2007 Spring Rabbit Tracks

RABBITtracks

Volume 13, No. 1

South Dakota State University

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Spring 2007

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A message from Fred Oien

Go Jacks!

Tip your cap to the coaches Competing at the highest level, graduating, being socially responsible, and creating memorable experiences have been core expectations of the athletic program for our student-athletes. These expectations have been a foundation of Jackrabbits for decades.

When the decision to go Division I was made there were many concerns that the program would not be able to continue these expectations at the highest level. I am proud to say that our coaches and staff have not only been able to maintain these expectations, but have actually strengthened the program in all areas.

We have been able to demonstrate that we can compete with the nation’s best. We are graduating our student-athletes at the highest rate in recent years and improved our overall cumulative grade point average. Student-athletes in every program are engaged in community service more than ever and student-athletes report their experiences have improved significantly as they practice and compete.

It is a tribute to our coaches and staff for all they have accomplished in the transition to Division I. The unknowns they faced as the transition began could have easily changed a solid Jackrabbit tradition that had been built through many years. Not only did they embrace the move to Division I, but they have handled the challenges, going against all wisdom reported by universities who had previously gone through the process.

Join me, whenever you can, to thank our coaches and staff for the professional manner in which they have handled the transition and especially for providing our student-athletes with a Division I experience that is exceeding expectations. — Fred Oien

SDSU Athletic Director

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60 years on the diamond — From Forsyth to Geary ........................2 Megan Vogel — The epitome of the women’s program ..................12 WNIT — History made with at the Women’s NIT ........................13 Michael Loney — A basketball player and a role model..................14 The wrestling room — It’s special for what happens inside ..................16 Jim Woster — Call him Will Rogers or the ultimate booster................18 Unsung heroes — Athletes honor those outside the arena ....................20 Gateway found — Jacks join noted football conference..................23 Ryan Meyer — State’s first D-I athlete in national meet ................24

Rabbit tracks Spring 2007,Vol. 13, No. 1 SDSU President David L. Chicoine SDSU Athletic Director Fred Oien SDSU Sports Information Director Jason Hove SDSU Assistant Sports Information Director Ryan Sweeter Associate Athletic Director/External Affairs Keith Mahlum Editor Andrea Kieckhefer, University Relations Contributing Writers Dave Graves, Kyle Johnson, Cindy Rickeman, Denise Watt, University Relations Designer Kristine Madsen, University Relations Photographer Eric Landwehr, University Relations

Rabbit Tracks is produced by University Relations in cooperation with the SDSU Athletic Department at no cost to the State of South Dakota. Please notify the Athletic Department office when you change your address.

Athletic Department South Dakota State University Box 2820, Brookings, SD 57007 Telephone: 1-866-GOJACKS Fax: 605/688-5999 Website: www.gojacks.com Cover photo, counterclockwise from upper left:

Cole Irish, 1995, an all-American in 1996 Greg Geary, 2005, career leader in five hitting categories Peter Torgerson, 1989, threw 13 consecutive shutout innings Harry Forsyth, 1951, began play in 1948 in State’s second year Dave Manke, 1976, an all-American in 1976 1,200 copies printed by the SDSU Athletic Department at no cost to the State of South Dakota. PE069 5/07.

60 years on the diamond Amusing stories, awesome achievements highlight SDSU baseball history ixty years ago, Ernest Wingen and his teammates had to push-start a shortwheeled, white Aggie bus to get to games in Le Mars, Iowa, Huron, Vermillion, and Minneapolis.

This February, Coach Reggie Christiansen and his thirty-member traveling team boarded a charter flight out of Sioux Falls for a three-game series in Sacramento, California.

That illustration shows how the SDSU baseball program has transported itself from its charter team in 1947 to the current level.

Wingen, a right-handed pitcher out of Salem, was among the World War II veterans returning to campus. “We just wanted to go out and have some fun,” he said of the creation of that first diamond squad at State.

Chris Iverson is a senior utilityman from Pierre on this year’s squad.

He walked on as a freshman and is still playing today to fulfill a dream of playing college baseball.

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Like a typewriter and a laptop Wingen’s squad took to the field nine times, playing in gray flannel uniforms with button-down shirts. Iverson’s squad—wearing SDSU yellow, synthetic-blend tops and snug, white stretch polyester pants—played nine games before February ended.

The squads may look as different as a manual typewriter and a laptop computer, but beneath the surface there’s similarity.

Wingen, a retired teacher now living in Spirit Lake, Iowa, declares, “We had a lot of fun. The same as fun is today. If you’ve got baseball in your blood, when the ball starts hitting the mitt, you want to go out there and play ball.”

Iverson says, “For me the passion of baseball is always the same. I always want to keep on playing. The fire for me is always the same—whether it’s practice or playing a game in the summer.”

Wins, losses, fun, and friends Through the years, SDSU has had plenty of scoreboard success, posting 955 wins.

Of course, there also have been 823 losses and four ties (through the 2006 season). Harry Forsyth, who caught from 1948 to 1951, acknowledges that his team took some lickings, “but it was fun.”

Don’t misunderstand; none of the generations of SDSU baseball players have enjoyed losing. The accomplishments of sixty years of ball at State fill trophy rooms.

But 1971 all-American Dean Krogman recalls what can’t be seen in a display case.

“What stands out more is the people you met and played with,” the Brookings resident says.

For Krogman, that was Jim Langer, Lyle Pagel, and Bob Bozied. For Wingen, it 2 • Rabbit tracks

Jake Rogers, a shortstop on the 2006 team.

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State’s 1966 pitching staff, from left, Dick Barnes, Bernie Van Essen, Ed Maras, and Bill Iverson.

was Forsyth, equipment manager Johnny Johnson, and Lyle McCormick.

Each player has his own group of diamond friends and special memories. In this issue, Rabbit Tracks looks at selected highlights and memories through the decades.

The beginning A pitcher with strong arm, weak eyes Baseball was king in South Dakota, and indeed in the nation, as American servicemen exited the military after World War II and the nation again had the opportunity to pursue leisure.

Harry Forsyth ’51, who grew up playing Legion and town ball in Redfield, remembers “amateur baseball was a big deal then; a lot more than it is now. Of course, there wasn’t any television. Every little town had a team and they’d just ring the field with their cars and watch the games. There weren’t any lights, so every Saturday and Sunday afternoon there were games.”

But, according to the Jack Rabbit yearbook, there hadn’t been varsity baseball at State for “twenty-odd years” before the 1947 season.

That team formed because “a bunch of us wanted to play baseball. We gathered in the Barn and started playing catch and pepper,” recalls Wingen, who, like many on the team, was returning to college after serving in World War II. They were guided by Duane “Doc” Shefte, a returning

veteran who had a year of school left.

He coached State for one year, compiling a 5-4 mark before beginning a long career as a military recreation director.

Heading the Jackrabbits in 1948 was coaching legend Jack Frost, who is best known as a basketball coach and athletic director, but in those days coaches never had just one sport. “He and [football coaching legend] Ralph Ginn came together,” Forsyth recalls.

“Baseball wasn’t like it is now. We had fifteen to twenty games scheduled and hopefully got in fourteen or fifteen. The fields weren’t what they are today, and it didn’t take much rain to make them muddy.

“But we had a lot of fun. Our big trips were to Sioux City and Omaha,” the catcher recalled.

Bidding for a no-hitter There were no southern swings to get in early season games, but there was some good baseball. Ernest Wingen remembers taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning of a May 28, 1947, game at Le Mars, Iowa, against Western Union.

Doc Shefte pulled Wingen. “‘It looks like you’re getting weak,’” Wingen remembers Shefte telling him. Wingen didn’t think that, but he didn’t say so.

“You didn’t argue. You don’t argue with the coach,” Wingen says.

State’s first no-hitter came in a 1-0 win May 5, 1949, against the University of South Dakota at Prentice Park in Vermillion.

Forsyth was catching and lanky left-hander Bob “Spud” Grosshuesch was pitching.

Spud had good natural ability, but lacked vision, literally.

“Spud couldn’t see very well. He couldn’t see fingers, but he could see my mitt,” Forsyth says of his battery mate, who wore glasses when not on the field. “I would lay the mitt on my knee.

Up was the fastball, down was the curve ball. If I wiggled it, it was a change up.

“I kept moving my fingers, but Spud couldn’t see them.

Nobody ever figured out our signals.”

This 1962 promotional shot is taken in what was then the Livestock Pavillion. It doubled as an indoor practice facility for the baseball team. The catcher is Jerry Matthiesen. The batter is Al Huether.

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The ’50s A coach with a big heart for baseball, his players Erv Huether (pronounced Heater) arrived for Forsyth’s junior year and coached the 1950 team to a 7-2 mark. It was his first of thirty-three years at the helm, retiring after the 1983 season with a record of 319-376 and six conference titles.

Harry Forsyth played for Huether, was his assistant coach from 1955 to 1967, and was his boss (athletic director) in Huether’s final years as coach.

“Erv was a great guy. He always had a smile on his face and everybody liked him. He loved baseball. He came in the fall of ’49 as assistant football coach, freshman basketball coach, and baseball coach,” Forsyth remembers.

