A teacher and coach who spent most of his time running Mitchell High School’s successful basketball program has died. Gary Munsen died at home Tuesday morning.
Gary Munsen was a larger-than-life figure in his four decades on South Dakota’s sidelines. He was a big man, known for his intensity, and his success as coach of the Mitchell Kernels. A former player who became a friend of Munsen is Steve Culhane, now the business manager for the Mitchell School District.
Culhane reflects, “I played for two years for Coach Munsen, in his second and third year as coach of the Kernels. And so, I’ve known Gary for a long time, and he basically earned all the success that he had, because he outworked everybody over all the years that he coached.”
Munsen coached the boys’ basketball team for 39 years—taking 34 of those teams to the State Tournament. He won nine state titles, plus three more as the girls’ coach when high school basketball was played in the fall. Steve Culhane’s son was a second-generation family member to wear a Kernels uniform.
Culhane says, “One of the things that Gary was very good at was making everyone feel important—and everyone that basically played under him, he seemed to have a great relationship with all his players.”
The current Executive Director of the High School Activities Association, Wayne Carney, officiated several games that Munsen was involved in. Carney says his one of his first experiences came when Mitchell and Huron played a girls’ game at the Corn Palace.
As Carney remembers, "I make a call, and I hear Gary on the sidelines saying, ‘Jeez, Wayne, this isn’t a Class B game!’ And I kinda let it go, you know, and at the next dead ball or time out or whatever it was, I’m standing next to Gary and we’re talking and I say, ‘Gary, I’m sorry about that last call, but it must be Ruth’s mistake at the Activities Association, because she only sent me one rule book and I thought it was good for all three classes!”
Munsen retired after the 20-11, 20-12 season. His last Mitchell team advanced to the State Championship game in Class Double-A; the Kernels lost to Sioux Falls O’Gorman. Munsen died at age 72.