The Manawa Wolves undefeated 1984 football team held a reunion Saturday, July 24.
It was called “The Streak” by a Green Bay television station when the 1984 Manawa Wolves went unscored on during 10 regular season football games. They outscored their opponents 289-0.
After the fifth game of going unscored on, the media, in particular the Green Bay television stations, picked up on this and started coming to at least one practice a week and were at every game on Friday nights. In fact, at one practice a cameraman was ran over by one of the players. He kept his camera running, which ended up with the player looking down into the camera asking if the cameraman, who was lying on his back, was alright. A couple of weeks later, coach Bob Lieberman got a call from a former player who lived in Dallas, Texas, and he excitedly told him that he just saw the Manawa Wolves on ESPN! He was watching “Bloopers and Blunders” on ESPN and that clip was on the program.
Over 1,000 people from all over the area would pack the games on Friday nights whether home or away. They were there not to see if Manawa would win, but to see if they would be scored on.
Lieberman did not make a point of protecting “The Streak.” In fact, after the fifth game and before each game, Lieberman would tell the team that they were going to be scored on tonight. He stressed that they not panic, but take care of business. The players would listen, but they had these sly grins on their faces like, “Oh, yeah.” Maybe telling them that was a great motivating tool.
The starters rarely played all four quarters because of the score. Lieberman turned into a policeman most fourth quarters, keeping his starters from running onto the field and coaching their replacements with the correct techniques. Each reserve had their own position coach and were scared to death to let the starters down.
The closest that a team came to scoring was when Oconto Falls fumbled on the Wolves’ 5-yard line in the fourth quarter and Manawa recovered. Also, a team tried a 32-yard field goal with seven seconds to go in the game and the score was 28-0. The kick was short and to the right.
The team was eliminated in the playoffs by Peshtigo, the defending Division 5 state champions, 27-24, in an outstanding high school football game.
The team was made up of 11 seniors and a good nucleus of juniors and sophomores, who won the Division 5 state championship 13-0, the following year.