The Brookings girls basketball team of 1985 was one of the most dominant teams in state history. A perfect record on the season and three players who would go on to play Division I basketball - Paula Kenefick, Amy Mickelson and Renae Sallquist. All three girls were also named first team all-state in SD. Jim Holwerda, coach at the time, was also named the USA Today national coach of the year in 1985. To this day, the Bobcats squad of '85 is considered by some to be the greatest girls basketball team in state history.
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Craig Mattick:
Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. It takes a lot to be ranked in the USA Today Weekly High School National Basketball Poll. It's only happened to two girls high school basketball teams from South Dakota. Sioux Falls Roosevelt, the Rough Riders had just won their third state title in a row back in 1999. Now remember, girls basketball was played in the fall at that time. Riders had won their third straight title and then invited to play at a tournament in Oregon, which they won. That win made it 54 wins in a row, and after achieving that, USA Today put Roosevelt at number 22 in the country.
But the only other girls basketball team in South Dakota to be ranked in the top 25 of USA Today occurred 14 years before Sioux Falls Roosevelt did it. The year was 1985. This team was ranked as high as number three in the whole country. They won the state title in 1984 and brought back a powerful lineup which included the Twin Towers, and the team which would have three of their starters go on to play Division I basketball.
We're talking about the 1985 Brookings Bobcats Girls Basketball Team, coached by Jim Holwerda, who was named the National Coach of the Year in 1985. Today we'll be talking to Amy Mickelson, Renae Sallquist, and Paula Kenefick, along with head coach Jim Holwerda. Amy Mickelson, welcome to In Play. Great to have you on.
Amy Mickelson:
Thank you. I'm glad to be here and I'm glad that you're doing this podcast.
Craig Mattick:
You had two brothers growing up. You're the middle child. What was it like growing up between Mark and David those years in Brookings?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, we had a lot of really competitive basketball games in our driveway. I will tell you that. Mark and I had a lot of one-on-ones. He would say that he's responsible for any success I've had in basketball.
Craig Mattick:
As a freshman and a sophomore, Brookings won the consolation championships those two years. But before your freshman year, how involved were you in basketball?
Amy Mickelson:
I just played school ball in seventh and eighth grade. We didn't play the AAU and stuff that kids today do. I mean, I'm sure I played in my driveway with my brothers, but I didn't do anything formal until seventh grade. I think that was pretty much the norm for everybody back then.
Craig Mattick:
Did you have a spotlight on that basketball rim for when the sun went down or did you have to turn the car lights on for you guys to keep shooting baskets?
Amy Mickelson:
Yeah, we did that. We turned the outside lights on and it was like everybody had back then. My dad made the backboard and put it up on the house, and we'd play basketball to the hoop on our house.
Craig Mattick:
You're 6'3. When did you start getting to be just a little bit taller than the other kids your age?
Amy Mickelson:
Fifth grade I definitely knew I was taller than most people. By my freshman year I was close to my current height. I probably grew another inch in high school, but I was pretty much what I am by the time I entered high school.
Craig Mattick:
How were you able to keep up with your basketball skills as you got taller? Did you have to work a little bit harder?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, I didn't have a really big growth spurt. I think mine was pretty steady and so I didn't have any... I didn't have any of the growth problems that people have, so I was lucky.
Craig Mattick:
But as far as spending hours and hours in the gym or-
Amy Mickelson:
Oh, yes. Right.
Craig Mattick:
That just didn't happen that often as a freshman and as a sophomore?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, no. Once I got to high school our coach, Coach Holwerda was really phenomenal. He, I think, knew that he had some classes of some pretty good kids, and so he made the gym accessible to us pretty much anytime we wanted it. We'd play noon ball in the summers and we'd have open gym three nights a week. Now we absolutely were in the gym all the time, and I'm not really a naturally gifted athlete so I had to work pretty hard.
Craig Mattick:
What do you say about Jim Holwerda, the head coach? He was there the whole time. What did he see in you?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, I think a lot of height and he saw potential. He and John Iverson taught me that hook shot which enabled me to play at Washington in the post. Coach Holwerda is just an amazing person. He and his wife came back. This 1985 team was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame last fall and Coach Holwerda and his wife came, and none of us had seen him in, I suppose 30 years. They live in Arkansas now, so it was really great to see him.
Craig Mattick:
As a freshman, how much time did you get on the court, as a freshman at Brookings High?
Amy Mickelson:
I think I worked my way up throughout the season. If I recall, I played maybe three quarters of JV and two quarters of varsity or something along that line, and maybe that switched towards the end of the season. I was not a starter as a freshman. I played behind a senior.
Craig Mattick:
Well, when you're a junior, Lisa Kurtenbach was a senior and you guys ran the table and won the very first basketball title for Brookings. Why were you guys so dominant that year when you were a junior and Lisa was a senior?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, that class ahead of us had a ton of talent. I mean, Lisa Kurtenbach was a phenomenal point guard and she did a great job of distributing the ball. We had Bridget Larson, Sherry Minor, Tasha Kreiger. They had a lot of athletes in that grade and I think they really started what we walked into. They were just a really committed group of athletes and they set the expectation that we would attend open gyms and take advantage of the opportunities to get better as a team and as individual players.
Craig Mattick:
Renae Sallquist moved to Brookings her sophomore year. She was at Sioux Valley. Did you know her before she transferred to Brookings?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, I'd seen her because she lived about seven miles away, so I'd seen her around and I thought she was about the tallest person I'd ever seen, and then I ended up being the same height. At the time I was a little bit younger and I thought, "Oh, that girl's so tall," and here I am, same height. I knew of her. I didn't know her. I didn't really know her at the time, I just knew who she was.
Craig Mattick:
1985, you and Sallquist, you're back after winning the title. You guys were labeled the Twin Towers, weren't you?
Amy Mickelson:
We were. Yeah.
Craig Mattick:
Any idea who coined that phrase, the Twin Towers?
Amy Mickelson:
Oh, gosh. I don't know. Possibly someone in the media. I don't think it was Coach Holwerda. I don't know, but it was really fun to play with somebody of her caliber. I mean, everybody that I got to play high school basketball with were just... We had kids, the 9th and 10th kid on our team that probably would've been starting elsewhere, so we just had a lot of talent and a coach that did a great job of putting it all together.
