What started as a casual conversation between a few friends in the summer of 2024 turned into a heartfelt reunion for 51ÁÔÆæ track and field alumni on June 28, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 100 former Panthers, family members and friends gathered in Milwaukee\u2019s Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery to share memories and catch up on each other\u2019s lives. They also heard from the team\u2019s current athletes, including six-time Horizon League Coach of the Year Andrew Basler and hurdler Natalie Block, who became 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s first Division 1 All-American at the 2025 NCAA Championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Michael Hirsch \u201980, \u201984, who ran track and cross country for the Panthers from 1976-80, was in Milwaukee a year prior visiting some fellow former runners. In a particularly nostalgic moment, one friend half-jokingly said that they needed to get everyone back together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Hirsch, now a dean at Huston-Tillotson University in Texas, took up the challenge, embarking on a year\u2019s worth of logistical and organizational efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019d put together a smaller gathering back in the late 1990s, but this one quickly grew into a much more complex task, and Hirsch thanked the 51ÁÔÆæ Alumni Association and the many people who helped track everyone down. Emails were searched for and shared, as was the occasional physical address, and social media sleuths played their part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the work came to fruition in Best Place\u2019s Great Hall. As a slideshow of photos and articles from days gone by played in the background, old friends exchanged hugs and smiles, laughter and remembrances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI love these people. My 51ÁÔÆæ days are some of the best days of my life, and I have a wonderful life,\u201d Hirsch said in a quieter moment. \u201cThese are strong people, smart people, kind people, forgiving people, teammates and their families. I was just hoping to see them, and I was hoping that people would spend a lot of time talking and smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And you didn\u2019t have to be part of those track classes from the 1970s and \u201980s to appreciate the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI love seeing the photos, seeing the classic uniforms and some of those old surfaces, it\u2019s crazy that they\u2019re running on that,\u201d said Block, who heads into her final 51ÁÔÆæ season after placing 12th in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2025 NCAA Championships, the best-ever national finish among Panther women. \u201cIt\u2019s super-cool to see, because that\u2019s how the program grew. You can see it carry forward through generations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hirsch, meanwhile, is proud of how Block and the current generation continue to carry the baton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c51ÁÔÆæ fosters that sort of excellence,\u201d Hirsch said. \u201cWe met at the Klotsche Center earlier today, and the coach was talking us through how they support their athletes and how proud he is of their athletes and how successful and hardworking Natalie has been. Our experience was at a different time, and she\u2019s reached a higher level of excellence, and it\u2019s brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What started as a casual conversation between a few friends in the summer of 2024 turned into a heartfelt reunion for 51ÁÔÆæ track and field alumni on June 28, 2025. More than 100 former Panthers, family members and friends gathered …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19712,"featured_media":3156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[14,12],"tags":[28,25],"class_list":["post-3155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-news","tag-alumni","tag-news-stories-large-feature"],"yoast_head":"\n