Gentlemen and ladies:  I'm not sure what (if anything) the Capital Journal printed today for my column, so I'm sending you the article I wrote.

Thanks to you all for your responses.  It was fun to hear from you all and to reminisce over that great period of time 30 years ago.

I got so much information back from you all that there wasn't room for any of the personal/family/employment stuff for which I asked you, so I am going to write more about you all in next week's Midweek Update.  You should receive it in your inbox sometime next Thursday if all goes well.

Thanks again.  Go, Govs!

---  Parker
From: parker_knox@hotmail.com
To: news@capjournal.com; steve.baker@capjournal.com
Subject: PARKER'S COLUMN FOR 3/13/09
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 200914:30:38 -0600

If basketball does not interest you, then you can't comprehend what turns on so many of us about this time of year.  If you persist in dwelling more on the stimulus package, the smoking ban or, heaven forbid, Rush Limbaugh, right now, then try to consider this a people column which happens to have a sports connection rather than a sports column, OK?  After all, it's supposed to be the former, rather than the latter.

St. Patrick's Day will be the 30th anniversary of a night when Pierre turned the Sioux Falls Arena into a sea of green, not because of the Irish holiday, but because of a dozen young men who represented the best a community had to offer and because of a thousand or so of the rest of us who followed them there.

The legendary Coach Paul Marschalk and his 1944 state "A" champion Governors were in Sioux Falls for a 35-year reunion of their title.  Roger Pries was coaching his final weekend for the Governors with assistant Bob Judson already set to take over the reins the following year.  The Govs had lucked out with a good draw (nobody heard of seeding teams back in those days!).  And Saturday would be St. Patrick's Day.  Add all of that to the fact that this was a team on a mission, and the outcome was almost inevitable.

As Don Lindner of the Rapid City Journal wrote a day later, "The color Saturday was green, symbolic of wealth, luck, growth and all that is good.  And everything was good on this St. Patrick's Day for the Pierre Governors.  It took 35 years for a Pierre team to get back to the finals, and this one made the most of the opportunity."

It has been said that, once you're a Governor, you're always a Governor.  Maybe that's why so many of us, despite living far away, still watch for the Pierre game when the scores roll by on the 10 o'clock sports shows.  And maybe that's why, almost incredibly, nine of the 12 men on that 1979 tournament squad still live in Pierre 30 years later, and many have remained close friends.

Todd Schuetzle recalls that the team's mission had begun a year earlier in Rapid City.  "As juniors in 1978 we decided we would not pack suits to wear for the medal ceremonies in 1979 because we knew we would be playing in the championship game," he said.

Big Joe, the fourth of Vernon Ashley's sons to play for Pries and a fellow whom an Argus Leader sportswriter would describe as "Pierre's 6-foot-11 leprechaun," remembers that the season didn't begin well.  Pierre, a pre-season No. 1 with Lincoln, lost its first two games, one of them to Huron.  "I was very frustrated at that point because I had worked hard in the offseason," Joe said last week.  "But we regrouped and set some goals.  I won some personal honors along the way, but I always remember most what we did as a team that year."

Dan Rounds, the shortest man on the squad, thinks back to the school's replacing the fan backboards with big square backboards during the season.  A Capital Journal photo marking the purchase made reference to the foam padding at the bottom of the new backboard, the purpose of which was to "prevent players like Dan Rounds and Joe Ashley from injuring their elbows."  Ashley's?  Probably.  Dan's?  Not likely.

One of Mark Cichos' painful memories of the season was those elbows of Ashley hitting everyone in the head at each practice.

"It was such a great chapter in my life to be captain of that team," Bob Stalley reminisced fondly.  One of the perks of that role was accepting the Governor's Cup trophy from a young Gov. Bill Janklow after he had first given the buffalo skull to the Bismarck team.  "The Governor's Cup was a big deal back then," Stalley said.  "Big school (Bismarck) vs. little school; their big civic center vs. our gym, but we took it to them."

Huron, which had robbed Pierre of an undefeated football season in the fall, dealt the Govs another loss during the season at Riggs.  And the Govs stumbled in another conference game at Madison.  But they never lost again.  Perhaps it was the "Coach of the Year" ring Pries received from his daughter in mid-February that was the lucky charm; maybe it was simply the determination of a great team.

To win a co-ESD title the Govs had to win on the road in the dark old Civic Arena in Aberdeen.  Pries may have, to the public, seemed reserved, quiet and mild-mannered, but Stalley excitedly remembers that on the way home from that win, Pries ordered the bus driver to stop and turn on the lights.  Then he told his team to get noisy.

Admittedly Pierre played in an easier sectional than most of the big "A" schools, having to beat out only Miller, ToddCounty and Winner to reach state.  But there would be no letdown when Section 6 was played at Riggs.  Just whose idea it was that Ashley would slam-dunk the ball during pregame warmups remains to be investigated---it meant an automatic technical foul to start the game---but it fired up the crowd and even more fired up the team, and they blew through the sectional.

"The team was a great group of guys," says Tom Burchill, "eight seniors and four juniors.  (Tim) Flannery and Stalley were very steady at the guards, and Joe was a very unselfish, great shot-blocker with good touch for a seven-footer.  Schuetzle was our intimidator, our banger, and was the one who kept everybody focused.  (Bob) Tinker helped with his rebounding and putbacks.  I was more of a role player who did rebounding but also helped handle the ball when needed.  All of the guys contributed in practice."

