My parents were educators. Both spent decades working for the Pulaski Community School District. Around these parts when people hear my last name there’s a solid chance they’re going to ask me if I’m Jim or Lynda Brawner’s son. A story almost always follows, and it’s usually about how one or both of them positively affected that person’s life. In one case it was about how my dad suspended her because she snuck across the street and got drunk during lunch when she was in 8th grade, but that was an exception. I’ve always been proud to be Jim and Lynda’s son, but especially whenever I hear those stories…not the one about the drunk 8th grader. The other stories.
The most memorable of those stories was told to me 30 years ago. I was 19 years old working in a sheet metal shop, generally frustrating everyone there with my ineptitude. One particular guy – I’ll call him Sea Bass, because he reminded me of that character from Dumb and Dumber – would scare the hell out of me every time he approached because he just looked frustrated with me before he even asked for anything. He never actually voiced any frustration with me. I could feel disdain emanating from his face.
Then one day he approached me and said, “Hey, are you Brawner?” “Yes,” I replied meekly, wondering where this interaction was going. Sea Bass proceeded to tell me a story about how my dad was the Assistant Principal at PHS when he was there. His senior year he was fed up with school, didn’t see the point, and wanted to drop out. Stopped coming to school altogether. My dad went to his house to ask him why he wasn’t at school. They talked about it and it seemed Sea Bass had made up his mind. In a last ditch attempt to keep this kid in school my dad offered him a deal. Deer hunting season was beginning and dad knew he liked to hunt. Dad said, “Take next week off. Go deer hunting. When you’re sitting in that stand I want you think about what your life will be like if you don’t graduate from high school. If you come back next week and tell me you still don’t want to come to school, I’ll leave you alone.” Sea Bass took him up on his offer. After a week alone in the woods with his thoughts, he decided that my dad was right and came back to school. “Your dad saved my life,” he told me. “Without him looking out for me I would’ve never graduated and who knows where I’d be now.”
I was dumbfounded. Sea Bass loves my dad? He went to school in Pulaski?!? I went home and dad confirmed the story, but told me another side of it. How people at school were furious at him for allowing this to happen. Saying things like, “How can you let him do that? If you let him take a week off everyone will want a week off.” He said some people wanted him fired. It seems dad was always doing something to ruffle someone’s feathers and it often had something to do with bending the rules to help a kid who needed it.
My dad was the principal at my elementary school when I was there. He always had suckers in his desk – not some crappy suckers either. The good ones from Beerntsen’s candy shop in Green Bay. Whenever a kid would get sent to his office for some kind of disciplinary infraction he’d scold them, then give them a sucker and send them back to class. Not me. The one time I got sent to the principal’s office he was so angry he sat behind his desk and threw pens at me the entire time, but that’s a different story. Why did that guy have so many god damned pens? Anyway, I remember people at the time saying about his suckers, “Well, that’s dumb. You’re just encouraging bad behavior. Now every kid is gonna get in trouble intentionally to get a sucker.” Wrong, dummy. He was establishing himself as someone the kids could trust. Someone who was going to take care of them. They just need an adult they trust to give them direction. Tell them what they did wrong, tell them to do better next time, give them a sucker, send them back to class. When that trust is there a kid doesn’t want to disappoint a person like that. They try harder to make that person proud.
Niko Sila is exactly that kind of person.
I first met Niko when my son, Andy, was in 8th grade at Washington Middle School. Niko was his science teacher. At least I think it was science. I honestly don’t remember. We walked into his classroom during the school open house and he yelled, “ANDY!” and gave him a huge hug. Andy lit up. I’m thinking, “When did Maui come to life and why does he like Andy so much?” Andy introduced me and Niko said, “You’re his dad? Your kid is a boss. I love Andy.” OK, I like this guy already. Andy would come home constantly with stories about Niko. It seems every kid at WMS loves this guy.
Later that school year he was named Head Coach of the Green Bay East High School Red Devils Football team. A tall task for anyone – much less someone barely 30 years old – to rebuild a football program that hadn’t sniffed a winning season in over a decade and went 1-8 the previous season and with a combined total score of 427-14. At least if Andy was about to get his ass kicked playing football at East I knew he was going to have a coach that would look out for him. Niko also became the manager of student engagement, attendance and advocacy at East High School around that time. At least I think that’s his title. It’s something close to that. His name isn’t in the staff directory on the school website. I had to look in the Press Gazette.