Bob Ehrke ’54, a retired pharmacist living in Rapid City, calls Huether “a real gentleman.

“He treated us well. He was a fun guy to play for. He showed you how to do it, but was never too critical of anybody.

When we went on road trips, the rules weren’t very tight. I guess we never needed too many rules.

“I don’t know anybody who played for him that didn’t respect him. He was not a critical type of person. He loved to win. He was just as happy as we were any time we won.”

Huether, 88, still lives in Brookings but was unavailable for interview.

Huether had no scholarships for recruiting in those days.

However, the football and basketball programs did. Many baseball players got financial help from football or basketball scholarships.

Ehrke played basketball.

But he made his mark in baseball, playing minor league ball for 3 ½ years, reaching the Double A level.

Challenging the Canaries Ehrke got a taste of pitching against pro batters when State hosted the Sioux Falls Canaries, a Class C team in the Northern League, at Hillcrest Park in 1953. It was Ehrke’s junior season and the Canaries had just come back from spring training.

“They beat us 6-2. I think I walked more people than I usually did. I’m sure I was nervous,” he remembers.

But the game was a moral victory for the team and a notch mark for Ehrke. The slender, 6-4 right-hander struck out eleven Canaries.

“It was good for our program and good for me. Everybody was pleased with the game. People thought it was going to be a rout and it was a good game,” says Ehrke, who notes that a good crowd came out on a chilly night to see how the local boys would fare against the pros.

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RIGHT: Billy McMacken, a three-time allAmerican, shows the form that allowed him to win eighteen games and strikeout 156 batters in 210 innings between 1987 and 1990.

He was even more feared at the plate, setting career records in almost every category. His .713 slugging percentage is still a school mark.

BELOW: Head Coach Reggie Christensen (opposite page, pointing) and his team at Sioux Falls Stadium May 16, 2006.

A conference to compete in In the Ehrke era, State played teams like Gustavus Adolphus, Buena Vista, and Mankato Teachers College.

By 1958, the established North Central Conference had added baseball to its list of sponsored sports. In 1959, State won its first conference crown by beating Iowa Teachers College 3-2 behind team MVP Chuck Risse.

He threw a four-hitter and drove in the winning run against the defending conference champion.

1960s An upset on the Golden Gophers diamond The ’60s saw SDSU win three conference titles, including backto-back crowns in 1965-66.

One of the most memorable games in that decade came during one of the program’s least memorable seasons. The 1963 squad was 7-13 overall, 1-5 in the NCC, but the Jacks got their first win of the season at Nebraska.

Jerry Matthiesen hit a game-winning home run in a 4-3

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Sluggers on the 1969 team, are, from left, Owen Hillberg, Dick Puckett, Bob Bozied, Dean Krogman, and Jim Langer. Bozied, Langer, and Hillberg were each allconference that season and Krogman was allconference the next three years.

victory over the Cornhuskers. “[Coach] Erv [Huether] always took those southern trips” and the team took some lickings, recalls Ron Lenz, the retired sports information director who enrolled at State in 1962.

Huether also would schedule games against the University of Minnesota.

Jim Langer, now of Ramsey, Minnesota, played for Huether from 1967 to 1970.

Games in those southern trips were against teams that had been playing for a month. “With most of those teams, we would get thumped. It was mostly for us to get some games in. You wouldn’t throw a baseball outside until you went south,” Langer says.

The last win vs. U of M In 1966, the Jackrabbits took their lickings against New Mexico and Arizona State in their southern swing.

Huether’s squad did pick off Wyoming and split with Arizona State to take a 2-9 mark against Minnesota. The Jackrabbits and the Gophers had met thirteen times since 1947 and had only gotten the better of their big city foes twice.

The ’66 team, which went on to win the NCC with a 10-2 mark, was armed with Ed Maras, Bill Iverson, and Bernie Van Essen.

Maras, who went to play ball at the AAA level, lost the opener 2-0. In the nightcap, Iverson and Van Essen handcuffed the Gophers on four hits and Dick Barnes, a transfer from Minnesota, beat his former team with three hits, including a solo homer.

The schools wouldn’t meet again until 2005 and the ’66 win remains the Jacks last win over Minnesota.

The Gophers had claimed doubleheader sweeps over SDSU in Maras’ sophomore and junior years. With half of the team Minnesota natives, to finally claim a win from the Big Ten school was satisfying individually and as a team.

“As a kid growing up, I wanted to play at Minnesota,” Maras recalls. “Between the two games, I got five hits.”

Satisfied with State It was enough for Dick Seibert, who coached the Gophers from 1948 through 1978, to tell Maras that he could have played for Minnesota. But the Windom High School graduate was happy to have played for Huether.

“Coach Huether was easygoing but loved his baseball. He did a lot for us . . . He was the kind of guy I stayed in touch with over the years,” Maras says.

A tight end on the football team, Maras remembers that when Huether was serving as assistant football coach, he would talk baseball during the football season and, come winter, would find facilities where the team could throw and hit.

“If he could find a building with sixty feet, we were there,” Maras recalls.

1970s A baseball team and a pit crew In the ’70s, SDSU claimed conference titles in 1973 (shared with North Dakota State) and 1975.

The 1973 team was the first State squad to advance in postseason competition. (There were no Division II playoffs in the early years of the State program.) Playing in Maryville, Missouri,

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the Jackrabbits went 1-2.

The 1975 team hosted the Midwest Regionals, but dropped games to Missouri-St. Louis and NebraskaOmaha.

The decade also produced two all-Americans—Dean Krogman in 1971 and Dave Manke in 1976. Both were three-time all-conference players—Krogman at catcher (’70) and first base (’71-’72), and Manke in the outfield (’74-’76).

It was still the era of the multisport athlete. Krogman, an Adrian, (Minnesota), High School graduate, was recruited by Ralph Ginn (football), Jim Marking (basketball), and Erv Huether (baseball). Each coach gave him a scholarship.

The opportunity to play each sport, an option he wouldn’t have had at Minnesota, lured him to SDSU.

Viva Las Vegas (New Mexico) Only once in Krogman’s era (1969-72) did State have a winning record, but there always was plenty of fun, especially on the southern trips. With eight or nine players in each of three station wagons, the team would head for places like Albuquerque and Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Krogman and Langer were teammates in 1969-70.

Langer says when the team headed to New Mexico, “Erv would go to sleep and we would put it to the floor. He would wake up and say ‘We’re making good time.’ We’d stop for gas and eat. We’d drive straight through.

“We’d make Albuquerque in twenty-four hours. We’d make warp time as soon as Erv went to sleep. That’s when the speed limit wasn’t an issue.”

A team in need of a mechanic Pushing those vehicles, one of which was hauling the equipment trailer, had its consequences.

“One time we blew up a car,” Langer recalls. “The car filled up with smoke. There was oil on the windshield. It was hilarious.”

Krogman remembers that the windows were rolled down and players had their heads stuck out the window to avoid asphyxiation. But they were able to nurse the car into a Chrysler dealership for repairs.

Another time, one of the team’s vehicles ran out of gas on the interstate about five miles from Brookings.

Lacking a tow chain, the guys pushed the car back to Brookings. “I made Langer do most of the work,” Krogman quips.

ABOVE: The 1984 team celebrates its regional title at Huether Field at SDSU. BELOW: Brian Peterson ’85 ranks fourth on the SDSU career list in sacrifice flies with eleven.

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1980s A new coach and a national tournament berth The Mark Ekeland era began in 1984 and it began at an unparalleled level. SDSU won twenty-seven games, the first of nineteen straight twenty-plus win seasons, and claimed its only Midwest Regional title and World Series berth.

Ekeland inherited a team coming off a disappointing 14-16 season and made key recruits in the summer.

Ron Lenz, sports information director then, says, “We had such a conglomeration of people that it was unbelievable.”

Daryl Deneke, the Legion player of the year from Huron, arrived in 1983 after transferring from Liberty University in San Diego. Mark Noble, who was from El Cajon, California, had been spending summers on his uncle’s farm in Iowa and decided to go to school here.

Larry Heffley had been going to school at Pennsylvania, but his school dropped baseball. So he looked for other schools with his major—wildlife and fisheries. He was a two-time allconference third baseman for Ekeland.

Tim Johnson, a late recruit by Ekeland, made an impact his freshman year (1984) and was all-conference in 1985-87.

Dave Lane, who was recruited by Huether, was so respected by his senior teammates that he was elected as captain in his sophomore year.

Two other Huether recruits, pitchers Greg Kallevig and Rich Morehouse, were drafted in 1985 after their junior years.

Ekeland observes, “If you believe in destiny, with the guys coming back and me coming in as coach, it really made us a team to be reckoned with.”

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SDSU baseball Jackrabbit baseball coaches from 1950 to the present are shown in this May 3, 2005, photo taken at Bob Shelden Field. Pictured, from left, are Erv Huether (1950-1983), Mark Ekeland (1984-2003), Jack Reynolds (2004), and Reggie Christiansen (2005present).

Preparing for a title run But the success of 1984 was more than just the stars lining up in place. It also was a matter of work and attitude.

