Former Wisconsin Badgers basketball standout Bronson Koenig has been officially inducted into the Aquinas High School Athletics Wall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025.
Koenig, a proud and outspoken member of the Ho Chunk Nation and a 2013 Aquinas High graduate, joined eight other individuals and two football teams in this year’s class at an official ceremony on Aug. 30 at Aquinas High School.
Koenig was named First Team All-State as a sophomore while leading Aquinas to the 2011 Division III state championship. In 2013, he was named Wisconsin Player of the Year by the Associated Press as he led Aquinas to another state championship.
Koenig went on to be a key player in the Wisconsin Badgers’ 2014 and 2015 NCAA Final Four teams. After graduation, the Milwaukee Bucks signed the former Badger undrafted rookie to a Two-Way contract back in 2017. He would later participate with the Grand Rapids Drive for the 2017-18 NBA G League season.
In his acceptance speech at Aquinas High School, Koenig greeted the audience in the Ho-Chunk language and mentioned that he hadn’t been back to Aquinas in a long time.
“It’s really good to be back. Seeing new faces and old faces that I haven’t seen in a while is very nostalgic, and it’s so good to be back to share this space and this good energy with all of you,” said Koenig, whose mother, Ethel Funmaker, is 100% Ho-Chunk. “I want to thank all of my friends for showing up and supporting me.”
Keonig went on to say that when he was in sixth and seventh grades, he was a shy little boy who didn’t really trust anybody. He credited his coaches and mentors for helping to “break him out of his shell” and become more confident. “For me, it was a long process … a journey … to just being here at Aquinas and learning how to find my way at a school with people who seemed different,” Koenig said.
Over time, he added, he would realize that the color of his skin, his heritage, and his socioeconomic background did not matter at Aquinas. “At the end of the day, we truly are all the same,” he said.
Koenig is well-known for his accomplishments off the court, too. In September 2016, he and his brother, Miles, drove a trailer packed with supplies for 14 hours to visit the encampment of protesters at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where thousands of people stood in the way of the Dakota Access Pipeline’s progress across land occupied by indigenous people.
A year later, Koenig earned the 2017 United States Basketball Writers Association’s (USBWA) Most Courageous Award for his work with the Native American community.
Koenig said he does public speaking to young people all over the state, and he doesn’t just talk about his successes but also the mistakes he has made in life. “I used to say failures,” Keonig said, “but an elder once told me, ‘There are no failures, only lessons.’ And that really stuck with me.
“I wasn’t always the best student and I wasn’t always the best kid, but everything happens for a reason. I wouldn’t be who I am today without Aquinas. I am so grateful. This place molded me into the person I am today,” Koenig added.
Other honorees inducted into the Aquinas High School Athletics Wall of Fame included Tom Deters (’69), Greg Mathy (’80), Julie (Kakuska) Pichler (’85), Michael Nockels (’87), Ross Moline (’98), Claudia (Castro) Whipple (’98), Coach Barb Stanke, and the 1960 and 1961 Aquinas football teams.
