Varsity - The Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics

Varsity - July 11, 2013

Varsity is the free Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics, covering Badgers football, basketball, hockey and more each week.

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some recordings for my grandchildren and try to get them interested in music," says Tegen. Tegen's daughters, Susie (41) and Annie (39), who used to occasionally travel with his UW team, have made Tegen a grandfather four times. Susie lives in Louisville, Colo., with her husband John and two daughters. She earned her Ph.D. in environmental policy and works as a wind power senior analyst. Annie lives in Seattle with her husband Jonah and daughter and son. She works in the public health sector as a stop smoking advocate and also works part-time making cabinets. Annie and her family will be living in Argentina for six months, marking another upcoming trip for Tegen. "My daughters have always been a bit of activists, about public health and about environmental issues," said Tegen. "This has, I'm sure, something to do with the way their mom and dad were thinking. Their mom was in the Peace Corps in Tanzania. That probably came from both parents. I'm very pleased that they have this kind of awareness." Tegen also instilled his love of travel in his children and his teams. "When my kids grew up, I made sure they traveled. It was important to me that they got to see their country from the outside and had a different perspective of your own country, your own people. "I had the same feeling when I took all those teams to Europe. That was a very similar motivation, to make sure that they would be able to open their eyes a little bit. I tried to include a few other countries to they could see the microcosm of the world." Another favorite memory of Tegen's is the 1996 Big Ten Outdoor Championships at Penn State. After the 5000 meters, the Badgers led Illinois by six points, but the Illini had the top qualifying time in the final event ― the 4x400-meter relay. If the Illini won the race, as expected, Wisconsin could finish no lower than fourth in order to win the team championship. 54 » VARSITY JULY 11, 2013 Three of four UW runners had the correct uniform on, but Badgers anchor Markesha McWilliams had been competing in the triple jump and was wearing the wrong uniform. McWilliams had to borrow the uniform of one of 5000-meter runners, squeezing into the sweaty spandex. "We had to come up with some crazy relay and we put Markesha in there and she had to run in this soaked sweaty, distance runner jersey, which was probably very tight on her," explained Tegen. The race ended up just as Tegen expected. Illinois won the relay but the Badgers finished fourth to win the championship by one point. Just another trophy for Tegen's team. After starting the program in 1974, Tegen led the Badgers to 39 Big Ten titles between track and cross country

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