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South Dakota College Football Rivalry

The first time the University of South Dakota met South Dakota State in football—Benjamin Harrison was President of the United States.  With breaks for world wars and movement to other classifications, the rivalry has grown to one of the most intense in the Midwest.  Saturday, for the first time in nearly a decade, the Jackrabbits and Coyotes meet for a football game.  As South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Gary Ellenbolt reports on today’s Dakota Digest, Coughlin-Alumni Stadium in Brookings will invoke many memories.

It doesn’t take much to provoke Joe Glenn into singing—he’ll pretty much regale anyone with a tune from his vocal chords—or if one is handy, a piano--without anyone asking twice.  The day job he isn’t quitting is his position as Head Coach of the University of South Dakota.
 

Despite having a lot on his mind, Glenn is a gregarious man, who loves a good story.  Saturday, his Coyotes end the season against a huge rival, and a really good team, at South Dakota State.  Glenn played the Jackrabbits several times as a student-athlete at USD.
 

“My senior year we shut ‘em out, 26-0, sqays Glenn.  You can’t get any better than that.”
 
Glenn has won three national championships in his coaching career—two at Northern Colorado in Division Two, and another one at the University of Montana in Division 1-Football Championship Subdivision.  But for all his success, he values his roots as a Coyote.
 
“I played in this game, then coached in it, when I began my coaching career under Joe Salem, says Glenn.  I’ve got blood in the game—and I am a Coyote.  So I think it always means a little bit more when you grow up in it.  And when I was in school, it wasn’t just football; we’d drum up everything we could for the basketball games, the wrestling matches, track meets—anything we competed against South Dakota State in.  I’ve been behind this effort for a long, long time.”
  
About a decade ago, SDSU left the North Central Conference, where they competed for 80 years.  The Jackrabbit Athletic Programs made the move to Division One—and after a slow start, they’re making some progress in the new classification.  Several years later, officials at U-S-D made the upgrade to Division 1, entering the Missouri Valley Football Conference with South Dakota State.  The two teams meet in conference play this weekend—Heidi Gullickson with the Brookings Chamber of Commerce says it’s a festive week in her town.
 
“There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of electricity around here, says Gullickson.  You hear people saying ‘Are you going to the game this weekend, what are your plans…’ there’s just a lot of things going on and we’re very excited to be welcoming our friends from the south up.”
 
A little more than a year ago, USD and SDSU found out the date of the first game together since the re-emergence of the rivalry.  Coyote athletic officials immediately fired the first salvo, with a series of billboards around the eastern part of the state.  There’s also one on Interstate 29 in Brookings.  The billboard features a coyote chasing a jackrabbit against a bright red background.  It reads “have an old friend for dinner, November 17, 2012.”  Gullickson is careful with her reaction.
 
“We’re excited to have the rivalry back.  It’ll be great for the towns, the universities and the alumni all to be able to come back together, says Gullickson.”
 
There’s a little different feeling about the signage among SDSU’s coaching staff—Eric Eidsness serves as offensive coordinator for the Jackrabbits.
 
“When a billboard or something goes up it just brings back a lot of those things, brings ‘em to light a little more.  ‘Hey, this was really a big deal—I thought it was pretty creative on their part; you have to give credit where credit is due and it was pretty creative to do that kind of thing—I think it was definitely on the front porch, says Eidsness.”
 
Teams tend to kick things up several notches during a rivalry game—and for the Jackrabbits and Coyotes, that has gone on for decades.  Joe Van Goor has been on both sides—as a former color commentator with the late Norm Hilson on SDSU broadcasts, and now as the play-by-play voice of the Coyotes.  Van Goor points to a particularly intense game from his time on the Jackrabbit broadcast team.
 
“Back in 19-85, it was a Hobo Day—South Dakota was undefeated coming in.  South Dakota State beat the Coyotes, 24-12, in a game that was pretty much decided from the first play from scrimmage.  I remember Chul Schwanke coming around the line on a run and Bruce Klosterman from South Dakota State hit him—fumbled the football, State went in to score—and the Jackrabbits pretty much owned that game for the rest of that time, says Van Goor.”
 
Fans making the trip to Brookings from the USD Campus will find plenty of red to wear at the game.  Inside the Muenster University Center, the Barnes and Noble Bookstore offers t-shirts devoted to the game.  Just down the hall, we find Julian Tucker, with a collection of clothes for fans to display their loyalties.
 
“We produce different products—we have yoga pants, t-shirts,  we do snap backs—a lot of different things that students want.  We do a lot of rivalry gear for the USD-SDSU game—but all the things we sell here are the approved logo designs, says Tucker.”
 
If one is bent on helping the environment, there’s an answer for that too—thanks to USD’s new Sustainability Major.  Students who come to the display with SDSU gear can trade it for a new, bright red t-shirt.  Meghann Jarchow coordinates the sustainability program, in its first semester.  She says the T-shirt swap keeps Coyote fans in their rightful colors, and Jackrabbit shirts out of the Vermillion landfill.
 
“I think sometimes when we think of sustainability, they think of these really serious things—things like droughts and floods, says Jarchow  And so thinking about it, there are some light-hearted types of things, that you can do with sustainability.  And so a t-shirt swap is sort of a light-hearted way of saying, “you know, we think we can re-use some of these resources; in this case, t-shirts.  And do it in a light-hearted way that deals with this rivalry between SDSU and USD.”
 
SDSU can fit about 16 thousand fans into Coughlin-Alumni Stadium—and with the re-heating of the rivalry, many more fans want to go than there are tickets for them.  Brookings Chamber Director Heidi Gullickson says those without tickets are still welcome to come to Brookings for the atmosphere.
 
“We do have the tailgating going on up on campus and I would invite folks to come and enjoy that, says Gullickson—and talk with other people around, and you never know when you might find a ticket or two up until that point.”
 
Gullickson says she will wear her blue and yellow Jackrabbit clothes to the game and cheer for her local school.  Vocal fans on both sides are getting ready to support their favorite team.
 
And that’s where my dilemma begins.  A journalist is expected to foster complete neutrality on a story—but it’s difficult in this case, given the intensity of the upcoming game, and the fact I have a degree from one of the schools.  So just this one time—I will reveal that I’m rooting…..for…….South Dakota Public Broadcasting, I’m Gary Ellenbolt.