The summer after Niko was hired (2023) a few people involved in the program decided to resurrect the East Gridiron Club, which had been inactive since COVID-19 killed the 2020 season. Niko and some coaches reached out to a few parents who they thought might help get the booster club back up and running and for some reason I was one of them even though my son hadn’t even set foot in the school yet. We held that first meeting in my kitchen with a handful of coaches and parents. I reluctantly accepted the role of President of the Gridiron Club only because nobody else wanted it. Everyone else in the room had already volunteered to do something else and I kind of got left holding the bag. On the bright side, I liked this Niko dude, so at least I’d get to work with him. Three years later I’m still doing it.
I have so many stories about the great things I’ve seen Niko do – both in school and with the football team – that I don’t know what to tell first. I’ll start here: My Uncle Bill is an East Grad. As proud of Green Bay East as any alum has been of any high school ever. Bill has had some struggles in his life. He is also the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met. He was thrilled to meet Coach Niko and Coach Witt during the summer of 2024. Niko could’ve just shook Bill’s hand and said hello that night and that would’ve been more than enough. Instead he sat with Bill for at least 30 minutes and talked about East. Made Bill feel like the most important person in the room. Then Coach Niko asked Bill to lead the players onto the field before the Green Bay West game that season. Bill was over the moon. Unfortunately, Bill wasn’t physically able to run onto the field and rip off his shirt Hulk Hogan-style like we envisioned, but he was still able to stand near the track and high five the players as they took the field. Niko presented him with an East High School Football jacket. What a beautiful night that was, all because of Niko’s kindness.
The Gridiron Club serves team dinners during the season. The entire team and coaching staff eat together on the eve of every game. You know who doesn’t eat team dinner most nights? Niko. Because leaders eat last. Because he makes sure his boys are fed before he is…and a high school football team can eat a lot. I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never seen Niko steal a piece of chicken or several pieces of Mrs. Kolze’s banana bread, but none of those boys ever left team dinner hungry because Niko ate food that should’ve been theirs.
During one offseason Niko had a training opportunity for the football team, but it was on Saturday nights at a gym 30 minutes south of here. Didn’t stop Niko from driving a truckload of boys to Appleton on a day off so they could get a good workout in. I drove a carload of kids myself a few times. Every time they all got Popeye’s chicken after the workout courtesy of Niko, of course.
Whenever the Green Bay Packers have an event and need student volunteers, they call Niko. I drove a carload of kids to one event and the guy running it came to me and said, “We used to have to call every school in the area to get kids and we’d be lucky if they sent one or two. Now we just call Niko and he says, ‘How many do you need?’ He comes through every time.” Last summer I volunteered with Niko and several East players at the Packers “11-On” event. People gathered around while Niko spotted for the linemen as they competed in the bench press competition. Niko shouted encouragement at each player as they bench pressed 225 pounds as many times as they could in 30 seconds. I stood behind two coaches from another area school and overheard one saying, “That’s Green Bay East’s coach!” The other replied, “Yeah, Niko. I love that guy!” After the event Niko took the boys to Buffalo Wild Wings and bought them all dinner to thank them for volunteering all day.
I could tell some other stories that I’ll keep to myself. I’ve personally seen him help some boys through some harrowing experiences that I don’t want to mention. I wouldn’t want people to figure out who the boys involved were and have them be embarrassed or ashamed by it. I’ll just say that Niko has challenges at East High School that most other coaches in the area do not have. Some of these boys see more adversity and difficulty by the age of 16 than most people I know do in their entire lives. Many of them don’t have fathers to help them through it. They ALL know they have Niko and he comes through for them every time. Niko is as much a father figure to a lot of these boys as he is a coach.
On Thursday afternoon I picked up my daughter Phoebe – a Green Bay East grad – at UW-Whitewater where she’s a freshman. As Phoebe was entering the car at 5:06 PM a couple Gridiron Club parents and I got a text from Niko that read:
I love you all and thank you so much for everything. I mean everything. You all have been the answers to everything I did not have answers for. You gave me a strong team to lean on and I can count on always. I have so much love and respect for you like no other. Thank you.
After asking the reason for such a text he replied:
Just letting y’all know, I will not be there for team dinner and the game tomorrow. I’m beyond thankful for you.