“I have to credit the willingness of the players to have things more structured. I came in and structured an off-season program with conditioning and harder work in the weight room. I wanted contact with them after fall baseball,” Ekeland says.

During fall play, he also was an assistant football coach.

So he would get the baseball team started at 2:30 p.m. at Huether Field, then run around the fence to football practice, leaving the team with his graduate assistant. On occasional Sundays, the Jacks would scrimmage a team like Southwest State.

SDSU managed a 5-5 mark on its southern trip and was 1510 with a couple weeks left in the season.

But State then won twelve of its next thirteen games in closing the regular season and winning the North Central Conference title and the Midwest Regionals. To win the conference tournament, SDSU had to twice beat Mankato, which won the crown every year between 1982 and 1990, except 1984.

A stubborn pitcher The Jackrabbits also had to beat Nebraska-Omaha, which had taken three of four regular season games.

The 1-0 win over UNO included some tense mound drama between Ekeland and Mark Hofer, now in his seventh year as principal at West Central High School. There were two on, none out, State clinging to a 1-0 lead.

“It looked like we needed a change [in pitchers],” Ekeland recalls.

Coach Ekeland walked

to the mound, but “Mark was pretty vehement that he wasn’t coming out. I just turned around and walked back,” Ekeland says.

Sports Information Director Ron Lenz recalls that Hofer, an all-conference pitcher, reared back and threw harder. He got two strikeouts and a pop out from the next three batters.

Ekeland says, “You could see it in his eyes, he was fired up. I trusted his intensity and my gut feeling. You have to know the player to realize he has a feel for the rhythm of the game. You see it in his eyes and make the decision.

Never losing focus The opener of the Midwest Regional may have seemed like life and death. SDSU clung to a 3-2 lead over Lewis University of Illinois, a former NAIA national champ, with two outs in the ninth inning and runners on base.

A line drive zinged back at pitcher Greg Kallevig. It struck his shoulder and he dropped like a rock.

“Everybody was wondering what happened to our star pitcher,” Ekeland says. While several teammates rushed to Kallevig, the ball ricocheted to shallow left-center field.

“Shortstop Dave Lane had the sense to follow the ball and catch it over his shoulder,” Ekeland says.

Nick Adams (14) and his teammates celebrate a win against North Dakota State at Bob Sheldon Field April 21, 2006.

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SDSU then took two of three from Missouri-St. Louis to advance to the World Series.

When Rich Morehouse got the final out, his teammates rushed the field yelling “Surf ’s up,” Ekeland says. “A little old team from South Dakota was going to the national tournament [in Riverside, California]. It was a pretty big deal.”

SDSU went two and out at Riverside, but reaching the World Series was an unprecedented accomplishment.

“How do you top that? I guess I heard that all my career.

Looking back, I never thought that would be the only time we would go to the national tournament because I knew we could compete,” Ekeland says.

1990s A stretch of great success and timely rains While SDSU never advanced to the World Series again, the first half of the decade was State’s most successful ever.

From 1990 through 1995, the Jackrabbits only missed the regional playoffs in 1991. Four consecutive conference titles were won in 1992-95. In 1993 and ’94, SDSU won thirty-nine games each season with the 1994 team holding a school record .790 winning percentage.

Ekeland recalls the 1991 season for a game the Jackrabbits didn’t win.

In an early season game against Division I baseball power Oklahoma University, SDSU’s Jeff LaMontagne was “pitching the game of his life.” But the umpire tightened the strike zone. The lead off batter walks, a routine ground ball takes a bad bounce over the third baseman’s head.

“They end up scoring three and we lost by one. . . . That would have been a great win for us. Division II beating Division I doesn’t happen very often,” Ekeland says.

Cloudy skies smile on State The 1992 march to the regional tournament was notable for the game that wasn’t played.

The University of North Dakota was hosting the conference tournament. SDSU opened with a 5-2 win over St. Cloud State and saw Tracy Langer (son of Jim Langer) hit a three-run homer to send UND to a 5-3 defeat.

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7. The second game was rained out.

Conference rules stated that in such situations, the tournament winner would be the team that was undefeated going into the championship round. Morningside had come out of the losers’ bracket, so SDSU was declared champion.

“I went over to their dugout [with tournament officials], and told them we really respected their program and were sorry we couldn’t settle it on the field,” Ekeland says.

In 1995, rain washed out Saturday’s games, creating a singleelimination conference tournament on Sunday. SDSU whipped UND 15-3 to advance to the regional playoffs.

Rewriting State standards In 1993 and 1994, all-American Trevor Schulte pitched his way into the record book with twenty-one straight wins.

Schulte set an NCAA Division II record by winning his final ten games in 1993 and his first eleven games of 1994. The streak began after an early season loss to Central Missouri and ended with a regional playoff loss to Central Missouri.

A number of school records were set in the ’90s. Those include: • Most games played — Doug Sehr, 198, 1991-94; • Most runs scored — Cole Irish, 172, 1993-96; • Batting average — Irish, .449, 1996; • Home runs — Terry VanEngelenhoven, 17, 1993; • Total bases — Billy McMacken, 1990, and VanEngelenhoven, 1993, both 127; • Pitching appearances — Chad Coley, 70, 1990-93; • Wins — Schulte, 26, 1991-94; • Strikeouts — Schulte, 226, 1991-94.

RIGHT: Timm Gronseth, left, and Dane Kallevig, right, congratulate Billy McMacken after a home run in the late 1980s. He led the team in home runs in his all-American seasons of 1988, ’89 and ’90.

LEFT: Greg Geary (2002-05) topped McMacken’s home run total by one (43 to 42). Geary also is the career leader in hits (256), at bats (692), doubles (54) and total bases (439).

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2000s Was that Notre Dame we just beat?

Mark Ekeland’s career came to an unexpected end shortly before the 2004 season was to begin.

Two weeks before the spring season was to begin, Ekeland’s doctor told him that his failing liver would not allow him to continue coaching. An interim coach, Jack Reynolds, was brought in for the season.

“I didn’t know how sick I was,” says Ekeland, the SDSU intramural coordinator since January 2005.

“I was upset at myself that I couldn’t go to Florida [for the season-opening games],” Ekeland says. Rather than filling out lineup cards, he was looking for a transplant donor. In August 2004, he received 60 percent of the liver of a living donor.

Now healthy, he still regrets that he had to put the team in a situation where it didn’t know the coach.

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four innings of scoreless relief and we had timely hitting.

Everything that could go right for us did go right,” Christiansen says. The result was a 13-7 win.

Chris Iverson, then a sophomore, remembers, “It was just our day to upset them.You were just kind of playing against the ball, it didn’t sink in until after the game that ‘Wow! We beat Notre Dame.’”

Clipping the Jayhawks The next milestone in the Christiansen era came in SDSU’s 2007 season opener, a 6-5 triumph over Kansas in a game played at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Kansas, the defending Big 12 champions, entered the game 5-0 and “pitched their top guys and played their top guys,” Christiansen says.

“They’d go ahead and we’d hit a home run. Plus we played good defense to give us an opportunity to win.”

Nick Adams and Cal Lewis clubbed solo shots and Jake Rogers hit a two-run game-winner in the eighth inning.

An all-time team?

Reggie takes the reins Reggie Christiansen, a small-town California boy who had been an assistant at the University of Kansas, was hired July 19, 2004, to become the Jackrabbits’ sixth head coach. He overtook a team entering its first year in Division I. The 2005 team went 17-38 with several lopsided losses. But there was one big win. On March 19, SDSU was playing Notre Dame at Evansville, Indiana. The Irish were coming off a fiftywin season and a trip to the NCAA tournament, and would return there again in 2005.

Notre Dame was pitching Jeff Samardzija, also a recordsetting wide receiver for the Irish.

But that day, his pitching wasn’t up to par and the Irish made five errors. “We pitched extremely well. Dalton Decker threw

Obviously, there have been dozens of Jackrabbits with outstanding careers. As retired SID Ron Lenz asks, “How would you pick an all-time team? It would be just about impossible.”

Names like McMacken, Geary, and Irish would quickly come up on the list, but what about Maras, Ehrke, and Kallevig. The arguments could take us to the 2008 season and still not be settled.

Ekeland observes, “Every player made a difference whether they ended up all-conference or not. To win twenty or thirty games, one player does not make a team.”

For sixty years, the spirit of the team has been the story.

Dave Graves

SDSU baseball history Overall record 955-823-3 (through 2006) May 3, 1947 — First game, a 4-0 win in Brookings over the University of South Dakota. Finished the season 5-4 under Doc Scheft, who coached for only one year.

April 22, 1949 — First game for SDSU coaching legend Jack Frost. The Jacks beat Westmar 10-6. Frost goes 8-14 in two seasons as baseball coach.

April 14, 1950 — Erv Huether loses his coaching debut 9-8 in 11 innings to Morningside in Sioux City, Iowa. There would be hundreds more, and hundreds of wins. He retires after the 1983 season with a 319-376 career mark and six conference titles.

March 25, 1984 — Mark Ekeland loses his coaching debut 8-4 to Oklahoma City. Ekeland would coach twenty seasons, finish with a 555-351 record, and lead SDSU to five conference titles.

