As a basketball player at Division 2 powerhouse Seymour High School, Kregg Mueller grew accustomed to playing for state championships in Wisconsin. During three varsity seasons, he appeared in three state title games in front of thousands of delirious fans at the Kohl Center.
His three seasons as a varsity boys basketball coach at Phelps High School have proven to be more of a challenge.
"I try to tell my kids exactly what that feeling was like, but it's hard to emulate," Mueller said. "Our biggest crowd since I've been here has been maybe over 200."
The smaller crowd size isn't the only adjustment Mueller has needed to grasp. With just 35 students, Phelps is tied for the smallest high school in Wisconsin, joining Mercer High School, which also has an enrollment of 35.
Mueller admitted victories at Seymour — which had an enrollment of more than 800 — were sometimes taken for granted. When he accepted the coaching job at Phelps, located in northern Wisconsin near the Michigan border, he figured things might be a tad different.
"You come up here and have a different perspective on basketball," said Mueller, 25. "It's really helped me understand the game a lot better, and not only that, but sometimes what the game is about. A lot of times, we don't get wins in the win column, but we have to take small wins, like if we hold a certain kid to so many points, or if we have 15 or less turnovers in a game."
The challenges of coaching at one of the smallest schools in the state are obvious. The boys and girls coaches at both Phelps and Mercer struggle to find enough players for a 5-on-5 practice, requiring help from middle-school students, former players or volunteers. Phelps and Mercer usually face opponents with a bench deeper than their entire teams.
Mercer boys basketball coach Tom Richards can understand Mueller's plight. Before last season, Richards had won 72 percent of the high school basketball games in which he coached. In the past two seasons, Mercer has gone a combined 3-26, although all three wins have come this season.
"It's harder on the adults than the kids," said Richards, in his 19th season as a varsity coach. "It's a little tough some nights to sit there, knowing that once you fill out the lineup card your coaching is over except for shuffling players in. There's no strategy or adjustments to be made. We do the best we can and hope nobody gets hurt and everybody has fun."
That isn't to say these teams aren't capable of winning. From 2004-07, Mercer's boys went 48-18. But Richards admits the consistency isn't there in the same way it is at larger schools. Small-school basketball simply requires a different set of expectations.
In order to escape the teams' usual disadvantage on game night, Phelps and Mercer recently competed in the inaugural "Best with the Least" tournament, a four-team event featuring the four smallest schools in the state. Butternut (53 students) and South Shore (43 students) also participated in the tournament.
"That tournament structure opened the door for them to see that common ground," said 34-year-old Josh Olivotti, Phelps' girls basketball coach. "It also enhanced the level of competition because they did see things as being a little bit more of a level playing field. My girls got fired up to play in that tournament. The competition factor was there automatically."
Olivotti's Phelps girls team won two of its four games this season at the tournament, taking the inaugural title by defeating Butternut, 55-22. Mercer's boys knocked off Phelps, 39-18, in its championship game. Both winning teams went home with a 42-inch traveling trophy.
While coaches agreed the tournament was a success, they admitted that more needs to be done to encourage participation at all the schools.
Mercer girls varsity coach Shannon Hiller, 42, said his team was down to just six players after one left the team and another suffered a fracture in her foot. Often, he relies on his seventh-grade daughter and an assistant coach to provide extra bodies in practice.
Hiller's goal, like the other coaches, is to garner increased interest in the sport by encouraging kids through youth programs. That way, an instilled passion for basketball exists by the time students reach high school.
"Everybody is trying to pull their part to get the interest back," Hiller said. "That's all we have for the kids here. We don't have swimming or wrestling or anything like that. It's basketball and that's it. The only way we're going to ever be competitive is we almost need every kid to go out for it and we need them to have interest in it."
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