Umm…what? Feeling completely helpless in my car 120 miles from the east side, we did the only thing we could do at the time: Talk about Niko. Phoebe stated bluntly, “It sucks when Niko isn’t there.” When I asked why she said, “More kids skip class. There are always kids roaming the halls and hiding out in the bathroom. Kids take second lunch.” When I asked if it was because they were afraid of him she said, “No! They don’t wanna get caught by Niko because they love him. They listen to him.” All I could think of was dad giving out suckers to the so-called troublemakers. We’ve talked about how the dances at school are all more fun when Niko is there. How the senior lock-in last year was so much fun because Niko was there. Everything at East is more fun when Niko is there.
Upon some investigation, we eventually discovered that Niko was placed on administrative leave. The day before the biggest game for Green Bay East football in 18 years the boys were told by Coach Witt the only thing that he could tell them: Coach Niko can’t be here today or tomorrow. You can’t talk to him and he can’t talk to you. That’s it. That’s all those boys knew. They were in tears. They walked through practice dumbfounded for two hours and left. Many skipped team dinner. In the three years I’ve been involved with team dinners that has never happened. Not the mental state you want your boys in before their biggest game. Talk about putting them in the worst possible position to win. They might as well have taken their helmets and pads from them or made them play with one arm tied behind their backs.
Friday a few parents and I went to school to demand answers. We were met with, “This is an open investigation. We can’t talk about it.” The football parents received an email on Friday afternoon that opened with the sentence, “I am writing to inform you that Coach Niko Sila is currently on a leave of absence.” A leave of absence? That makes it sound like he’s on vacation or he’s having a baby. Like he had some kind of choice in the matter. “We forced Niko into a leave of absence” would’ve been more accurate. Still nobody is telling any of us anything of any substance.
At Friday night’s game I was approached by parents, students, and fans. Where’s Niko? When is he coming back? What happened? I have no idea. Our boys fought as valiantly as a bunch of kids could in that messed up situation and…well, the scoreboard at the end of the game said that they lost. I’ll keep my opinion about the final 2:35 of that game – specifically the final play – to myself. The boys on that field representing Green Bay East continue to show a resilience beyond my comprehension. I’ve never seen a team take so many gut punches and continue to persevere. They must have a great head coach. The Red Devils came up short in their attempt to make the playoffs for the first time in 18 years and the timing of this “leave of absence” had plenty to do with it.
I continued to get texts and phone calls from students, parents, and people in the community all weekend. They don’t want to think about an East High without Niko. “What do you know? What happened? What can we do? We love Niko. We need him back.” All I can say is that I know as much as they do and I agree.
I don’t know what Niko supposedly did to deserve this. If he’s guilty of something terrible I’ll use this and every other available platform to admit that I was wrong, eat crow, apologize, etc. I love East High. I take no pleasure in criticizing that school or the people in it. Here’s the thing: I know Niko. I’ve spent a lot of time with him these past three years. I know that I’m not wrong about him. The only thing Niko is guilty of is doing everything in his power to make sure that the kids he’s been hired to help succeed do just that. He loves every single one of those kids. He would give them the shirt off of his back, and he has. The relationship he has with those students rubs some people the wrong way. He relates to them in a way that many cannot, so they try to find other ways to tear the man down. He can’t possibly have all of these students love him like they do without being involved in something shady or nefarious. I know what people think because I saw my dad deal with the same bullshit. Niko and my dad have the same gift. They connect with kids in a way that you can’t learn from a book or a post-graduate course. They also know that occasionally getting the most out of a kid requires getting into some good trouble like when my dad gave Sea Bass the week off. Niko works on a daily basis with kids who make Sea Bass look like Carlton Banks…and not the cocaine-addicted Carlton Banks from the new Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The fun Carlton Banks from the original 90s version.
I’m writing this to tell anyone who will listen that my friend Niko does not deserve to have his name dragged through the mud and his integrity questioned. He didn’t two years ago during the Dr. Tiller situation and he doesn’t now. You can’t keep rejecting a good man – putting his name in the papers and making him look bad without a single explanation why – and expect him to keep coming back. I can’t think of a single school that wouldn’t love to have Niko Sila. If you drive him away you’re losing one of the best things about East High School, and you’ll lose the trust of hundreds of students and families. You should be thanking him and asking what you need to do to help him keep these kids at East engaged in school. Instead you put him on leave. Again. And when this investigation is done he’s supposed to come back to East and act like nothing happened. Water under the bridge. Again. F that. If I was him I’d be gone already, but Niko is a better man than I. He cares too much about those kids to walk away. He can’t defend himself right now. This post has been my attempt to do it for him.
