Kat Vosters grew up in Wisconsin, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, has been a Badgers fan since basically birth and even used to have a little Badgers cheerleading costume when she was a kid.
And when Wisconsin starts its quest for a national title on Friday night, she’ll have the best seat in the house.
She earned it, too.
Vosters is wrapping up her first season as Wisconsin’s director of basketball operations, a job that basically means she helps oversee virtually every detail about the program - whether it’s planning travel, keeping track of academic matters, checking in regularly with the university’s compliance department or anything else that pops up.
She’s a rarity: Finding women in the director role for men’s Division I programs is tough, with the only others that she was aware of being Kirsten Green at Harvard and Kreigh Warkentien at UNLV. But don’t tell Vosters that she’s a trendsetter or a trailblazer, or else she’ll cringe.
“I don’t really think of myself as that way at all,” Vosters said. “I understand it’s rare. I understand what I’m doing hasn’t necessarily been done by many people. But I’m just doing my job. And I happen to be a female.”
Vosters has been with the Badgers for six years, starting as a student manager and working up the ladder. In each of those six years, Wisconsin has reached the NCAA Tournament. This season’s Badgers - the top seed in the West Region and probably the second favorite behind Kentucky for the title - open against Coastal Carolina.
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MILWAUKEE (AP) - Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley said her election challenger is catering to the Republican Party agenda in the race that is technically nonpartisan.
Bradley and her opponent, Rock County Circuit Judge James Daley, appeared at a forum at the Milwaukee Bar Association. The candidates, who will face each other April 7, took anonymous written questions from an audience, which included several judges, at the first of four planned forums.
Daley defended his frequent appearances at county Republican events, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (https://bit.ly/1OaWHithttps://bit.ly/1OaWHit ) reported. He said he merely has been talking with voters most likely to share his philosophy, and that $7,000 of in-kind donations from the party to his campaign is for research it did.
“The Republican Party doesn’t run my campaign,” Daley said.
Bradley is seeking her third 10-year term. The race is technically nonpartisan.
Daley, who has acknowledged his conservatism, again called Bradley an “activist judge” and a central cause of “dysfunction” on the high court. In his campaign ads, Daley has criticized Bradley for dissenting from rulings that upheld Wisconsin’s voter ID law and Gov. Scott Walker’s signature Act 10, which severely restricted public sector unions.
Bradley says she will not accept campaign contributions from any party or attorney with pending cases before the court. She said she disagrees with a recent rule change that allows judges to solicit such donations.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - An early analysis of TV ad spending in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race shows incumbent Justice Ann Walsh Bradley has spent more than $145,000.
Bradley faces Rock County Circuit Judge James Daley in next month’s election. The analysis Thursday from two groups, Justice at Stake and the Brennan Center for Justice, found Daley had yet to book any TV time.
The groups also said outside groups haven’t yet contracted for TV ads.
The office is officially nonpartisan, but Bradley has worked to portray Daley as aligned with the Republican Party. He’s acknowledged his conservatism and hit Bradley as a liberal activist who opposed several laws favored by conservatives, such as Act 10 and voter ID.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The sister of a white Madison Police officer who shot and killed an unarmed biracial man earlier this month said Thursday that her family understands the black community’s desire to protest the shooting but her brother is a caring, considerate man.
Matt Kenny shot 19-year-old Tony Robinson in an apartment house near the state Capitol on March 6. He was responding to calls that Robinson had attacked two people and was running in and out of traffic. Few details have emerged; the state Department of Justice is still investigating the incident.
The city’s black community has held several protests since the shooting, with some demonstrators demanding that Kenny be fired and charged with homicide. Robinson’s family has implored protesters not to resort to violence and so far, the demonstrations have been peaceful.
Kenny’s sister, Amanda Kenny, released a family statement Thursday through the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the state’s largest police union. She said that her family has remained silent out of respect for Robinson and is deeply saddened by his death.
“We know he mattered, and we wish that this tragedy could have been avoided,” she wrote. “We also understand and support the impulse to protest, and we want to thank Tony Robinson’s family and other community leaders for their consistent calls for peaceful demonstrations.”
She called on Madison leaders to discuss how the city handles racial inequality, but insisted her brother isn’t one of the city’s problems. She said he grew up in North Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvania and served in Alaska, Puerto Rico and Virginia with the U.S. Coast Guard, sailing from the North Pole to Antarctica on an ice breaker. She said he rescued boaters and anglers with the Coast Guard and called him an exemplary police officer who conducts himself with integrity and restraint.
“We can attest to Matthew’s caring, considerate nature, and his conscientiousness,” she said. “His commitment to serving his community has led him to undertake numerous tasks that others would prefer to avoid.”
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