Coach Erv Huether carries bats into the Barn for a winter practice in 1966.

Feb. 16, 2005 — Reggie Christiansen begins his coaching career, losing 8-2 to Kansas, where he served as an assistant coach for two years before taking the SDSU job.

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stands for Vogel For four victory-laden seasons, State has stood on the shoulders of its valued forward ll Megan Vogel was hoping for was to see some playing time.

After all, the SDSU basketball team was loaded again, returning four starters from a squad that a few months earlier had captured the 2003 NCAA Division II championship.

“I thought if I can just play a little bit then I would be happy because I knew they were an experienced team,” recalls Vogel. “I definitely wasn’t expecting anything.

Looking back it has been an unbelievable experience.”

As it turned out, the St. Peter, Minnesota, native got her wish and then some. She was in the starting lineup for the Jacks’ 2003-04 season opener and has never missed the opening bell, starting all of SDSU’s 120 games during her four-year run.

“Megan earned her starting spot as a freshman,” observes Head Coach Aaron Johnston. “ It is always hard to predict where an incoming freshman will fit into our rotation, but it was clear that Megan was ready for a big role early in her career.”

And, what a role the team’s lone senior has since fulfilled.

She is to graduate in May with a degree in health, physical education, and recreation, the 5-foot-11 Vogel wrapped up her career ranking second in points, third in three-point field goals made, fifth in rebounds, first in free throws made and attempted, and first in free throws made in a season.

In addition, she is one of only two players in school history to score at least 400 points every year of her career, joining Shannon Schlagel, the program’s all-time scoring leader.

So, it’s not surprising when Johnston labels Vogel one of the most complete players in the history of the program.

“There are very few things that Megan doesn’t do well,” he says. “She’s extremely versatile, which means she is someone who can play either on the perimeter or in the post position.

“A lot of her success comes from the fact that she puts a great deal of time into her game,” adds Johnston. “Whether it’s during the season or the off-season, she’s always working to improve herself.”

A

Traits of a leader Interestingly enough, while growing up in St. Peter, Vogel’s sport of choice wasn’t basketball.

10 • Rabbit Tracks

“I wanted to play hockey because my dad was a hockey player in college,” she says of Fred Vogel who starred for the University of St. John’s in Collegeville, Minnesota.

What the bump and bang nature of hockey did for Vogel was produce a style of play that Jackrabbit fans have greatly appreciated over the years.

“I really like to be a physical player,” she acknowledges. “I like to attack the rim, and of course, I like to shoot, “I feel very honored to be too.” included with players like If not those hockey traits, then maybe her Melissa Pater, Brenda gutsiness comes from the black belt in tae kwon do Davis, Stacie Cizek, she earned in high Heather Seiler, and school? “I don’t know Shannon Schagel.” about that,” she says. “I – Megan Vogel haven’t been able to do it [tae kwon do] much since coming to college.”

Combine a physical nature with a personality that exudes strength and confidence, Vogel easily fits the definition of leadership.

“Megan is a very driven person and that always comes across to her teammates,” cites Johnston. “Megan was fortunate to learn from some great leaders when she first came, and now she is doing the same thing for our younger players.

“She is a very good communicator and is someone who gets along well with anybody. But more importantly, she is someone who cares deeply about SDSU and SDSU women’s basketball.”

Megan

Vogel

Athletic value in many ways

her to walk-on and earn a scholarship at a later date. Division III schools also inquired with little to offer.

It would not be shocking to find Letters and phone calls were their common correspondence.

Vogel with the Jacks next season as When SDSU came calling, though, the dialogue was a fresh a graduate assistant coach. She change. wants to make the collegiate scene “SDSU was the first school to actually sit down and talk,” her career platform, either as a relates Vogel. “They spent the most amount of time recruiting me coach or an athletic administrator. and came to most of my games. They put in a lot of time, but “My ultimate goal is to be a more importantly, they treated me like a person more than college basketball coach,” she says. anybody else and not “I want to be a graduate assistant just a and get my first taste of coaching basketball somewhere.” player.”

Away from the court, Vogel is Being president of the Student-Athlete a graduate Advisory Council, an organization of composed of two members of each athletic team. It serves as a communication link between athletes, coaches, and administrators Gustavus Adolphus to solve common problems.

College in In addition, when Compliance Coordinator Kathy Heylens was looking for a student-athlete to serve on the NCAA Division St. Peter, plus the fact I Certification Steering Committee, she turned to Vogel. that former “Megan was chosen because of her strong senior leadership,” Jacks’ says Heylens. “She is committed to academic and athletic standouts excellence, personal development, and service to SDSU and the Jennifer community. Megan has been instrumental in enhancing the Sylvester and quality of student-athletes’ experiences at SDSU.” Angie Loken Quizzed about her knack to lead, Vogel responds without were hesitation, “I like to take the initiative. I don’t like to sit back.” products of Vogel, who led the Jacks with 17.5 points per game this the area, season, was named to the Division I All-Independent squad for Johnston was the second straight year in 2006-07. Combining stats and a 3.83 familiar with cumulative grade point average, she was named to this year’s the recruiting ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America second team, becoming the fourth Jackrabbit women’s basketball player to earn layout. Likewise when it came to academic all-America honors, and the first one in the university Vogel, the division, which consists of Division I programs. coaching staff knew A Player of the Week recipient three times this year, she will it had a prize catch. always be mentioned among the school’s best, a testimony she Vogel stepped finds personally humbling.

While uncomfortable discussing her accomplishments on the right into the starting lineup, leading the court, she opens up quite well when it comes to the team. team in rebounding, “I feel very honored to be included with players like Melissa second in scoring, Pater, Brenda Davis, Stacie Cizek, Heather Seiler, and Shannon third in assists, fourth Schagel,” Vogel says.

“When I look back on my career, I can think of the big time games and wins like the win against North Dakota in overtime to go to the Elite 8 or the “We realized Megan had win against Kentucky for our first Division I win. great basketball skills, However, while those games were great experiences, none of them mean as much to me as the people and and as we got to know relationships that I have formed over the years,” she her, we also felt she was adds.

A person, not just a player All-State honors poured in for Vogel in high school.

Major schools like Boston College and the University of Minnesota courted her intensely, but only wanted

the kind of person we wanted to have on our team, too.”

– Head Coach Aaron Johnston

Rabbit tracks • 11

in steals, and fourth in three-point field goals made.

“As with any recruit, we look for abilities and talents that fit our offense and defense,” says Johnston. “We realized Megan had great basketball skills, and as we got to know her, we also felt she was the kind of person we wanted to have on our team, too.”

Awesome experience Vogel was honored at Senior Night February 23 when SDSU hosted North Dakota State University. The Jacks rolled to an 86-51 win, sweeping the season series against the Bison, en route to a final record of 25-6.

SDSU has posted a 48-22 record against fellow Division I foes, a remarkable achievement since leaving Division II only three years ago. And, it’s no accident the mark occurred during Vogel’s tenure. In fact, the Jacks have logged a 91-29 overall record since she donned the yellow and blue for the first time in 2003-04.

“Not many players have seen both sides of the transition from Division II to Division I,” observes Johnston. “Megan is one of those pioneer athletes in our department for that reason.”

A pioneer with the unique distinction of logging the most travel miles of any Jackrabbit player to date.

Vogel has packed her bags over the years for games in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. She has even left the country for contests in the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas.

“I’ve been fortunate to see places that I would never have dreamed of seeing on my own,” she says. “To do it playing basketball, something that I love, has been an unforgettable experience, truly awesome.”

Her involvement with SDSU athletics does run deep, even though her initial steps on campus were rather shallow.

“When I was a freshman I was really homesick and didn’t know if I could make it all four years,” says Vogel. “Now I think of this as my home. If I had to go back and decide to come here all over again, I would do it again in a second.”

Kyle Johnson

Quick facts on Megan Vogel Hometown: St. Peter, Minnesota.

Major: Health, Physical Education and Recreation.

Freshman awards: First-Team All-North Central Conference, All-North Central Region team.

Sophomore awards: Honorable Mention All-Division I Independent team.

Junior awards: First-Team All-Division I Independent team; named Division I Independent Player of the Week.

Senior awards: First-Team All-Division I Independent team; three times named Division I Independent Player of the Week; ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American second team; one of three team captains. Selected 19th overall in the WNBA draft by Washington.

Career rankings: 1,850 points (second), 783 rebounds (fifth), 194 three-point field goals (third), 492 free throws made (first), 632 free throws attempted (first), 154 free throws made in a season (first).

Career notes: 15.4 career scoring average; scored in double figures in 98 of 120 games; scored twenty or more points thirty-one times, with career best thirty-two as a senior.

12 • Rabbit tracks

Women’s

NIT

Jacks hit national stage o team in the history of women’s basketball in South Dakota accomplished what South Dakota State University did in 2006-07.

“This has been a great season, one of the more important years that we’ve ever had here at SDSU,” says Jackrabbit Head Coach Aaron Johnston. “It ranks right up there with the national championship we won at the Division II level.”

