Jackel: Horlick equipment manager leaving 'a hole you really can't fill' after 20 years

During halftime of the team’s 42-21 loss to top-ranked Franklin on Oct. 18, players and coaches gathered around Kroes for a celebration. The weather was unseasonably mild. There was a sense of cheer in the air. Everything seemed just right except for the game that was slipping away.

This night was for Benny. And he deserved it after so many years of dedicated service.

It just seems that a positive energy follows the beloved Kroes, who has a cognitive disability. Since enrolling at Horlick as a freshman in 2004, he has endeared himself to countless people with his few words and meaningful actions.

The 35-year-old Kroes, who first handled equipment for Horlick’s baseball team in 2005, is relocating 200 miles north to Crivitz with his mother, Susan, after this school year. The divorced Susan is looking for a fresh start, but she concedes that this move will be difficult for her son.

“It’s going to be a very sad day when he doesn’t have this anymore,” she said. “The hope is finding something with the high schools up there. If it was a perfect world, we would stay here and he would just do football at Horlick. But it’s just time for a change.”

This much is certain: Even though Ben is a man of few words, his voice will echo within the confines of Horlick for years to come. After all, an entire team doesn’t gather around someone for a celebration who hasn’t made a profound difference in their lives.

“It’s not going to be the same without Ben,” Horlick coach Brian Fletcher said. “When you have a kid like that who’s been a fixture for 20 years, it’s a hole you really can’t fill. His personality in one I’ve never seen before, just the way he goes about his business, caring for others.

“I think that’s what we’ll miss most.”

With that genuinely caring attitude is a sense of efficiency that Ben brings to his duties. This isn’t just a way for Kroes to pass the time. It’s a way for him to bring out the best in young student-athletes by doing his best.

“If you’ve been around Horlick football, you’ve been around Benny,” said senior running back Carson Fletcher, Brian’s son. “He helps out with the water, sets up the field, he’s always helping out if you need anything.

“Everyone fist-bumps him when he shows up and they say, ‘Hey, Benny what’s going on?’ I’ve grown up in the program, so as long as I’ve been here, he’s been here. It’s cool when he comes up to me at halftime and says, ‘Hey, let’s score some touchdowns!’ and then gives me a fist bump.

“You just get a good vibe when you’re around him.”

Senior defensive back Ty Wendt said the Rebels have been educated simply by watching someone work so hard without expecting anything in return.

“He’s behind the scenes and working hard,” Wendt said. “I don’t think we have many of those kinds of people around anymore. He brings kindness to the table. He definitely changed me as a person. He just brings good vibes and I feel that transmits to a lot of people on the team.”

For running back Andrew Clemons, the desire to carry on in difficult situations is what he remember as his most meaningful gift from Kroes.

“During summer practices and stuff, when it’s a hot day and maybe you don’t want to be there, you show up for practice and Benny is handing you a bottle of water with a smile on his face,” Clemons said. “It just makes your day better because he wants to be here and I should want to be here.”

“Having Benny and his positive energy, it makes you want to practice and be better.”

Kroes has been on the sideline for some of the program’s greatest moments.

He was there in 2008, when Horlick played two memorable games against crosstown rival Park for only the second time in a rivalry that started in 1928. Horlick won 35-28 during the regular season, but Park came back to win 49-28 in a second-round playoff game.

He saw a program that progressed from 0-9 in 2011 — Brian Fletcher’s first as a coach — to one that achieved just the third perfect regular season in the program’s history in 2017.

And his swansong on the sideline has been triumphant: Horlick recovered from a 1-8 record in 2023 to a 6-3 mark this season going into the first round of the WIAA Division 2 playoffs against Burlington at 7 p.m. Friday at Horlick Field.

But there have actually been no highs and lows for Kroes. It has just been one long labor of love since he was given his first chance by George Machado, Brian Fletcher’s predecessor as coach. And as the years passed, he only cherished his role all the more.

“Things we always talk about here at Horlick High School is tradition,” said Ray Cushman, an assistant coach under Fletcher who teaches an adaptive self-contained class at the school. “When you think of the football season, you think of Ben and the guys who have been here for years — the guys who are more about the program than their own needs being met.

“When you need a pick-me-up, he’ll give you exactly what you need, whether it’s a fist bump, a high five or just a good little chat. Benny just means so much to the program and does everything you ask him to do.”

But such a fulfilling career is winding down, but it’s hardly the end. Kroes will certainly be impacting lives in Crivitz starting next summer because that’s what he’s all about. Just ask Susan Kroes. She has been a special education teacher for the Kenosha School District for the last 23 years because she’s been so inspired by her son.

“What can people learn from Ben?” she asked, repeating the question. “It’s the acceptance that he gives to everybody. It’s a good lesson for everybody to learn. We need more of that in this world.”