the year eight times and the conference coach of the year nine times.
Sinz has taught technology education and math at Edgar High School since 1972. He was named the Edgar teacher of the year in 1998 and the Wal-Mart Wisconsin teacher of the year in 1999. Sinz and his wife, Barbara, a kindergarten teacher, have four sons, three that so far have graduated from college. All three are working in the education fields.
JERRY SINZ NAMED WISCONSIN AP COACH OF THE YEAR (December, 2020)
It was a high school football season unlike any other even for Jerry Sinz, who thought he had seen it all in 46 years as head coach at Edgar High School.
While quite a few teams shifted their seasons to next spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic and others were forced to pull the plug after a few games, Edgar did what it has always done under Sinz – win big and win often.
The Wildcats rolled to a 9-0 record, outscoring opponents 398-41, with a team Sinz called one of the top four or five he has ever coached. That’s saying a lot, since Sinz has guided Edgar to 13 state championship games and seven titles.
For leading Edgar through a roller-coaster season, Sinz has been voted Associated Press coach of the year in a vote by statewide media.
Kohler/Sheboygan Lutheran/Christina’s Ryan Eigenberg, Muskego’s Ken Krause, Blair-Taylor’s Andy Nehring, Racine Lutheran’s Scott Smith and Whitefish Bay’s Jake Wolter were also considered.
“It was kind of fun,” Sinz said. “Our coaching staff took it as a challenge. Sometimes we’d practice on a Tuesday and Wednesday against a certain opponent and go through all of our offensive and defensive game plan and then find out on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, ‘Oh, we’re not playing them guys now. We’re going to play somebody else.’
“So you’d just have to completely switch your mindset on what you were going to see and maybe even where the game was going to be, now with only one day to try to prepare. We could have never, ever accomplished that unless we had a team that was very experienced, very intelligent.”
When several Marawood Conference opponents weren’t able to play, Edgar picked up games against larger schools Onalaska, Portage and Shawano. All three of those teams played in Division 2 in the WIAA’s two-week postseason, while Edgar was a Division 6 school.
“They would have been willing to play anybody,” Sinz said of his team. “It didn’t make any difference if a team was Division 1, 2, 3, 4, they didn’t care. They weren’t overly concerned if we might lose one. They just wanted to play.”
During a normal season, Edgar would have been favored to make it back to Camp Randall Stadium to play for another state championship. Despite that, Sinz said there’s no regrets.
“It was fun. It was rewarding. Nobody ever held any grudges or felt bad that we didn’t get a chance,” he said. “But I’m sure secretly they probably felt bad they didn’t get a chance to play for a gold ball.”
Sinz, a 2003 Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee, has a 440-85 career record and is second behind only Bob Hyland of St. Mary’s Springs in victories in state history.
Before the season, Sinz said he was “seriously considering” retiring after this season but now plans to return next year when he hopes things are back to normal.
“I don’t want the final year to be this year,” he said.