Craig Mattick:
What was the offense like? You got two 6'3 post players. You got a pretty good guard there with Paula Kenefick.
Amy Mickelson:
Right. A great guard.
Craig Mattick:
What was the offense like? What was going on?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, we'd vary it up a little bit. We'd sometimes play a high low post. I think we usually probably played a double low post, but Renae was pretty good in the high post. She's a good passer and so she'd sometimes go up to the high post. I was sometimes at the high post, but I think generally we were a two-post motion offense type team.
Craig Mattick:
During those two years you guys went undefeated, your junior and senior years, a 48-game win streak. Who were some of those teams, though, that made it just a little bit tougher to win, especially your senior year?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, Yankton and Lincoln were always difficult to beat during my high school years. I think we played played Lincoln my junior year and Yankton my senior year. I think Yankton went on to win it maybe the next three years or something, so they were good. In my early high school years here had three 6'3 players that I think all went on to play college basketball. We just produced a lot of good basketball players in South Dakota, I feel like.
Craig Mattick:
Well, Sioux Falls Lincoln had Steph Schueler. Yankton had Lisa Van Gore, right?
Amy Mickelson:
Oh yeah, and Diane Hiemstra. Oh, there was another Hiemstra. Yeah. Yeah, they produced a lot of... Well and Kris Holwerda went and played at Colorado, Coach Holwerda's daughter.
Craig Mattick:
It's amazing. A lot of ladies that went on to play division one basketball.
Amy Mickelson:
Yeah, there really were.
Craig Mattick:
What was one of your most memorable games? Maybe it was against Lincoln or maybe against Yankton? Which one always stands out when you're thinking about it?
Amy Mickelson:
Oh, I think probably winning that first state championship was really something special. I mean, beating Yankton to win the second one was great too, but I think winning the first state championship and having an undefeated season was, well, just really a great experience to have as an athlete. It was-
Craig Mattick:
People have to remember, Amy, that the seasons were during the fall, during those seasons. What did you do after basketball when it was all done coming up in November of that year?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, my freshman year in high school Brookings started a volleyball program, so I played volleyball during the winter before the season switched.
Craig Mattick:
How much success did you have playing volleyball?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, we won a state championship I think my junior year, and we... I can't remember. We were, I think maybe the top three my senior year. I can't quite remember, but we had some success as a volleyball team too.
Craig Mattick:
Well, after winning your second title in a row, Amy, it's time to think about college, and you decided on the University of Washington. What led you to Washington?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, we had kind of a hurried recruiting process because Coach Holwerda wanted us to not communicate with schools during our basketball season, just so that everybody was focused on the team, and so we didn't get our mail or any of our recruiting calls until after the season ended in November. Then we got our stuff and kind of decided where we were going to go on recruiting visits. Washington just felt right to me. I really respected and loved the coach. I had an aunt and uncle that lived out there at the time, and I wanted to play in a big conference and so I chose Washington.
Craig Mattick:
PAC- 10, pretty big conference. Chris Golbrecht was the coach. What kind of coach was Chris, who's now, by the way, at Air Force?
Amy Mickelson:
She is at Air Force. She was a really tough coach. I really respect her and love her at this point in my life. There was a point in my life where I didn't feel that way about her, but I always respected her. She just had very high expectations and we generally met them or tried to meet them. She was a phenomenal coach.
Craig Mattick:
You didn't start for the Huskies your freshman or sophomore year. How tough was that?
Amy Mickelson:
It was tough. I thought I was going to be starting my sophomore year and then we landed the top post recruit in the nation out of Montana so she started, but I got quite a bit of playing time. Then the next year we both started. She was the four and I was the five so I played quite a bit my sophomore year and my freshman year.
Craig Mattick:
You got to play a lot though as a junior and senior year. In fact, your senior year you averaged about 15 points a game and you guys are the number three ranked team in the country. What was making you guys so good that year?
Amy Mickelson:
I think our team chemistry. We had really good team chemistry at Washington. She recruited kids that really, really liked one another and were committed to the same thing and I really think that she's a good coach, and I think she just recruited people and we fell together in a way that led to success.
Craig Mattick:
Mm-hmm. While you're at Washington, your dad George is the governor of South Dakota?
Amy Mickelson:
Yes.
Craig Mattick:
Did the governor or your mom, Linda, make a lot of those college games?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, my senior year particularly they tried to make more games. It was tough for my dad. He would always come out to one game a year, I think probably a weekend where he could catch two PAC-10 games, but that was about all he could do. My mom would come out more frequently and if we'd played anywhere in the Midwest they would attend those games. They saw me play quite a bit given that I was so far from home and not playing anybody on a regular basis around South Dakota.
Craig Mattick:
Would you talk to mom or dad after every ball game and talk a little bit-
Amy Mickelson:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Craig Mattick:
... on how it went?
Amy Mickelson:
Oh, sure. Yes. I talked to them after every game and they could get most of the games streamed via a satellite disc when they were living in Pierre, so they watched a lot of them. But yeah, they were my first phone call after all of my games.
Craig Mattick:
Today, what is keeping Amy Amy Mickelson busy?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, I've got three kids, the youngest of whom is still an undergrad. I'm involved with them. I've got a partner, Bill Howgan, that I spend a lot of time with. We travel some. I had worked for the Sioux Falls School District until about two years ago. Spending some time with my mom and her husband Tom in Arizona and just kind of enjoying life.
Craig Mattick:
Did your three kids play basketball?
Amy Mickelson:
They did all in high school. Both of my girls played in college.
Craig Mattick:
How tough was that as a mom knowing that you played the game?
Amy Mickelson:
Oh, it's tough. It's tough. I'd rather be the athletes than the parent because you have no control when you're the parent. Yeah, it's hard to be the parent. Ellie's sophomore year they won the state championship quite unexpectedly. I think they were the fifth. My mom was trying to... It was never expected that we'd make the championship game and so my mom was trying to get to Rapid City from Arizona. She couldn't make it, but I texted her and said, "I'm in the stands. I think I'm going to throw up." And she said, "Very familiar with the feeling." Yeah, it's stressful.