The Jackrabbits finished 25-6, losing to Wyoming in the quarterfinal-round of the National Invitational Tournament before a record-crowd of 11,215 in Laramie’s Arena Auditorium, March 25.

Yes, that’s right, the women’s NIT, just a few notches below the more prestigious NCAA Tournament. But, for all practical purposes, it was like an NCAA event for the Jacks, who were the first team in history to be invited to play in the NIT while in transition from NCAA Division II to Division I status.

SDSU’s inaugural appearance in the Division I postseason event was quite remarkable, especially considering the Jacks are only in the midst of the transition process from Division II. SDSU will be eligible for NCAA postseason competition in 2008-09.

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Fans behind success This year’s Jacks received a first-round bye in the forty-eightteam NIT field. In the second round March 17 in Frost Arena, SDSU knocked off Illinois State in front of 5,719—a record attendance for a single women’s home game that an NIT site coordinator labels “electrifying.”

“Wow” was the initial reaction of Illinois State Head Coach Robin Pingeton when describing what took place moments before. “You guys have a great ball club, and there’s no doubt in my mind why your team couldn’t compete at a very high level in the NCAA Tournament.”

Five days later, the “wow” continued. The Jacks rallied to beat Indiana before another home record crowd, this time 6,053.

Through forty NIT games up to that point, SDSU had two of the three highest attendance figures of any tournament home site.

Felisha Legette-Jack, the Indiana head coach, was taken back by what her Big Ten Conference school witnessed.

“At Bloomington we are a growing program, here at SDSU, you guys already have one,” she says. “This is a first-class situation.

Our team is young and will get better, but what a vision to have before us, to come here, and see how it’s supposed to be done.”

As for the rockin’ nature inside Frost, Legette-Jack only shook her head, observing, “It’s great to see your players be part of this kind of atmosphere. With the magnitude of this intensity, with the student body support, man I wish we could bottle the students up here and take them with us. To play in front of something like this is what it’s all about.”

Competing at high level Johnston, who was named Division I Independent Coach of the Year for the second straight season, calls 25-6 “An awfully good record, especially considering the schedule we played. We defeated some really good teams.

“The players deserve a lot of credit to show that it can be done,” adds Johnston, referring to the Jacks’ astonishingly early success in Division I. “There’s great enthusiasm for our program and this year’s group did a lot to move our program forward.”

SDSU has compiled a 48-22 mark against Division I competition in the last three years. In addition, the Jacks have posted wins over thirty-one different Division I teams representing fifteen conferences plus fellow independents.

Surprising? Not really, according to sophomore Jennifer Warkenthien, one of five South Dakota players on the team.

“Some people feel that a team in transition still takes baby steps,” she says.

“Well, we aren’t about that at all. We are about competing at a high level.

“It’s a big deal for our program to get into postseason play,” she adds.

“This is not just about SDSU and our women’s basketball program. It’s also for the people of South Dakota and everybody else out there.”

Kyle Johnson

Rabbit tracks • 13

Loney’s calling:

Being a role model for kids n the not-to-distant future high school kids will greatly benefit from the services of Michael Loney.

A product of Humboldt, Iowa, Loney (pronounced low-knee) is a starter on the Jackrabbit basketball team. He is about as busy as a student-athlete can get with games, studies, and commitments both on and off campus.

“I just work as hard as I possibly can with the strength that God gives me,” he says of his busy life. “Dad has helped me with that a lot. He’s always on task, writes things down, and makes sure I get things accomplished.”

Named to the Division I Independent All-Academic team, Loney is a math education major with a 3.67 grade point average.

Away from the hardcourt and studies, Loney student teaches at Brookings High School. He has been instructing freshmen and sophomores in the algebra and geometry domain, a scene that fits him perfectly because that’s precisely the arena where he sees himself in the future.

“I want to be a math teacher and coach basketball,” he says.

“In that situation, a person can really be a good influence on young kids, because it’s my aim in life to affect kids for Christ and set a Christlike example.

“There are kids in school who may not have a role model to

I

14 • Rabbit tracks

look up to. If I can be a good teacher who helps them out in math, basketball, and things in life, then they would be better off in many ways.”

Loney is actively “We didn’t know if he involved with Campus Crusade for would be a scholarship Christ, a student athlete or not. But because organization that meets weekly in the how hard a worker he was Volstorff at The and how tough he was, we Union. “It’s a good group,” he says. “We felt he deserved it, so we have worship and it serves as an outreach moved him from walk-on to to students.”

a scholarship player.”

Undersized, yet works hard

– Head Coach Scott Nagy

A senior academically and a junior basketball-wise, Loney will be back next season looking to finish his collegiate playing career while taking some graduate-level courses.

His height is listed at 6-6 in the media guide, which draws some good-natured skeptism from Head Coach Scott Nagy. “He’s 6-5 at the most and that’s stretching it,” he says. Loney chimes in, “I’m more like 6-4 and one-half without my shoes on.”

Loney has started every game except for the days when he’s been on crutches. His left knee has undergone three scopes, with the most recent one December 20, 2006, that caused him to miss five games.

Michael When quizzed if he’s back at full strength, Loney replies calmly, “Yeah, for the most part.”

Playing for a young team that lacks height, Loney has been called upon to play post, which means he needs all the inches he can muster with a good dose of cunning to boot. And, with a 225-pound frame, he has held his own.

“I like to be physical,” he says. “I am undersized so I like to do some moves and go around them with head fakes. I like to shoot outside, too.”

Loney set Humboldt’s all-time scoring record, but at “I just work as hard as I the collegiate level, possibly can with the he finds himself in the land of giants, an strength that God gives me.” assignment he has – Michael Loney met head on with the best of his ability.

“Michael is a very physical player, who is strong and built low to the ground,” observes Nagy. “He may not blow you away with athleticism, but he will beat you with moves and he shoots the ball very well.

“It has been a little unfair because we have had to lean on him so much, particularly this year with no size. I think he would be more effective if we were able to put more experienced players around him.”

Keeping the faith Nagy indicates Loney “is about as kind and gentle of a guy as you will ever see.” He pauses a moment and adds, “There are times, though, when I’d like to see more bulldog out of him, but overall he’s a great kid, very smart.”

Reacting to the bulldog reference, Loney chuckles and responds, “He’s been telling me that all the time. He always wants me to be tougher and meaner, and that’s fine. I agree with him sometimes when I think about it.”

The 2006-07 season was one with not too many highs with the Jacks finishing the season with less than ten wins. Still, Loney has kept the faith in more ways than one.

“To be quite honest, basketball has been tough,” he says. “If it wasn’t for Christ, I don’t know where I’d be in life and He allows me to bring a good attitude to practice every day.

“Don’t get me wrong, I want to win and go as hard as I can for my teammates,” he adds. “It’s a great opportunity and that’s another reason why I want to be here next year, too; to be here for the guys in whatever ways they need me.”

“Special” at SDSU Spotted by Nagy at an AAU event in Sioux Falls, Loney was recruited as a walk-on. However, he was soon elevated to scholarship status.

“He was undersized and we didn’t know if he would be a scholarship athlete or not,” recalls Nagy. “But because how hard a worker he was and how tough he was, we felt he deserved it, so we moved him from walk-on to a scholarship player.”

Loney, who averaged 8.0 points and 4.0 rebounds, and shot close to 50 percent from the field, doesn’t regret for a moment

Loney

his decision to join the SDSU basketball program.

“It was a good leap of faith and I’m truly thankful how it turned out,” he says. “To be with a great bunch of guys, to play basketball at a high level, to go around the country and visit places that I’ll never see again is pretty special.”

His parents, Leon and Sandy Loney, see their son as often as they can. When not cheering in Frost Arena, they have traveled over the years to tournaments in Kentucky, Ohio, and Florida. “I’m very close to my family,” he notes. “I’m only four hours from home, so it’s great that they can see me as often as they do.”

When it’s all said and done, Loney has much more going for himself than basketball and math, a point he likes to emphasize.

“I’m truly about wanting to make a difference in people’s lives for Christ, that’s my desire in life,” he says. “Someday I want to coach players who work hard with what God has given them because that’s how I am. I don’t have great athletic skills. I just work hard with what I have.”

Kyle Johnson OPPOSITE: Looking to be a teacher and coach after concluding his Jackrabbit basketball playing days, Michael Loney got some hands-on experience while student teaching at Brookings High School during the spring semester. Here he helps some freshmen in their geometry assignments. Loney, a junior from Humboldt, Iowa, is a math education major who was named to the Division I Independent All-Academic team this season.

Rabbit tracks • 15

“The room” Wrestling room a second home to family of SDSU grapplers o counted cross-stitch wall hanging declares “Home Sweet Home,” but for Coach Jason Liles and many on the SDSU wrestling team, the practice room in the Stan Marshall HPER Center feels just that way.

“A home you want to run away from sometimes,” says senior grappler Nate Althoff after a tough Thursday practice in February.

That’s because, as teammate Travis Gottschalk says, wrestling is a sport “you love to hate and hate to love.”

Both wrestlers are 22-year-old seniors. Althoff, of Watertown, has been flopping around on the wrestling mat since he was a 3year-old chasing his older brother. Gottschalk, of Kimball, Minnesota, was a late entrant to the sport, not starting until he was 6.