One of the jobs of student manager Brent Kleinsasser, who now appropriately enough is a coach himself in North Dakota, was to keep everyone's egos in check, according to Cichos.

"We had the perfect offense," Schuetzle said.  "Throw it into the middle to Big Joe, and when the defense would shut that down, we kicked it back out to Burchill or Stalley for outside shots."

Tinker, a workhorse who had a sensational sectional tournament at home, including 19 points and six rebounds in the title game against Winner when Ashley was "held" to 17 points, remembers his friendship with Joe throughout high school.  They both had keys to the gym (does that happen any more?!), "and we would often go in to play in the evenings and weekends."

The coaching staff of Pries, Judson, Vern Miller and Skip Kurth all still live in Pierre, too.  Stalley remembers that Pries worked with the guards.  "He knew when we should run and when we should slow it down," Stalley said.  "Judson worked with the forwards and with Joe, and he taught Tinker how to always be in perfect position.  Miller was always there to tell Tim (Flannery) and me what we were doing and to encourage us to keep trying to be precise.  I respect those coaches so much.  They knew our talents and exploited them to the fullest."

Kleinsasser's partner as manager, Kevin Samis, recalls the state tourney opener against Canton.  Pries had fired up the team with a pre-tourney TV interview in which he almost cockily told the sportscaster that his Govs were the team to beat and that they weren't afraid of anybody, including favorite Lincoln, which hadn't lost to a South Dakota team.  The Govs led 27-7 after a quarter and 44-17 at halftime, allowing Pries to play all 12 men and to rest the starters.

As the Govs hoped, Huron ousted Lincoln in their opener, so the semifinal opponent was the Tigers.  Schuetzle says it was almost more exciting to beat them in the semis---and to do so by double figures---than it was to win the next night.  Well, almost.

Then came Saturday.  Cheerleader Jackie (Ivers) Archbold remembers it was also fellow cheerleader Deb (Nellermoe) Mortenson's birthday.  She also recalls the Shamrock shakes from McDonald's, their green and white saddle shoes and striped socks, and looking into the crowd and seeing green leprechauns everywhere.

"My memory is how the whole community of Pierre was so excited," says cheerleader Anne (Burchill) Williams.

In the locker room principal Roger Lonbaken gave a pre-game talk, and Rich Chapman of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes led a prayer, and away they went to get the job done against Rapid City.

The Govs had to battle.  It was 15-11 after a quarter, but the Cobblers got their last lead at 23-22.  But Ashley clogged the middle, blocked shots, snared rebounds and went berserk with a 32-point game.  Stalley added 15, and Burchill had eight points and eight boards.

Rapid made one last run and got to within 56-49 with 5:31 left, but Flannery scored on a drive, Tinker got one from underneath on an Ashley assist, and Stalley scored after Ashley blocked a shot.  Suddenly it was 62-49, and the maddened throng in green---even athletic director Phil Trautner high up in the corner where he could stand and chew his nails in private---knew the deed was done.

Jackie remembers the sight of Flannery collapsing on the arena floor afterward---so exhausted yet so very happy.

Kevin Merrill remembers the last few seconds ticking off the clock and then getting mobbed by the Pierre fans.  "The fans were great and truly supportive," he said.

A proud Lonbaken, as a member of the SDHSAA Board of Control, had the honor of presenting their medals to his hometown state champs.

On the way home the next day, with a state tournament snowstorm headed in from the west, the team stopped for late breakfast in Mitchell.  A few miles later, they had to backtrack because somebody had left their precious cargo---the state "A" trophy---on the restaurant table.

When their mini-van reached the KGFX towers south of Fort Pierre, "it gave us chills," said Cichos.  Cars were lined up on both sides of the highway to follow the team the rest of the way home.  In Fort Pierre their fire trucks lined the highway, and fans held up posters.  Pierre's biggest and noisiest fire truck waited at the west end of the bridge, next to the old Frontier Motel, to lead the procession up to Riggs.

As the team unloaded at the school, Tinker carried the trophy over his head as he and his teammates walked up under the old canopy that used to extend down the hill from the front door.  In the packed gym Mayor Clint Gregory, Coach Marschalk, emcee Chuck Bohn, cheerleader adviser Carol Pickering, school board chairman Howard Hutchings all spoke, and Pries told an anecdote about each of his athletes.

Finally Supt. Darwin Tessier, who had gone to grades 1-12 with Pries in Watertown, brought down the house with his announcement that there would be no school on Monday.  Nobody could top that.

Two days later, the late Dean Sorenson, on his KCCR editorial, perhaps said it best.  "You have given us a new spirit and, best of all, the entire state a new look at Pierre.  We're getting more and more of a winning spirit in this community.  High school sports is another extension and living evidence that the winners are here.  Your community, Governors, should try to continue the fine example you've set."

Dave Lingle, another member of the '79 team, says his favorite memory, even 30 years later, is that "I was a member of a special group of players and coaches and that I am a member of a state championship team.  Very few people can say that."

Merrill, Rounds, Cichos, Lingle, Schuetzle, Flannery, Stalley, Tinker and Ashley all still live in Pierre.  Burchill and Scott Gullickson are in Sioux Falls, and Dave Victor is in Mitchell.  Kleinsasser teaches at Strasburg, N.D., and Samis lives in Brookings.

They're all approaching the age of 50 now, but to many of us they still seem to be those boys of 17 and 18 who carried a whole city on their backs through a memorable winter.  Together, they and we were the Mean Green Machine.