Craig Mattick:
Well, Renae Sallquist and Paula Kenefick, they also live in Sioux Falls. You live in Sioux Falls. How often do you guys get together?
Amy Mickelson:
We all live in the same area of town and we see each other pretty regularly. We all became reconnected through when the team was inducted into the Hall of Fame, so that's kind of gotten us all excited about reconnecting. I've always been in touch with them. We're just in a little bit closer touch now.
Craig Mattick:
Yeah. You guys were ranked number three that year by USA Today. What was that reaction when the newspaper came out and you're the number three ranked team in the country?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, we were obviously really excited. The advantage that we had was we really couldn't go down in the polls because our season was over and we were undefeated. If another team would lose a game, we'd go up a notch, so we were sitting pretty well. But yeah, that was really, really exciting. Coach Holwerda was the national coach of the year, which was a huge honor and well deserved.
Craig Mattick:
Did he try to calm you guys down a little bit when the accolades started coming, maybe once the season started?
Amy Mickelson:
He was really team focused, so that's what he put the emphasis on, team awards. He was not into the individual awards. He just approached it all as a team. Yeah, he didn't want any of that interrupting our season.
Craig Mattick:
Amy, what is your biggest memory of winning two straight girls basketball titles for Brookings?
Amy Mickelson:
Well, I think it comes down to the same thing that I've told my kids sports come down to. It's honestly the relationships that you develop through it. I think they're just really special relationships that you develop when you play a sport with people, and then to experience winning a state championship with them just made it... I look back on my high school and college years and the thing I'm most grateful for are my teammates.
Craig Mattick:
Renee Sallquist, welcome to In Play. Great to have you on today to talk about Brookings and some great basketball with the twins hours and even a national ranking back in 1985. You lived on a farm near Volga, which is of course just west of Brookings. What was life like on the farm growing up for you?
Renae Sallquist:
Oh, goodness. Well, I miss it. I'll tell you that. It was just my sister and I. She's about eight years older than me, so I kind of felt like an only child. We raised cattle and hogs, and I showed horses and went team penning with my dad, and got into sports, of course. Went to Sioux Valley school system until my sophomore year when I transferred to Brookings and just had a wonderful time growing up on the farm.
Craig Mattick:
Where was the basket on the farm? Was it in the barn or in the driveway? You had to have one, right?
Renae Sallquist:
Yep. It was in the driveway. It was not on the garage door part, but it was on the side. I was continuously running after shots because there was nothing to catch the ball. But, yeah, so my dad and I played all the time. He actually played for a couple years at SDSU way back in the day, and he had this pretty stunning hook shot so he and I shot hoops all the time.
Craig Mattick:
You didn't get the hook shot figured out on that?
Renae Sallquist:
I tried it, but no. Maybe a little bit of a jump hook, but not the old fashioned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hook. I couldn't do that, no.
Craig Mattick:
How many times were you still shooting baskets when the sun went down?
Renae Sallquist:
Almost always, because of course we're on the farm so chores come first, and then pretty much get that other stuff in after the sun goes down. My dad actually had a spotlight out there that he'd hook up so we could play in the dark.
Craig Mattick:
You're six foot three inches tall. By the eighth grade you were already six foot and you're going to Sioux Valley. Was it difficult at that point? Were you growing up faster than maybe what your mind was when it came to playing basketball? What was it like?
Renae Sallquist:
Well, I was taller than my third grade teacher. I still have the class picture so I was a head above everybody else in height right away.
Craig Mattick:
How was basketball treating you at the time?
Renae Sallquist:
Oh, you know what? I didn't really play till sixth grade is when I started playing, and of course then you have organized ball in seventh and eighth grade, and that's when I really started to figure out what I was doing. Then of course, like you said, out of eighth grade I was actually 6'1. Then I started to get a little bit of people noticing me at the high school level, and then played my freshman year at Sioux Valley. Just through some conversation and some situations there decided it might be better for me to transfer to Brookings. Yeah, that was quite the drama at the time though.
Craig Mattick:
Well, what was the year on the basketball court your freshman year at Sioux Valley?
Renae Sallquist:
Oh, boy. Well, I started on the bench, of course. I was playing ninth grade ball and then I was also playing JV and varsity, and then we'd have tournaments. There were some times where I would go play in tournaments on the ninth grade team and then come back and play at night for the JV in high school. So it was kind of exhausting. I played a lot of minutes, but it was an incredible experience. I had a senior that was... What was her last name, Julie?
Can't remember her last name, but she was our starting center so I went up against her every day as a freshman and that was a great experience for me. We were okay. We were pretty good, but I just decided to go a different direction then.
Craig Mattick:
You transferred to Brookings your sophomore year. Did you know anybody on the team at the time?
Renae Sallquist:
No, not at the time. The conversations with my parents started the end of my freshman year, so in the spring. Actually we reached out to Coach Holwerda at the time and just said, "Hey, I think we're going to transfer my daughter." This is my mom talking of course, "To Brookings, and she wants to play basketball, so just wondering if you would want to meet her." That's kind of how it started in the spring. T.
Hen I actually started going over, because they played all the time, even off season, practicing with them when I was still at Sioux Valley. I got to know some of the girls right away before the summer even came. Then of course in the summertime we played all the time. By the time I actually got into school my sophomore year I had a really good relationship with most of them and knew them all pretty well.
Craig Mattick:
Well, Amy Mickelson is on the team and you and Amy are both six three. You were labeled the Twin Towers. What was it like playing with Amy?
Renae Sallquist:
Oh my goodness. Wow. It was amazing, first of all, to have a friend that's your height. That was probably the coolest thing about it. We became best friends in high school, and we were both starting our sophomore year so we didn't really go up against each other a lot in practices, so that was kind of interesting. But we both had a different type of game for being 6'3, and coach Holwerda, he was so amazing in his coaching style and how he developed us and realized what all of our individual strengths were, and then really worked on those.
Being at Sioux Valley when I was 6'2 in my freshman year, they focus on you when you're that tall, and having another player on the court that tall, that makes it really difficult for defenses to match up. It was a lot of fun.
Craig Mattick:
Your sophomore year, Brookings wins the consolation championship. Was it a good feeling or a disappointing feeling at least getting the consolation championship that year?