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Stepping inside The SDSU wrestling room is directly behind the east basket at Frost Arena. Most folks have never visited there.

It’s not meant for visiting. There are no bleachers to pull up a seat. In fact, there are no seats at all. The forty-five- by ninety-sixfoot room is all mats. Two rubber nitrile foam pads overlap at the center of the room and curve up about a foot on the east and west walls.

Visitors, including the training staff, sit at the edge of the mat against the wall.

There’s no sitting on the rest of the mat. Practice begins at 3:20 p.m. While the rock music beats at full tempo, the wrestlers are moving with a ballad beat.

“This group, as a whole, is slow getting started with warmups and drills to make sure they’re ready [for wrestling]. It takes

16 • Rabbit tracks

them a little bit longer than I’m used to,” says Liles, who has been coaching for twenty-seven years, the last fourteen at SDSU. The approach might be compared with gingerly wading out into cold water before beginning a vigorous swim.

Light jogging around the room is followed by stretching.

Liles circulates from wrestler to wrestler, sharing some advice on the day before the team’s home match against Eastern Illinois.

The pace of practice begins to pick up.

A group of twenty grapplers do somersaults forward and backward the length of the mat.

Next up are buddy carries—running back and forth down the length of the mat with a buddy on your back. Then the route is repeated with wrestlers doing a fireman’s carry of their partner.

Then they do a doubleleg carry of their partner.

The intensity of the practice and the music are nearly in sync.

Listening to Liles Liles calls the team together.

“There are six duals left and they’re all versus teams in our region. If you want to get in the big dance, you need to do well in these matches. The ones that want to do it, this is the time to do it. Throw the records out. We need to win these matches not just to win them, but for later on,” Liles warns.

That’s about as animated as the low-key coach will get.

Following a relaxed Monday practice, Liles explains, “I’m not a shouter. I can if I feel I need to. I’m not a guy who is going to be screaming or yelling every day.”

Nate Althoff, who has been wrestling for Liles for five years,

Wrestling

Coach Jason Liles watches Travis Ahrens, left, a student coach with the football program, and heavyweight Jason Stripling spar in the wrestling room.

says, “As long as we’re working hard, he’s pretty cool about it. If you’re laying down, he’ll let you know about it.”

Travis Gottschalk adds, “If we come out and lose matches we should have won, we’ll feel it the next week.”

A time to heal After weekend matches, Monday practices are comparatively easy.

“Monday many times is a difficult time to keep the intensity up,” Liles says afterwards.

Part of that is a natural letdown after being in two competitive matches. Part of it is “trying to figure out who is banged up,” the coach says.

That has become a growing group. Saturday’s match resulted in two starters—Andy Evenson and Derek Pirner—coming to practice in street clothes with ice bags taped to their knees. They sat by the training staff next to a couple long-injured wrestlers in workout clothes.

Before practice was done, another wrestler was getting ice wrapped onto his back and shoulder.

“You get beat up. Just wrestling with each other, you’re going to get beat up,” Althoff says of the nature of wrestling practice.

Gottschalk adds, “Bruises and bloody noses and lips are just common.”

Althoff says, “You’re going to get hit in the head every day.

You get used to it. The time you notice it is the first few weeks.

Then you don’t notice it any more.”

Wrestling with fatigue One thing that never becomes routine is the power surge that flows through on the competition mat.

Althoff says, “I can work out for one and a half hours here and not feel too bad, and then go out there [to the competition mat] for seven minutes and be about ready to puke. You’re basically using every muscle in your body for seven minutes.

“Adrenaline keeps you going for a while, but when you’re done, you’re about ready to collapse.”

As Thursday’s practice progressed, some looked like they

After the big guys work out, the Brookings pee wee wrestlers take the mat and get instruction from SDSU wrestlers such as Adam Everson (squatting), who works with Hunter Garry, left, and Connor Klinkhammer.

wished they could collapse. After ten minutes of drilling with their partners, Liles had them running sprints, and then back to drills. Five minutes later the guys were sprinting again.

This time the eyes were more recessed, showing signs of fatigue but at the same time knowing they must push on.

Althoff says, “Out on the [competition] mat, it forces you. If you can’t push yourself here [on the practice mat], you’re not going to make it.”

That’s part of the “hard-nosed, aggressive attitude” that Liles says he tries to develop in the wrestling room. It’s part of producing a “winning attitude. We expect to win regardless of who’s hurt or who’s in the lineup.

“A lot of that is our very successful tradition.”

A connection to the past That tradition goes back fifty years, when Warren Williamson and his predecessors were pushing their Jackrabbits through drills on a felt-hair mat and had them running laps around the perimeter of an L-shaped room in the back of the Barn.

Wrestlers like Dee Brainerd and Frank Kurtenbach didn’t have a scoreboard in the practice room, chin-up bars running the length of one wall, or a stereo system to ease the pain of conditioning. But what Liles’ troops do share with those predecessors is family.

“The fact that every one of you has to give their all is what makes you family,” Gottschalk says.

Andy Evenson, a fifth-year senior from Mitchell, adds, “We push each other, both physically and mentally. If we get in a fight in here, as soon as we walk out the doors, we’re friends again.

We’re family.”

For Evenson, that’s literal. Little brother Adam is a freshman.

But even for those who only share the blood caused by grinding one another into the mat, there’s become a close sense of family by the end of the season.

“We’d definitely take a bullet for each other,” Gottschalk declares.

Dave Graves

Rabbit tracks • 17

Jim Woster the ultimate booster W

hile he can sing, play guitar, and speak in front of crowds, one talent has always eluded Jim Woster. “I’m not an athlete. I can’t even tell you how far removed I am,” he says.

But Woster ’62 couldn’t be closer to supporting athletics at his alma mater. About twenty-five years ago, he started helping with Beef Bowl—an event that would grow to change the fall football landscape at State.

“It’s second only to Hobo Day,” Woster says. “If I could be remembered for anything at South Dakota State,” it would be his role in the event.

“He really was Mr. Agriculture Seems a natural fit for a man who spent in South Dakota.” much of his career at the Sioux Falls — Dan Gee, retired professor and head of South Stockyards.

Dakota Agricultural & Rural Leadership Inc. “Loved the place. It was a great place to be,” Woster says. He began work in livestock marketing after graduating from State with a degree in animal husbandry. “When I was a kid, most everybody went to South Dakota State,” especially those interested in agriculture, says the Reliance native who originally planned to farm. “I guess I never thought about anything else.”

But his career with the stockyards would become one that would span decades, and in the early 1970s, he started doing radio reports—a move that would help him become a pubic relations figure recognized statewide.

“As a public relations person you were asked to help out with things,” he says.

That included his university. Woster now works for the SDSU Foundation and helps to raise funds for the school he calls “one of the greatest universities in the country.”

“South Dakota State University is such a nice blend of informality and class,” he says.

“We’ve got so much class when we need it, but we’re just people from South Dakota,” who like small-town celebrations and family reunions, he says. “I don’t think you find that a lot of places.”

Woster recalls his experience as he emceed SDSU’s 125th birthday party celebration in February 2006.

“It was as I sat (at) the podium at The Union, just prior to the start of the 125th campus party, and looked at some 1,200 students, faculty, and many other alumni who had driven to the campus for the celebration that I realized the greatness of South Dakota State University originates from its people, who we are, and where we came from.

“It was really emotional. I was thinking ‘The University is 125 years old and this is why.’

“We’re just farm people and small-town people,” he says. “That’s who we are here, and I’m really proud of that.”

Fond memories, future expectations Athletics have always been a part of Woster’s love for State. As a student, he lived with a wrestler, and remembers lining up early for basketball games against USD. “Basketball games in the old Barn were something’,” he recalls. “It was small, and it was confined, and it was just tremendous excitement.”

18 • Rabbit tracks

Alumni

More recently, Woster says this year’s football success, along with the women’s basketball national championship in 2003 rank among his highlights.

“To watch the transition of women’s basketball at South Dakota State has been a tremendous thing to watch,” he says. Woster credits former coach Nancy Neiber with the sport’s growth at State. “I don’t think we realized what a tremendous impact” women’s basketball would have, he notes. “It’s been a great thing to watch.”

Woster says he expects the equestrian program to grow in popularity the next few years as well. “I think it’s going to be fun to follow that,” he says.

South Dakota’s ‘Will Rogers’ Woster says he recalls when, more than a decade ago, V.J. Smith, former alumni director, worked in athletics and about thirteen years ago asked Woster to chair Beef Bowl, an event that has now been a fall tradition for forty years.

He credits both Foundation and athletic staff with their part in the successful fundraising. “When you’re a volunteer, you’re only going to do as good as the staff people,” Woster says. “It isn’t going to work if it isn’t first class from the staff.”

Money raised from the steer sales at Beef Bowl goes to the

booster

Athletic Department and proceeds from the “He’s a great guy and is barbeque and beef incredibly passionate about bundle auction fund agriculture and SDSU.” scholarships in the —Cody Wright, Extension beef specialist Animal and Range and Beef Bowl coordinator Sciences Department, says Cody Wright, Extension beef specialist and Beef Bowl coordinator.

