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stadium at Crane-Youngworth Field. That, to me, is just perfect for
broadcasting. It’s 20 rows up, just the right amount of room. It’s a good
view of everything. They get the new turf in next year. I can’t think of
any other place — certainly for a high school, I’m not talking USD or
SDSU — certainly for a school district facility, that’s any better in South
Dakota.
JVG: For me, for a single game, it would probably be Williams
Arena, when the Coyote men won there in double overtime a couple
years ago. The atmosphere. Minnesota had gotten off to a rough start
that year. I don’t think the place was rocking like it usually is, or can be.
But, as far as an overall venue — I’ve done games there since 1984 — it
would be the DakotaDome for football. Even for basketball, for the
chance to sit courtside and do games there, it’s always been a favorite.
JT: Duke, obviously, would be up there for me. That’s just an iconic
place.
The sentimental one would be when we went to Lincoln, at
Nebraska. Growing up in the state of Nebraska, even though it wasn’t
Devaney (the Bob Devaney Sports Center) — I had done games at
Devaney for high school sports. Pinnacle Bank Arena had just opened,
and you’re sitting, for me, not far down the line from Matt Coatney,
who was doing the Husker women and still does, a guy I made contact
with a long time ago. To be in that venue, you’re on the other side,
but there’s over 7,000 people there for a regular season game between
Nebraska and South Dakota.
To me that was pretty cool. Everybody has goals and, for me, to do
Nebraska games one day was kinda like, the idea. To do it in that with
building with Nebraska building, but for the other team, was a unique
experience.
JDC: I won’t say “worst,” but what’s the strangest setup
you’ve had to broadcast a game from?
SK: I’ll give you mine. Before the days of cell phones, at Sioux City
Heelan, the Bucks played at Sioux City Heelan. Got there, and no
phone line. The year before, there was. My own stupid fault, I didn’t get
there early enough.
Bottom line, I sat at a little school desk out in the hallway, outside
of the athletic director’s office, and used his telephone. I had a couple
of parents at the end of the gym, down the hallway, do flashcards of the
guys, what number was scoring baskets, and I did the whole broadcast
just guessing.
And for the opponents, I took the program, and they would flash
the score. And during time outs, I would run up and see the score.
Basically made up the whole game, but parents helped out. Then at
halftime I ran out to the official scorebook, see how far off I was.
So I made up the whole game. You could still hear the buzzer and
the whole crowd, because it was about 30 feet away.
JVG: I had kind of a bad experience at Midland University, at
the time it was Midland Lutheran College. The phone line that I was
supposed to use had somehow gotten disconnected. It was like a
two-way, one that went between Fremont High School, Midland and
the station. It had gotten disconnected somehow at the Fremont High
School site, and it was dead. I sat there through the whole first half.
They have a great facility now, but they used to play in a fieldhouse
where the softball coach, who I also think was the SID (Sports
Information Director) at the time said, “Look, what I can do is, my
office is just off the fieldhouse area. I’ve got this length of phone cord.
I can set up a table. It will be in an open area on one end of the court,
but anywhere from 20 to 25 feet from the end of the court.”
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At halftime, I managed to get a scoresheet, or halftime stats, then I
picked up the broadcast from there. You’re far away, ground level, and
trying to make stuff up. I got sorry notes for about a month from those
people down there.
But that was, for just sitting there and not thinking about it, then
actually to get the game in, was kind an unusual thing.
JT: Was his name Kramer?
JVG: Kramme. Heath Kramme.
JT: For me, one of the most unique was when I was in college,
covering Doane in the GPAC softball tournament in Sioux City.
Doane had lost a game and got put on a field that really wasn’t near the
other groupings of fields. And the closest power was in the middle of a
park.
I went around and asked nicely to GPAC Commissioner Corey
Westra, the SID at the time at Dana, Doane’s SID and others, even a
couple of softball players’ parents had extension cords. Seven extension
cords later, it got me, probably, about 30 yards from the backstop. So
we set up shop there.
Then you dealt with, hoping people would realize you’re trying to
do a broadcast and not stand behind the backstop and block the view.
That was probably one of the more challenging to get on the air.
We were discussing, maybe doing it from the car in the outfield, if had
an adapter that would go into the cigarette lighter so we could power
everything, but we rounded up enough extension cords to get close.
SK: And everybody got there extension cords back.
JT: They did.
SK: Which one is yours? The green one or the red one.
In other words, usually equipment is the issue.
JVG: I’ve done baseball games from the front seat of a van
many times, parked right next to the backstop. That’s just how it is
sometimes.
JT: We’ve all done it from scaffolding of some sort. Back of a pickup
in Wynot for a high school playoff game a few years ago was fun.
JVG: I did that in Coleridge a few years ago, back in the 80s.
SK: I remember doing that in Coleridge, and I remember you (Van
Goor) maybe Kearney. It was a Crofton game, I broadcast from the
front seat of a vehicle, and you were upstairs.
JVG: I was upstairs.
SK: You were up, looking like that could go at any minute.
JVG: I know. That was a mistake. You were in the endzone in the
front seat of your car.
SK: Yes. (Thayer laughs) You may have a better view, but you might
not make it through the two hours.
JVG: And I had the, who was that gentleman from Crofton that
was doing the filming?
SK: It wasn’t that many years ago, really.
JVG: I see his face, and he’s going, “Why is this thing moving?” I’m
just, “don’t think about it right now. Don’t move. Don’t move.” And it
worked out.
JT: I had a playoff game in Colorado, at Hotchkiss, which is on
the western slope. They had just built a brand new field, but had no
pressbox or anything. So they put up scaffolding. It was surprisingly
nice, the western slope during playoff football time, but the wind was
blowing so the whole thing was swaying.
My color analyst was a pretty big guy, took us a little bit to get him
up there. We’re in the middle of the game, and somebody else had
come up, and apparently didn’t shut the trap door. I stepped back in
the middle of the broadcast
SK: Oooh
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