Renae Sallquist:
Well, I think it was good in terms of we won the last two games of the year in the tournament, so went two and one. That was good, but we were really disappointed. We lost to Pierre and we lost to Pierre one time during the regular season. That was only our only loss. I do remember the season I think particularly well because we played up against... Pierre had Karen Hasek and Tessa Terrier, I think her name was, and they were two big posts, so they matched up really well with us.
They were seniors and we were sophomores, and we played them close that first game in the state tournament, but we just couldn't come out with a win, so that was a huge disappointment. But we knew we were young and we had everybody coming back, and that we would go into our junior year with some momentum.
Craig Mattick:
Well, eventually 48 game win streak. You win the state title your junior year. In fact, it's the last year of the two class system back in 1984 and you beat, what, Steph Schueler and Sioux Falls Lincoln by about a dozen points for the championship?
Renae Sallquist:
Right. We were still the two tier in that year, yeah, and we played Lincoln in the championship. That was in the Corn Palace. That was at Mitchell, so yeah, that was our first championship. Lincoln, they had great players too that went on to play college ball so that was a fun game. We were juniors, but then we had this amazing senior class too with Lisa Kurtenbach and Bridget Larson, Tasha Kreiger. If you add up that class and then our class that went on to play college ball I think there were seven of us. It was pretty amazing.
Craig Mattick:
Your senior year, you're undefeated. You bring back everybody but Lisa. Lisa of course was a starter for you guys, Lisa Kurtenbach.
Renae Sallquist:
Yep.
Craig Mattick:
You're a senior, in fact. Was there a lot of pressure on you guys? You know, you had a little winning streak going and we went to the three class system that year. Eventually you make it to the finals and you're going to take on Lisa Van Gore and Yankton.
Renae Sallquist:
Right. Yeah, there was definitely pressure when you're the defending state champion and you have an undefeated streak going on. There's a lot of pressure to continue that. But we had a lot of attention nationally with some of the colleges recruiting us and that could be a big distraction for a team. Our coach just really had us so focused on just winning another state championship and let all the other things just fall by the wayside till the season was over.
I think that just kept us in a position to be able to take one game at a time and get to the state tournament, and then focus on winning it. Yeah, there was a lot of pressure, but I just think we were so blessed with such an amazing coach that he really helped us navigate through that.
Craig Mattick:
What is the most memorable game you can think of as a high school basketball player for Brookings?
Renae Sallquist:
Oh my goodness. The most memorable game? Wow. We had a few of them. I remember going down to Yankton playing Bob... What was his name?
Craig Mattick:
Bob Winter? Bob Winter?
Renae Sallquist:
Bob Winter's team. He always had great teams. I remember going down there to play them on their home court for the first time when I was a sophomore. That was probably the most nervous I had ever been playing in my life because I went to all his basketball camps and knew him, and they just had such great players and such great history. I remember we had a game against Lincoln at Lincoln, Steph Schueler, I think she put up 30 that game. We pulled out a win, but it was pretty tight. Those are probably two of the games I remember the most. Ironically, both those teams we played in our junior and senior championship games.
Craig Mattick:
You choose to play college ball at Vanderbilt in the SEC. What stood out at Vandy?
Renae Sallquist:
That's great. That's a great question. As you might know or may not know, recruiting happened much differently on our team than it happens in today's world athletics, where we basically... Our coach didn't let any college coaches contact us until after our senior year tournament. Very unusual. We kind of knew who was showing up at our games because we sneak into Holwerda's office and see the list of the schools so we kind of knew who was looking at us, but we didn't know who was looking at who or for sure or anything. Literally there's a picture after the state tournament. We went to his office and he had, I would say, I don't know, 16 huge boxes full of materials for Amy, myself, Lisa Rollag, Paula Kenefick, and said, "Here you go girls. Figure it out."
Craig Mattick:
Go at it.
Renae Sallquist:
You would set up hours for when the coaches would call you. I had my hours set up and Coach Holwerda helped communicate that and sent tapes out the whole time. I mean he was very helpful. The first coach that called me was Coach Lee from Vandy. He called about five minutes before the first allotted time, so I don't know. On my recruiting visits and just having talked to all those coaches I just felt like Coach Lee was... I just felt really comfortable with him, and then meeting the teams, that really does it.
What kind of girls around these teams? You're going to spend four years with a lot of them. What's the school like? What's the city like? All of those things have to make sense for you. The academics of course, which of course Vanderbilt had those, and it just all really fit. I did two visits that year, took my parents. My parents with went with on the second one and I just knew. I knew from pretty much probably the first couple weeks of the whole recruiting process that that's where I wanted to go.
Craig Mattick:
Phil Lee, the head coach at Vanderbilt, you guys made the NCAA tournament three times-
Renae Sallquist:
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Craig Mattick:
... while you were there. What were those appearances like?
Renae Sallquist:
Oh my goodness, that was definitely the highlight. We made it my freshman year. We ended up playing on the East coast and I'm not going to remember exactly who played, but we lost in the first round. That was when we just had 32 teams that would make it at that point. We didn't make it my sophomore year, and then junior-
Craig Mattick:
I think it was James Madison.
Renae Sallquist:
James Madison. Was that who it was?
Craig Mattick:
Yep. Yep. How about that?
Renae Sallquist:
Thank you. Boy, you did your research. Oh my gosh. Then sophomore year didn't make it. Junior year we made it and then I think we were-
Craig Mattick:
Lost to St. Joseph.
Renae Sallquist:
Yep. Lost the St. Joseph who, that coach ended up coaching Vanderbilt after Phil Lee left, which is a little piece of trivia there.
Craig Mattick:
But success, a little more success your senior year in the NCAA?
Renae Sallquist:
Yeah, so senior year we ended up going to the Sweet 16 in Iowa, which is where Steph Schueler was playing. Then that regional tournament had University of Washington, which Amy played for, had Iowa, which we... Actually they didn't make the Sweet 16. We beat Iowa to get to the Sweet 16. Then there was Auburn and I'm not going to remember the fourth team because Amy would've played them right away.
Yeah, we're sitting at the banquet and there's Amy at one table, and there's me at another. It was pretty amazing. There were a ton of South Dakota people that came because it was just up the road, up the interstate. Then Amy's team won. We lost to Auburn and so they played Auburn in the final eight.