“Jim’s biggest role here is helping recruit donors and buyers willing to invest in our students,” he says. “He’s done such a great job building interest in the programs. He’s a great guy and is incredibly passionate about agriculture and SDSU.” Woster had a vision to shape Beef Bowl into an event that went beyond just a barbeque, says Dan Gee, retired professor and head of South Dakota Agricultural & Rural Leadership Inc. From “meager beginnings,” the game has grown into “a fun family day,” he says.

Part of Woster’s success comes from his connections, Gee says. “He really was Mr. Agriculture in South Dakota,” he says.

“He knows what it takes to be a good public relations person.

His sense of humor is what has made him a great writer and a great public speaker.”

Gee calls Woster “the Will Rogers of South Dakota or the Upper Midwest,” because of the positive way he handles things.

“He makes a lot of things happen at this University,” he says.

“It’s all about service. It’s all about a neat guy with a great background.”

Denise Watt LEFT: Jim Woster enjoys breakfast with John Hansen, an SDSU student from Emery and a recipient of a Jackrabbit Guarantee scholarship sponsored by Woster. The occasion was an April 2005 SDSU Foundation event.

BELOW: Jim Woster entertains the crowd at SDSU’s 125th anniversary birthday party in The Union in February 2006.

Unsung heroes

Program puts spotlight on those who work behind the scene he students all know Helen Donley as the cook at Larson Commons who spreads love as generously as she stacks a sandwich.

Now, thanks to the TOP Program, the public knows her, too.

The TOP (Thanking Outstanding People) Program was initiated in fall 2006 to recognize unsung heroes of the athletic program. Student athletes submit the nominations, and recipients are honored during halftime of each home game.

“The idea stemmed from the video boards we started last year,” says Micah Grenz, promotions manager for Athletics. “They highlight a different college each game and enlighten people about what else is going on on campus. But it lacked a face; it wasn’t as personable.

“So we thought, let’s go to the athletes

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Jose Frias 20 • Rabbit tracks

themselves and ask who “I’d never leave SDSU. they appreciate and who helps them to do better. We These kids are a big figured there’s got to be part of my life. Taking someone like a Marty at care of them makes Wal-mart; there’s got to be people we’re missing. Many me pretty happy. It’s times, they don’t know the darned right awesome. inpact they have on I love these kids a lot, students’ lives.”

Helen Donley was a just like I love my own perfect pick. kids.”

“Helen has been – Helen Donley, cook nominated by somebody in basically every sport we have, even by multiple people on each team,” Grenz says.

“Without the TOP Program, we wouldn’t have known about her.

She always gives of herself.”

Does she ever.

Helen Donley “She’s just a fun, loveable person,” says Jose Frias, men’s basketball player and senior Spanish major. “No matter how bad your day is going, you see her and your day is no longer bad. She enjoys her job more than anyone else I know. It’s refreshing to see someone happy all the time.

Thanking

Janet Johnson

outstanding

Scott Kwasniewski

people

Cory Mettler

“She’s almost like a mother, which is very important to me When I get done with them, they’re out of the dump and happy because I’m in a whole other world here.” Frias is from New again. Oh, baby, they feel warm inside, they feel loved inside.

York City, where his mother, Mercedes Michel Frias, lives.

That’s the way every kid should always feel.”

Donley is more than happy to assume the role of surrogate mother/grandmother to “her kids.”

Janet Johnson “One day a kid came to me with one of my sandwiches and Students in Janet “I’ve had a lot of athletes said, ‘If I had a grandma, this is just the way she’d make it,’” Johnson’s classes know in my classes and have Donley says. “I told him, ‘Well, you’ve got a grandmother and their professor cares. been very impressed with you’ve got a mother and she’s standing right here in front of you.’

“She’ll do anything “When mom and dad are far away and you can’t talk to for you,” says freshman their dedication and them, these kids can get lonesome,” Donley says. “I don’t care Maria Boever, a member discipline. They’re always how old a kid is, they’re never too old to be told I love you. of the women’s basketball “I tell them to be careful so I can see them again. And they team and the daughter of on time, have their work listen. I tell them to take time, don’t be in a big hurry to grow Mark and Janel Boever of done, and come in for up. You’ve got a lot of life ahead, you’re too smart, too bright, I Worthington, Minnesota. help, if needed. They love you, and I don’t want to see you hurt. They walk away with “She’s energetic, fun want to excel.” a big smile on their faces. It’s really cool.” to be around. You – Janet Johnson, language specialist Donley has worked at SDSU for twelve years and goes look forward to home each afternoon to another role: caregiver for her going to her classes.” husband, Lister—“the coolest person in the world.” She Johnson, a language specialist, has taught at SDSU for worked at the Colman truck stop for many years and seventeen years, developing courses in Russian, moved to Brookings when Lister needed to be closer to English as a Second Language, and, most recently, a hospital. But Donley plans to stay put from Read for College Success. here on out.

“Students give me energy,” Johnson says.

“I’d never leave SDSU,” she vows. “These “When I’m in the classroom with them, I kids are a big part of my life. Taking care of just come alive. I’m so interested in the them makes me pretty happy. It’s darned right teaching/learning process and have been awesome. I used to tell my grandma that when I since I was a small child.” grew up I wanted to be a cook around a lot of kids.

Johnson has a unique talent for making her My dream came true. I love these kids a lot, just like I love students comfortable. my own kids.”

“The secret is to make them feel protected and Donley’s son, Harvey Donley, lives in Estelline with secure,” she says. “Then, the teaching/learning his wife, Melissa. Daughter Linda Donley lives in process can begin full swing. I promise them I Brookings. But during her working hours, she counts won’t embarrass them or hurt them or call on hundreds of kids as her own every day. them unless they volunteer.”

“I call them my sweet, adorable, little angels—or Johnson and husband, distinguished professor devils,” Donley laughs. “The building really lights up when of ecology W. Carter Johnson, raised two sons, they come in.

Tellef, an independent filmmaker in Los Angeles, Maria Boever “Some come in draggin’ and down in the dumps.

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Thanking

outstanding

and Tor, a recording engineer and computer specialist in Minneapolis.

“I learned a lot from those two young boys,” Johnson says.

“It was a teacher’s dream. I was so fascinated by how they each learned so differently. That’s how I feel with students today. I can tell if someone is on a different page. I celebrate the differences and I think the kids can see that.”

Johnson admires the academic drive she sees in the Jackrabbits.

“I’ve had a lot of athletes in my classes and have been very impressed with their dedication and discipline,” she says. “They’re always on time, have their work done, and come in for help, if needed. They want to excel.”

‘Scotty Kwas’ Jennifer Warkenthien so admires the job Scott Kwasniewski does announcing the play-byplay for women’s basketball, that she nominated him for a TOP award.

“Scotty travels with us on all of our trips and is at all the home games,” says Warkenthien, women’s basketball player, sophomore early childhood education major, and Jennifer granddaughter of Warkenthien Elwood and Barbara Warkenthien of Willow Lake. “He makes it possible for all the fans and family members to listen to the Jackrabbit games, which allows people to stay involved.

“Scotty is a very funny guy. He has a good personality and is easy to be around. He keeps things fun. He does a very good job covering the game and keeping people who are listening into the game.”

Kwasniewski, sports director for Brookings Radio, where he has worked since 1994, feels lucky to have the job he does.

“They’re a great group of women,” he says.

“They’ve been successful both academically and athletically. That kind of success is a pleasure to be around. I see them achieve and how they work to 22 • Rabbit tracks

people

achieve that goal. That’s a story not everyone will see.

“The coaching staff is also excellent. The players come first.

Nancy [Nieber] was pretty well connected; she knew people everywhere we went, and she passed off that legacy to Aaron [Johnson], who naturally carried it over.”

Kwasniewski and his wife, Carla, have two children: daughter Kaitlin, 13, and son Carter, 11. Kwasniewski helps coach his daughter’s basketball team.

“It’s fun to see those younger girls watch and learn and talk about the SDSU women,” he says. “It sets a lofty goal for those girls, not just in Brookings, but throughout the region. It sends the message that those girls can go anywhere and do what the Jackrabbit women do. That kind of exposure is good for women’s sports in general.”

Cory Mettler Availability, first and foremost, won Cory Mettler TOP honors.

The electrical engineering instructor “is extremely available, and that’s extremely important,” says Travis Gottschalk, senior mechanical engineering major and the son of Scott and Astrid Gottschalk of Litchfield, Minnesota. “He’ll definitely help anyone willing to put in the effort. You’ll definitely learn a lot from him.

He’s just a great teacher.

“My biggest connection was he was a wrestler, like me, and we’re both in engineering, so he knows what I’m going through.”

Mettler’s own college years are not that distant. He earned his undergraduate degree in 2002 and his graduate degree in 2004, both from State, then began teaching.

“I identify with the students,” he says. “I’m teaching the same classes that I took, so I remember the pitfalls. I use a lot of examples rather than just theory, because that’s how I learned well as a student.

