UW-Whitewater coach Bob Berezowitz, center, with wide receiver/returner Derek Stanley, left, and assistant coach Nelson Edmonds at the Warhawks' first Stagg Bowl, in 2005. 2005 file photo by Todd Allred, d3photography.com

By Ryan Tipps
D3football.com

We’ve all probably heard a version of the adage: “If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.”

I would add: “To beat the best, you have to start by choosing to play the best.”

Probably no team in Division III has benefited more from this philosophy than UW-Whitewater.

In 2002 and 2003, UW-W opened its season with a nonconference matchup against Mount Union, a team that hadn’t lost a regular-season game since 1994. Whitewater was consistently good; Mount, on the other hand, was a dynasty.

"We didn't think we were that far away," Warhawk coach Bob Berezowitz said to the Star Tribune about those early years. "If we were, we would have never taken them on."

The coach spent years drumming up administrative support for the football program, as well as pushing for upgrades to the weight room, meeting rooms and study areas. These facilities helped lure key recruits from southern Wisconsin and the Chicago area -- players such as Justin Beaver, Jace Rindhal, and Ryan Kleppe, who were the top All-Americans of their era.

By playing Mount Union during the regular season, Berezowitz saw what it meant for his team to build itself around speed, to embrace a foundational run game and to have premier talent in skill positions.

Just two seasons later, UW-W pulled off a stellar feat and swept the WIAC, the nation’s most competitive conference, and then plowed its way into the Stagg Bowl.

"There have been many years in our program where we've won championships and we've been to the playoffs, and we've never been able to make that run [before]," Berezowitz told D3football.com at the time.

And it would surprise no one that Whitewater was lining up in Salem that year against Mount Union. That game would be the first of seven consecutive championship meetings — and nine meetings overall — between these two teams.

Berezowitz coached the first two of those title bouts before retiring. He fell short to the Purple Raiders each time but the Warhawks learned so much about elite football in the process.

In all, his record against Mount was 0-4, a perhaps humbling stat for the 22-year-long coach who is seen as putting the Warhawks on the path as another modern-day football dynasty and mainstay in Salem, Virginia.

Under Lance Leipold, the next season, Whitewater broke through against Mount Union, and won six of seven Stagg Bowls against the Purple Raiders.