Craig Mattick:
Washington was ranked number three at one time that year in the NCAA.
Renae Sallquist:
Yeah, they were pretty loaded.
Craig Mattick:
You're at Vanderbilt in the SEC. Amy Mickelson's at Washington in the PAC 10. You never got a chance to play each other in college. Which team would have won if you would've faced each other?
Renae Sallquist:
Well we were having that conversation at the Sweet 16 because if we would've won, we would've played them. Who was going to guard who? We had it all figured out. I would be guarding her, but she wouldn't be guarding me, so we were having these conversations. I don't know. Of course I'm going to say we would've won just because I have to say that, but they went a long ways in the tournament. On paper probably they would've had the advantage, but I think we would've matched up really well because they had another six four post and we had a six four post. Size wise we would've matched up pretty well. It would've been an interesting game. It would've been awesome if we could have played each other.
Craig Mattick:
Renae Sallquist Knopf right here on In Play. What keeps Renae busy today?
Renae Sallquist:
Well, for the last 25 years my girls have kept me incredibly busy, all the sports they play, the volleyball, the basketball, the traveling. That was my thing. Now my youngest is in college and they're scattered all over the nation so life has definitely changed for me. I'm still a huge sports fan and my husband and I watch sports all the time. We occasionally go to a high school game or a college game. My one daughter's still playing college volleyball. I get to watch her on ESPN Plus so that's what I do in the fall. We like to travel a lot because obviously we got to go see them, but I got to find something new here now that I'm in this new transition of life.
Craig Mattick:
We've seen seen some great basketball win streaks in South Dakota. Brookings head of 48 game win streak when you guys won two championships in a row. But since that 1985 Brookings girls team we really haven't seen two 6'3 twin towers. It's kind of been a rarity. What do you remember the most about you and Amy and Brookings High, and that win streak, and playing basketball at that age?
Renae Sallquist:
Well, I just remember the camaraderie on our team. We were not just teammates. We were all great friends. We didn't just play on the basketball court and go to class. We hung out on the weekends and nights and went to movies. It was just an incredible experience. The basketball side of it obviously was amazing. We got to go to a couple national basketball camps and play against some of the top players in the nation at the high school level.
We often wish they would've had a national tournament for high school back when we were playing because I think the highest we were ranked that last year was number three in the nation, and it would've been really exciting to be able to play some of those other nationally ranked teams just to see how we did.
This is what I've taught my daughters. Athletics has just brought so many wonderful positive experiences to my life and to my daughter's life, and I think it's just a really important part of growing up if you have the opportunity to do something like that. It's changed so much with all the travel teams. Back when we were in high school we would play in the summer, but we didn't travel anywhere as far as like they do now. It's just amazing how it has changed. But I would not change that experience for anything.
Craig Mattick:
Paula Kenefick, now Paula Pardy. Paula, welcome to In Play. It's been fun talking about those years of that 1985 Brookings basketball team. You had the chance to play with the Twin Towers, Amy Mickelson and Renae Sallquist. They're 6'3. You're the 5'9 guard. What was that experience like?
Paula Kenefick:
Well, first of all it was a wonderful, wonderful time that we had together. It was quite interesting because in addition to being both of them 6'3, one was left-handed, that was Renae, and one was right-handed. That was Amy. We had the whole court pretty well covered with that combination. It was just fun. They're both great athletes. They could run the floor. We really could do just about anything, play good defense. They were both real good passers too and just very, very unselfish players. It was a great experience.
Craig Mattick:
Jim Holwerda of course, the head coach. How did he keep this very talented team together, especially the last two years, your junior and senior year when you went undefeated and won two state titles?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, he did an amazing job of that. One thing is he always emphasized that everybody had a role to play and he was very good at communicating with us about what our role was. He just had a huge focus on the team overall achieving the goal together. Each person would have a good night and you'd get patted on the back for that, but that wasn't the end of the story. You know, you have another game coming up and maybe that wasn't going to be your best night so you know you can rely on your teammates. He always told us that if you can surround yourself with good people, good things will happen. I think he was such a wonderful role model for that because he was a good person that really cared about us and put a lot of effort into our success.
Craig Mattick:
We've certainly dealt a lot with Amy Mickelson and Renae Sallquist, and you, Paula, mainly because you guys went on to all play division one basketball. But back your senior year you also had Lisa Rollag on your team, and Stacy Grorud also was on the team. what about those two players? How were they a part of this big time Brookings basketball team?
Paula Kenefick:
Well, we all put in a lot of time playing, getting read on the off season and so Coach Holwerda challenged us to put in 300 hours of practice over the course of, for us it was the winter and the summer leading up to the fall season. All of us were at open gym all the time just playing a lot of basketball. Now it's more common, but that many years ago we put in a lot more time than other people were putting in and that's I think how we were so deep.
Because if you didn't show up at open gym in the summer or on the weekends you were missing out, and it was just a lot of fun. Lisa was a great athlete. She had played at SDSU, played basketball. She was also a top cross country runner in high school and she did track so she's just a phenomenal athlete and was a real good shooter. Stacy Grorud was a great outside shooter.
I remember reading one article in the register or something about calling Stacy a lights out shooter and that was true. Again, just hard workers, everybody. We had a great team chemistry and we got together again this fall for the Hall of Fame induction and it was just like we hadn't missed a beat. That's just the kind of relationships that we all had with each other is it was just back as if we had seen each other a week or two ago. It's just a really, really good tight group of people that really cared a lot about each other.
Craig Mattick:
Paula, were you the one that brought the ball down the court most of the time? Were you the one calling the offensive play, getting ready to give it to Renae or to Amy?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, I definitely brought the ball up a lot. That was a role I got into mainly in my senior year because my junior year Lisa Kurtenbach was on our team still and she was a big time forward general. But yeah, I stepped into that role and I really enjoyed that. I liked the part where you're kind of the coach on the floor where you're understanding what the coach is trying to get you guys to do and can communicate that to the team. But yeah, a lot of passes into the post went to Renae and Amy during those years.
Craig Mattick:
1985, the year Brookings girls ranked number three in the country by USA Today. What was the reaction there in Brookings when that happened?