Niko is the heart of East High. The guy playing music and high-fiving kids as they enter school in the morning. The guy hugging them at the end of the graduation line. The guy scolding them, then giving them a sucker and telling them to do better. Reinstate the man and apologize publicly to every student and parent who’s been distraught for the past four days wondering what’s happened to the guy who bends over backward to take care of them every single day. Apologize to every football player who busted his ass for an entire year with the goal of getting to the playoffs, then got his coach ripped away 28 hours before they had a chance to make that goal a reality. Apologize to Coach Jashawn Witt for sticking him in an impossible situation – having to fill in for his brother Niko, take over as the head coach for the team’s biggest game in a generation with no warning or preparation, then making him field questions from players, parents, and the press about where Coach Niko is. Most of all, apologize to Niko Sila, beg his forgiveness and hope like hell that you haven’t burned that bridge.
Since this post is already outrageously long I’m going to leave you with one last story because screw it. It’s my post. I can do what I want. Last year my son Andy began the season as the starting varsity running back as only a sophomore. As the season wore on it became somewhat obvious that, while Andy had the skills to play the position, he was short on experience and needed to bulk up. Slowly carries started going to other runners. The week before the homecoming game against Oshkosh North last year Niko was saying whatever he could to pump Andy up. Andy, you’re my Christian McCaffrey (Andy and Niko both love the Niners. I wonder where Andy could’ve gotten that from…). Andy, you’re my guy this week. You’re my workhorse. Then the game kicked off. No Andy. Three running backs got playing time. Andy wasn’t one of them. Finally, late in the 4th quarter of a blowout loss Andy got in for three plays. He was a pass blocker. Never touched the ball.
He came home devastated. It was homecoming Friday. He should’ve been out with his friends getting into some nonsense. Instead he was despondent. To make matters worse – I apologize to Andy now if this is embarrassing for him – Andy’s girlfriend at the time texted him that Saturday morning to say that she couldn’t go to the homecoming dance that night. Talk about a kick in the junk at the worst possible time. Andy wouldn’t leave his room. We had never seen him so sad. My wife actually shed tears because she couldn’t stand to see him like that. I wanted to buy him a video game and some treats like he was still 8 years old and my sad little boy could be magically all better again with a new toy. I had no idea what to do. I really did drive to Target to buy him something in a feeble attempt to make him feel better. I was at Target when Niko sent a message to the team chat about integrity. I texted him and said something like, “I’m having a hard time swallowing that message you just sent after you told my kid all week he was your CMC, then you benched his ass with no warning. This integrity thing goes both ways. CMC’s coach doesn’t tell him he’s the star of the team, then bench him. CMC actually plays. Andy is as crushed as I’ve ever seen him. And by the way, on top of it, his girl just dumped him. The kid is a wreck.”
I sent that text at 11:49 AM on a Saturday. If Niko was like most coaches/educators, I imagine he’d deal with it another time. Not on his day off. Tell me he’ll talk to Andy on Monday. Not Niko. Our doorbell rang at 11:55. Niko was at the door asking for Andy. I was still at Target foolishly shopping for the perfect gift to make Andy feel all better when my wife texted me to say, “Niko just came and took Andy.” He brought Andy to a rugby game and introduced him to some boys from Bay Port. Let him talk to them for a while and ask them about life at a state championship winning program. Then he took Andy out to lunch. Niko went way above and beyond to make everything right. When Andy finally got home at 4:30 I greeted him at the door. Huge smile on his face. He went in the house and I was left alone for a moment with Niko. I was actually kind of nervous. Niko had every right to be like, “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again. I’m the head coach. What I say goes. If I want him benched, I’ll bench him. I don’t need your permission. If your kid has an issue with playing time he can bring it up with me.” He looked at me and said, “You were right. Thanks for letting me know. I needed that.” Whew. But also, damn. What a good dude. He took my son who was shattered and made him whole again. Just like he does with all of those kids. All of the time. 365 days a year. Not just during football season. Niko does whatever he can for those kids.
Niko, we love you and we hope to see you back in the hallways of East High doing what you love as soon as possible. I know I’m not alone in this. If anyone is still reading and has a Niko story of their own, please leave it in the comments below.
mookiefantana 