BURLINGTON - Coach Tom Aldrich looked out of place, standing there alone in the center of the gymnasium at Catholic Central High School Wednesday morning clutching a sheet of paper.

Sure, it wasn't long before his players and his fellow coaches joined him, the entire team standing before row after row of enthusiastic students and teachers brimming with pep from the team's early morning send-off to this year's WIAA Division 7 championship game against Chippewa Falls McDonell Central High School.

Wednesday's assembly had the usual - music, cheers and lots of applause. Standing stoically by the doors, his arms folded, Aldrich's thoughts were elsewhere - the weather, the field, the team, the plays.

The hardwood floor of a basketball court is no place for Aldrich, the man who, this time last year, led the Hilltoppers to a state title.

It didn't seem right. Aldrich, a man who measures his words carefully, works his magic on the sidelines of the football field. Giving speeches isn't his style.

Last year, the team that walked out of the same doors and onto a bus headed for the same place, they were underdogs. It had been years since a team of Hilltoppers brought a gold football back to the school.

This time they're the defending champions. They have the trophy to prove it. It‘s right there in the trophy case across the hall from the school's athletic office.

All the pep at Wednesday's pep assembly - the dance team's dance, the pep band's rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" - that stuff was for everyone else. Aldrich, he had a game to think about. By the time he rattled off the names of his players from memory - the names he worried he might forget, hence the paper - the nerves had set in.

He knows these guys, many of them are back again. Players like Brett Morris, who suited up last year as a sophomore, but didn't see any action. He proudly wears his championship ring on his right hand. Like the trophy, he wants another.

Morris thinks the team can pull this one off.

After the assembly, the team took to the field at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Aldrich rented it for one hour to practice before the bus ride to Madison and Camp Randall field, where the returning champions will try again.

Aldrich, he's waiting to work his magic, the kind of magic that might conjure up another win and another gold football.