Paula Kenefick:
People were pretty excited. It was almost even for us, it was a little bit hard to imagine that we had reached that. I think Renae and Lisa, and Amy and I had gone to All Stars Camp the summer before in Indiana and so we'd played against some of those kids that were on the teams that were ranked on the top. I think we felt like we could see ourselves in that kind of company. But yeah, it was real fun. It was always in the paper about how highly we were ranked and we had such a great, great crowd in Brookings that would come to the games and just really, really supportive. It was some of my favorite memories I think are running into the gym with a big crowd there and circling around the gym to warm up, and then starting to warm up and just having a great Brookings there to support us.
Craig Mattick:
Those last two years you had a 48 game win streak. Do you remember a couple of those games where this streak almost ended?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, I think we got a scare from Lincoln maybe at the beginning of the '85 year. We had-
Craig Mattick:
That would've been against Lincoln and Steph Schueler playing that year.
Paula Kenefick:
That's correct, yes, yes. Then I think that was when we played them down at Lincoln if I remember correctly, and then when they came up to Brookings we took care of business a little bit better than we did that other time.
Craig Mattick:
So after high school Mickelson goes to Washington in the Pac 10, Sallquist goes to Vanderbilt and the SEC, and you become the third starter from that 1985 team to go play division one basketball. You go to the Ivy League and to Yale. What was it about Yale?
Paula Kenefick:
Well, I hadn't really thought too much about that as an option until I heard from them just in the recruiting process. I went out to visit and I just really hit it off with the team, with the people that were there and I really liked the coaches, and I liked the challenging academic environment. Yeah, it just felt like a really good fit when I went out to visit and it turned out to be a great fit. I really have very great friends from that team as well and we had a lot of good years together.
Craig Mattick:
Was Diane Nestall? The coach?
Paula Kenefick:
That's right, yeah.
Craig Mattick:
Well, what kind of coach was Diane?
Paula Kenefick:
She was from Indiana so her style was, I would say pretty hardcore as far as expectations like being on time, completing each practice to the best of your ability, given it the best effort that you could have. Focused on defense. Yeah, she was a great coach, really got a lot out of us. Also she had this ability to draw the team together. I'd say similar to Coach Holwerda, that everybody felt like they were valued and they would be willing to give everything they had to help the team, and again a real focus on team and the importance of the team in basketball.
Craig Mattick:
What's kind of crazy, a little connection, Chris Golbrecht was Amy Mickelson's coach at the University of Washington. Chris went to Yale in 2005.
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, yeah.
Craig Mattick:
But now she's been at Air Force Academy now for the past eight years. How would that been-
Paula Kenefick:
And I think-
Craig Mattick:
... if Chris would've been your coach at Yale maybe later on?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah. Oh yeah, that would be real interesting. But yeah, no, I think she did a great job there and I know Amy enjoyed having her as a coach.
Craig Mattick:
While you were at Yale though not the best record, about a 500 record for your career. What was Yale basketball like in your chance to play Division one women's basketball?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. We didn't have incredible seasons in terms of wins and losses, but I'll tell you the relationships that we made and the team atmosphere that we had, we still are getting together every few years as a group because we just really enjoyed each other that much. I guess I would say that we had some great games. It was always fun when we beat Harvard. Had a couple last second shot wins and that's always fun to look back on. But I think the best part of it is the family and the relationship that we were able to form while we were there together.
Craig Mattick:
You're saying you didn't care what the record was during the year as long as you beat Harvard that year?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Craig Mattick:
You did get all Ivy League honors. Great time at Yale, so what happened after basketball was done at Yale?
Paula Kenefick:
Well, I spent about four years teaching at a school called Shadyside Academy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I actually coached. I taught high school biology and I coached basketball there. After doing that for a few years, then I came back to South Dakota and went to med school. I got married at the end of med school to my husband that I'm married to currently and we went out to Colorado to do residency. I did an OB/GYN residency there for four years and then started working. Eventually we moved back to Sioux Falls and now I've been staying at home with my kids for the last bunch of years and really enjoying that.
Craig Mattick:
Four kids, I would assume they're all big basketball players or did that work out?
Paula Kenefick:
Well, I tried. I tried. No, we got into... They're all swimmers. We got into that when they were young and that kind of took us that direction. I have had... My youngest son has played a few years in Y ball and I coached him in that and enjoyed it, but he seems to be liking swimming better right now. I've got a couple of kids that have done cross country and track and have done well at that.
Craig Mattick:
Nice.
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, so they found their own things and enjoy what they do, so that's great.
Craig Mattick:
Always looking for coaches. Any thought of coaching again?
Paula Kenefick:
Yeah, certainly. I really enjoyed the Y Ball when I was coaching my son, so yeah, who knows?
Craig Mattick:
Well, we've talked with Amy Mickelson and Renae Sallquist, and we've talked with you today, Paula, from the great Brookings 1985 team. You all live in Sioux Falls now. Do you get together often and when you do, who's the first one that talks about the 1985 season?
Paula Kenefick:
We do get together and it's always great to see each other. I don't know. I think we just all have the conversation and have a few good laughs, and just really enjoy each other's company.
Craig Mattick:
When you think about it, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you're thinking about your basketball career, whether it was the '85 Brookings team or maybe it was something in college? What do you think about once in a while?
Paula Kenefick:
Huh. Well, definitely the thing I take away from both my high school and my college experiences is being on a team, being part of a team contributing, and just the support that you get from people that you put in that much effort with into trying to win a game. I love to win games, but I think in the long term what you mostly take away from an experience like that is just the bond that you have with people. There's nothing like that bond that's forged in the long practices that you have and the effort that you put into it.
Craig Mattick:
He was the coach of that 1985 Brookings girls basketball team. In fact, in 1985 after they won the state title and they went undefeated again had a win streak of 48 in a row. He was named the National Coach of the Year. He's Jim Holwerda. Jim, welcome to In Play.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Well Craig, thanks a lot. I'm happy to be with you, particularly to be able to talk about some of those wonderful kids that we had at that time. It was just amazing. It's one of those things that just happened and we feel very blessed because of it because that type of thing doesn't happen very often.