“I remember what it was like to be a student who was torn in so many directions,” says the Rochester, Minnesota, native who married his wife, Arielle, this summer. “Sometimes you’re not ready for an in-depth lecture in class, but if you can go into a professor’s office, you can get more than one viewpoint and something will click.

“I encourage students to come to my office. If I’m not in the classroom, I’m in my office. All of my time is available to students.”

Cindy Rickeman

Travis Gottschalk

Football coach John Stiegelmeier, left, shares his thoughts on the Gateway Football Conference at a March 7 press conference at SDSU. He is joined by Athletic Director Fred Oien.

Gateway bound iming in sports is everything, whether it’s a winning touchdown grab or a field goal in overtime. It’s also true when it comes to a new conference affiliation.

SDSU will leave the Great West Football Conference following the 2007 season and join the Gateway Football Conference in 2008. The entry into the Gateway will coincide with the Jackrabbits being eligible for postseason consideration and be in position to receive the league’s automatic berth into the Football Championship Series playoffs.

The Great West Football Conference does not have an automatic playoff bid.

The announcement came March 7 from Patty Viverito, commissioner of the Gateway Football Conference. North Dakota State University of the Great West Football Conference was admitted as well, bringing the league’s membership to nine.

The seven other schools in the St. Louis-based conference: • Illinois State Redbirds, Normal; • Indiana State Sycamores, Terre Haute; • Missouri State Bears, Springfield; • Northern Iowa Panthers, Cedar Falls; • Southern Illinois Salukis, Carbondale; • Western Illinois Leathernecks, Macomb; • Youngstown (Ohio) State Penquins.

“Today, I can go to bed, and the twenty sports there are national championships in, I can look at every student-athlete in our program and know they have equal access to postseason championships starting in 2008 and 2009,” says Athletic Director Fred Oien.

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Women’s equestrian has yet to be sanctioned as a championship sport by the NCAA.

Compete for national title

“To be in a league with nine teams, to have eight conference games, is a tremendous step forward and the competition speaks for itself. The challenge is great, but that is the path South Dakota State football has taken and we will be ready. We’re really excited about where we’re going to be in 2008.”

“This is a great day for South Dakota State University and Jackrabbit football,” says Head Coach John Stiegelmeier. “The timing is perfect. In 2008, when we finish our reclassification [to Division I-AA], we jump into a conference that we can compete for a conference championship, compete for individual honors, but most importantly, compete for a national championship. That is exciting.”

Historically, the Gateway Conference has been among the elite conferences in the Football Championship Series. A minimum of two Gateway teams have made the NCAA playoffs in each of the past twelve seasons, including three bids last year and a record-setting four teams in 2003.

Gateway teams have appeared in four national championship games since 1997, winning twice, and a Gateway team has reached the semifinals eight times in the past eleven seasons.

The league, which was founded in 1985, will now cover seven states with the addition of SDSU and NDSU. “The Gateway presents a lot of other opportunities,” says Oien. “It houses and covers almost the largest possible footprint that we could have for our alumni base. It covers the largest recruiting base that we

– Head Coach John Stiegelmeier

possibly could have, and it has institutions that we played quite frequently back in the 1960s and 1970s as a football program.”

A fair price Under the terms of the agreement, SDSU will pay a $250,000 entry fee and a $500,000 penalty if it leaves the conference before eight years.

“We took a good hard look at how much value is there in joining an established conference,” observes Oien. “If you would have looked at all of our goals for conference membership for football, the Gateway had them all.”

Besides serving as an important alumni and recruiting area, other reasons for belonging to the Gateway, according to Oien, are: conference prestige, a television contract, financial stability, and the values that the seven core schools represent.

“These are tremendous values that don’t come along very often,” adds Oien.

“We felt the entry fee was an extremely fair price.”

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South Dakota State University Athletics Department Box 2820 Brookings, SD 57007-1497

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NON-PROFIT US POSTAGE PAID BROOKINGS SD PERMIT 24

Ryan

Meyer

A wrestling pioneer Redshirt frosh becomes State’s first D-I athlete to reach nationals edshirt freshman Ryan Meyer didn’t feel like a trivia game answer when he was wrestling at the NCAA West Regional March 3 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, but that’s what he became.

Meyer, of Parkston, is the first Division I SDSU athlete to qualify for postseason competition.

The 165-pounder wrestled at the NCAA Division I National Championships in Auburn Hills, Mich., March 15-17.

“I’m kind of excited because I got to go against some really tough opponents and see how I compare against the best in the nation,” Meyer says of his national meet opportunity. That was his goal at the start of the season.

As for putting his name in the SDSU history book, Meyer says, “It’s not that big of a deal to me. . . . I guess I was just the lucky one to be first.”

SDSU began Division I competition in fall 2004 and most sports aren’t eligible for NCAA postseason competition until the 2008-09 school year.

However, the NCAA granted a waiver to allow schools in transition to tab two sports to be eligible this season. SDSU selected volleyball and wrestling.

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Making the most of an opportunity Although Meyer was a five-time state placer and two-time 152pound state champion at Parkston, he didn’t start his second year at State on a pedestal. In fact, the quote in the media guide from Coach Jason Liles was the rather generic, “He will make a strong push for the starting spot.”

That was at either 157 or 165 pounds, but an unfortunate break by a teammate created a break for Meyer.

Nate Althoff, a returning starter at 165 pounds, broke his leg during the summer and wasn’t able to return until after Christmas. Meyer had a 12-7 mark by the time Althoff, a former Division II all-American, was able to return.

After Christmas, Althoff and Meyer alternated matches or moved up a weight class to put both into the lineup.

“At the end of the season, Coach Liles made a decision to wrestle me at 165 and Nate at 174,” Meyer says. The plan worked for the Parkston National Honor Society member. He went 23-9, having the most wins on the team and was one of only two SDSU grapplers to reach the twenty-win mark this season.

Wrestling to his potential Because of his success during the season, Meyer had a first-round bye in the seven-team regional.

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He then won his semifinal match 5-0 to put him in the championship match against Northern Iowa’s Nick Baima, who was ranked fifth in the nation. The four-time national qualifier scored a 12-3 major decision against Meyer.

The first two periods were competitive, but Baima took Meyer down three times in the final period.

“He’s the toughest guy I’ve wrestled all year,” Meyer says.

He thought a second-place finish would secure a trip to nationals because the top two out of each weight class usually qualify.

The champions in each of the ten weight classes automatically qualify for nationals. Another eleven are selected on a wild card basis by a vote of the tournament coaches.

SDSU had two other wrestlers reach the finals. Jason Stripling (heavyweight) and Andy Evenson (157) also lost in the finals and had to wrestle a true second-place match because they hadn’t defeated the third-place finisher during the tournament.

Stripling lost that final round 3-1 and Evenson was defeated 9-4. Neither gained a wild card to nationals.

Other pioneers Meyer is not the first State wrestler to compete in the Division I national tournament. Until the early 1990s, Division II medal winners could qualify for the Division I tournament.

In 1970, Greg Schmidt, a three-time Division II allAmerican, qualified for the Division I meet after placing second at 118 pounds in Division II. Pat Dorn, a two-time Division I qualifier and two-time Division II champion, was the last Jackrabbit to qualify for the Division I tournament. He became a Division I all-American by placing eighth in 1988.

Dave Graves Postscript: Meyer lost both his matches on March 15 and was eliminated. He suffered 5-1 and 5-4 defeats.

Ryan Meyer, facing camera, squares off against Dustin Olsen of Utah Valley State in a January 20 match at SDSU. Meyer won 3-2.

Six weeks later he qualified for the Division I National Tournament .

A message from Keith Mahlum

‘What’s in your windshield’ Visionary is an oft-used term to describe individuals or organizations that see things before they happen or anticipate what needs to be done in advance. Those who possess this quality chart the course for future success confidently and stretch the imagination of those associated with the organization. Ultimately, those with vision ask what can be while experiencing what is.

Thanks to a strong group of leaders and your generous support, we have had a bold vision for SDSU for a long time. We have set our goals high and proactively engaged in strategic planning to prepare for success. During this process we have embraced our land-grant mission and athletic identity to reach new heights. We are now poised to continue our program’s maturation as we enter new conference memberships.

To maximize our success we need to use our institutional memory as a foundation for our future decisions. We need to balance what has occurred with what we want to accomplish. In that light, a great friend of SDSU once shared with me a pearl of wisdom about three years ago. He said, “There’s a reason the windshield is much larger than the rearview mirror.”

To me this should remind us that what has happened in the past directly affects what may happen, but scanning the environment and anticipating what may happen often plays a larger role in getting to where you want to be. In our department, we hold the long-standing values of Jackrabbit athletics closely as we make decisions that will shape our student-athlete experience. We spend much more time, however, looking ahead aspiring to provide world-class opportunities for members of our teams. We always have had and always will have high intentions.

We glance in our rearview mirror momentarily to gain perspective as to where we’ve been, but we gaze through our windshield wondering “what could be.” We like what we see out our windshield. We see: optimism, enhanced expectations, excitement, and unprecedented achievement. We invite you to take a look too. There’s enough room for you in the front seat. Hop in.

Keith Mahlum

Associate Athletic Director / Development Director

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