Craig Mattick:
It wasn't too long ago, Jim, that you got a chance to see some of the players again when you guys were honored by the South Dakota High School Basketball Hall of Fame. It wasn't too long ago.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
That's true. It was a very interesting moment because we had tried to plan. We were going to try to have some get togethers after all this happened earlier and it just never really happened. People were all spread out and this type of thing. We hadn't seen each other for probably 35, 40 years. When we walked in the room the day before, they were having some discussions going on and so on.
The whole group of kids were over around some paraphernalia that we had for those years, and they just came running and we kind of just grabbed each other's arms. It was a wonderful thing. Since then we've had quite a bit of correspondence, particularly I have with Paula because she's kind of the go getter I think and keeps things up for the rest of them.
Craig Mattick:
Figures. Point guards do that, don't they?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yes, they do.
Craig Mattick:
Where did your coaching path go to get to Brookings?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Well, real quickly, I don't want to toot my horn very much because I want to give these kids so much credit because they had so many things that you have to have to have that quality of a team that a coach absolutely cannot teach them. It's got to be heredity. They have to have a real competitive spirit.
They may have quickness and speed and this type of thing, and those types of things, so I want them to have the credit. But I was born and raised in Kansas and I had the opportunity in a class A school. I started on the varsity as a freshman and played there, and then I was recruited by Kansas State University and had some wonderful times there. We were ranked number one in the nation under Tex Winter and we had a couple All Americans playing for us. We played against a lot of good people, played against Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor-
Craig Mattick:
Nice.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
... people like that who were all Americans. Then I went on to Kansas City right out there at graduation into a larger high school, Turner High School, and ended up getting some really good kids there too. Ended up number two in Kansas City for a while. From there then I went up to Yankton College and again was fortunate to get good kids. I'm saying that because you have to have the quality. You have to have the people that have the ability to get the job done.
I was a little bit fortunate because I could recruit some of the kids out of the Big Eight which it was. It's now the Big 12. I knew the coaches there and so on, and so that's what I did. We did get one person who made All American for us back in college and he was from KU, 6'8.
I recruited a couple of kids from our high school when we had our good teams in Kansas City, and we did go on and have a... Well, we won the conference three or four years out of the six years I was there, and also went to the national tournament in Kansas City. Then I was called by a friend of the superintendent there who was vice superintendent in Kansas City when I was there and he asked if they needed an athletic director and if I'd be interested. Well, I knew that Yankton College was having some problems and so we closed the shop there and we did go onto Brookings, and I did not go in the classroom there. I was strictly administration as athletic director. Then that's about the time girls basketball started and we got really involved in that because we had actually more things for the girls than just about anybody in the state at that time.
But what they were saying was that you still don't have enough, and so they took us to court and that was quite an experience. The basketball started there. Another little piece of trivia that you might like to know is when I went up to Brookings I noticed our middle school boys team had a little squad. They weren't very big and they had no trouble handling the ball, so I wanted to try our experiment. We took the small basketball and we used that and it was such a success.
We took it to Ruth Rain at the High School Activities Association. They got permission to use that small basketball at a state tournament and in play for two years, and then they finally adopted it. We had something to do with the smaller basketball that the girls were playing with. Then of course I did end up, because we lost our girls' basketball coach and we couldn't find what we wanted, and so I agreed to take it and also ended up coaching the boys a couple, two or three years too because of the same thing. But I feel very blessed and just always had good kids. That's what's so true about these girls.
Craig Mattick:
Couple of years before 1983 these young ladies are still perfecting their craft, but did you see something that maybe in a couple of years that the Amy Mickelsons and the Keneficks... Because I know that Sallquist transferred I think when she was a junior, but did you see that these girls had a chance to be something special?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Well, Greg, I had to be pretty ignorant not to because they were very talented, but this honor we all received really started in '81, '82. We went to four straight state tournaments and the first tournament we went to in '80, well it was 82 probably we'll call it, because girls basketball was in the fall. But we lost our first ball game to a good ball club and we were just like 11 and 10 that season.
But we won our next two ball games. During the consolation game at the end as we were defeating the team that we were playing, my assistant coach poked me and he said, "Look out there on that court coach." We had four sophomores and a freshman on the court in a state tournament. The same thing happened the next year. We did get defeated the very first game of the state tournament and then went on and won in the next two, so we technically won like 50 straight after that.
That season we were 20 and four, so we had three really good seasons. After working with the kids and so on and their loyalty, their hard work, they were just an exceptional group. I couldn't go too far without saying they were extremely intelligent bunch of kids with great grades in school and so on. The funny thing was actually strange, was we had a player for each position, so to speak.
A lot of times you may get some doubling up, and we did have one position double up. We had a young lady by the name of Sherry Minor who made the Allstate team as a sophomore. Then the next year Renae Sallquist, the 6'3 All American transferred to us from a neighboring school, and so that Sherry Minor then became a bench player. She still was very instrumental in our play, but she could only play with her back to the basket, and then she was not a perimeter player and so that limited her a little bit.
But yeah, we knew we had something, but I didn't even fathom. In fact, the kids teased me because I told them many times, I said, "It's unrealistic, girls, to feel that we can go undefeated. We can try, but that's unrealistic in the game of basketball as many games as you play."
Craig Mattick:
Well, 1984 you do go undefeated. You beat Lincoln that year in the state tournament, and then the following year it's the start of the three class system and you beat Yankton in the final and go undefeated again. There were a lot of teams, they didn't have two 6'3 players. They called Mickelson and Sallquist the twin towers for Brookings there in 1985. Did you have to change a little bit of your coaching philosophy or the way that you played basketball because you had two 6'3 players that could play the post or maybe play a little bit outside?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yes, we did, but again just my days at Kansas State under Tex Winter, he was an unbelievable fundamental coach and I loved defense so we changed defenses all kinds of times. I knew that we needed to get all of those players on the floor, just like you're saying. Actually we were playing then a little bit now like basketball is where they clear out the center and its penetration to the center and to the hoop.
What we did, Amy was right-handed and Renae was lefthanded, and so we put them way down on the blocks and left the center open. We get unbelievable number of points with penetration and then check off to stop the penetration and the little bounce pass and two points. Now Renae could play from 15, 16 feet facing the basket as well as underneath. Amy was more of a post player so we did move Renae out some, but we changed in a lot of ways.
The biggest difference during those years of play, people... I mean many times, just because we had so much talent many of the games were over at halftime and so our bench got a lot of playing. We had a strong bench because of that. It's just, we changed a lot of things. But what they did then, they started really trying to slow the game up because we had scored 80 points, 75 points, this type of thing. We set a CESD record scoring and rebounding. It made the game a little bit different, so we had to change a lot of things. We actually did a lot of pressing and we weren't really a typical real good pressing team because of two 6'3 big girls. We had to make them be able to press and trap.
The opponents, we still allowed them to get shots. We told them that, "Now we're going to give them shots, but we're not to give the kind of shots they're used to getting." They got a lot of shots on the move and this type of thing, and so consequently their shooting percentage probably wasn't quite as good. The odd thing is we never had an overtime game in any of those years. Never.
The closest game we had, Aberdeen played us real good once and we only beat them by four points at Aberdeen when we had beaten them 32 points at home. The mental attitude, how you get up for a game and so on makes a big difference in some of those things. But we had to change. We had to change a lot. But we had the kids that could do it.
Craig Mattick:
Yes, you did. You certainly did. In fact, the three players that we've mentioned eventually went on to play division one basketball, Washington, Vanderbilt, and also-
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yale.
Craig Mattick:
... Yale-
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yale.
Craig Mattick:
... in the Ivy League. I was told that when it was time for recruiting that you really didn't want the girls to be worried about that recruiting at the time. I was told by one of the ladies that once the season was done, then you would throw the pamphlets out and said, "Go ahead and take a look at some of these schools." Is that true?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
That probably came from Amy. I'll tell you, I was real concerned about that because I had been through the recruiting process myself and I had also had a lot of players that had been recruited and this type of thing, and so I knew what kind of a business that could be, the big head and this type thing, trying to be a star and so on. These kids were not that type of kids, but you don't leave any stone unturned.
I actually asked the parents of the Mickelsons and Sallquist to come into my office and meet with them and I told them. I said, "This is a situation where there's going to be a lot of pressure. There's going to be a lot of schools. These kids..." And it's changed now. A lot of kids are recruited when they're sophomores.
Craig Mattick:
Yep.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
At that time that wasn't true, but I said, "You're going to start getting letters and everything else when these kids are just sophomores." I said, "I know they've got the ability. They're going to be really looked at." And so I said, "I'll make you a promise." I gave a pretty good story why it would their benefit not to do it. I asked all the coaches, and we had 60 schools that were recruiting Amy and Renae, and we made five video tapes and I kept it up to date, and I were sending those to all schools so they could see games and everything else.
We did a lot for the kids. I asked that all of the information from those colleges come to our office and I would see that they got it. I got two big boxes and put them in my office, and I put everything there. After our final game their senior year I gave those boxes to them and they went. The phone started ringing.
It was interesting because I had several coaches say to me, college coaches, "You're just trying to save them for Kansas State." I said, "No, I'm not. I'll have nothing new." Well, the way it worked out they figured that out. Actually because of all of that, I have a strong feeling, and because the kids were outstanding, that's why they elected myself Coach of the Year, National Coach of the Year, because the college coaches, they vote on that, and they did. I just sent so much information they knew things about those kids.
It was amazing. But it was a good ride and we were such a true family and we got together really well. We didn't have any problem. The only problem we really had was that the talent was so good like I said before, at times the ballgame was basically over, a 20 point lead at halftime, 18 point lead at halftime, so we played a lot of people. The kids who were mostly the starters, the first line, they would once in a while say, "Coach, we want to play more."I said, "Yeah, you guys do and you won't be here when we don't have people like you, but I'll still be here." And I said, "That's just the kind of code of ethics in coaching. You don't just run all over people."
Craig Mattick:
Jim.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
That's kind the way we that's handled it, and that's the way we handled the recruiting. In fact, a couple of those recruiters, I think a couple, the coach from Washington I think stayed in our home once when she came down to Brookings. We had close relationship with them and I thought they might go to the same school, but they didn't obviously. It is amazing. It just was. Amy Mickelson, they weren't televising very many games in those days, but they televised a very important game with the University of Washington and UCLA. She was elected the player of the game. Renae was very strong in getting them into the final 64, 62.
Craig Mattick:
At Vanderbilt. Yep.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yeah, at Vanderbilt. It was just was amazing. The kids were all very competitive and just all outstanding. Lisa Kurtenbach needs some mentioning, Craig. The Kurtenbachs are the ones that owned the scoreboards there in Brookings.
Craig Mattick:
She was on that first undefeated team in 1984.
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yeah, she was Miss Basketball in South Dakota her senior year. Well, I mean she was an outstanding basketball player and she went on to play as Lisa Rollag did too up in South Dakota state. But Lisa just performed for them outstandingly, and so she really deserves some mentioning. But it was quite a ride and I tell kids we were really blessed and it was really great. I kid them. They give me more credit than I think they should because they were just so talented and so willing to work so hard. We had a hundred hour, 200 hour club in the summertime and boy, they put those hours in the gym in the summertime playing and it was a fun ride.
Craig Mattick:
Jim, I got two quick questions for you. One, what was the biggest advice you gave to your basketball team outside of basketball?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
I think it was probably, couple have said this that would probably surprise you, but I said, "God comes first, family comes second, and basketball is third."
Craig Mattick:
What's keeping you busy today, Jim? Do you still miss being on the sidelines seeing-
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yeah, but...
Craig Mattick:
... Mickelson and Sallquist, and Kenefick back at it again?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yeah, we converse back and forth a little bit, but I've had so many blessings in my life that I can't complain at all. My legs are pretty well shot. I still can walk good, decent, anyway. But I had to give up golf about eight years ago and I've had open heart surgery and some other surgery, but we're still okay. We're living in a senior center now.
Craig Mattick:
In Arkansas?
Coach Jim Holwerda:
Yes, in Arkansas. We just feel very blessed, and I know the kids do too, because we talked about that a lot.
Craig Mattick:
If you like what you're hearing, please give us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. Programs such as this are only possible through the continued support of our listeners like you. For South Dakota Public Broadcasting, I'm Craig Mattick. Join us again on the next episode of In Play.
