Jim Marking

From First Person, Legendary South Dakota Sports Stories, by Mike Henriksen, copyright, Mariah Press, 2018

JIM MARKING

MIKE: Let’s talk about you growing up. You’re a Parkston native, correct?

JIM: Correct. Right. Parkston, South Dakota. All three years of high school, I always wanted to get to the State tournament. In my sophomore year we got beat in the final of the Regionals. My junior year we got beat the finals of the Regional. That’s when we had four fouls. Ken Dennis out of Sioux Falls was referring. I picked up my fourth foul in the first half. The score was 9-8 and I scored all nine points. In my senior year we got beat on a sudden death by Mount Vernon in overtime. You had an overtime and a sudden death. When that ball went through the hoop and we got beat, I laid on that floor and I made up my mind that I was going to take one team to one state tournament.

MIKE: Well, you ended up doing better than that. When did the coaching bug bite you?

JIM: All my life. Clyde Mitchell  was a coach at Parkston and I was in grade school and I was his mascot from fifth grade on up. I was always close to sports.

MIKE: So where did you head off to college?

JIM: South Dakota State. I went to the Navy and I when I came out of the Navy I went right to South Dakota State.

MIKE: Tell me about that Navy experience.

JIM: Well it was a great experience. I was very fortunate. I was in boot camp and the war got over in August. So instead of going out to sea I was sent to St. Louis. I worked in a separation center, typing out discharges. We had a basketball team and I played in that at Lambert Field. It was a great experience. We played all over. We played St. Louis University’s freshman, Washington University’s freshman and Tarkio, schools like that.

MIKE: That had to be a heck of a beginning of an education for a kid from Parkston, South Dakota.

JIM: That’s right. I was overwhelmed.

MIKE: So you head out to South Dakota State University. Did you play any sports at SDSU?

JIM: Yea, I went out for football. In high school I was an end, but up there I went out for quarterback and I was the starting quarterback for the freshman team. I did all of the kicking and kickoffs and so forth. Then I went out for basketball and I got cut.

MIKE: Really?

JIM: Yea, I got cut from the basketball team. And the next year, well, I don’t know, it was kinda a bad deal. Jack Frost came and then you know preseason, in October you scrimmage. Jim Schmidt, guys like that. I had a heck of a game and Frost was watching and said, “Johnny (the equipment manager), go back and get some equipment.” Well that was something because in those days there wasn’t nice socks, and jock straps. Boy I was excited. I went back to see Johnny. He picked up the phone and called (Frost) and said, “This kid’s a troublemaker. I can’t give him any equipment.” He got me mixed up with (another player). I never did get any equipment. I never made the team either, but it did work out good. I got to play, you know, really play a lot of basketball, independent ball, intramural ball. I picked up a lot of things on the outside.

MIKE: Where was the first coaching job?

JIM: When I was a senior at South Dakota State, the Bruce job opened up and I applied for it. I must not have asked for too much money. I asked for $100 a month, but I did coach over there. The had a stove in the middle, on the side of the court, on the floor. This is something you know, a lot of the schools were that way. A lot of schools, they had a line around the outside, if your ball hit below the line that was still inbounds even if it hit the wall. Anyhow, I could shoot from one end to the other through the beams and make it. And there were many times I went to practice and the stove wasn’t working right and the place was full of smoke. But I did have a good out-of-bounds play around that stove.

MIKE: There were a lot of gyms like that at the time, and unfortunately we’ve lost a lot of them through the years. Every gym was a home court advantage, wasn’t it coach?

JIM: It really was. Erwin had nine-foot baskets. They would move the desk out to play the game. Webenhurst was his name. A real good coach. He said the opponent had the choice of playing the ceiling inbounds or out-of-bounds. They didn’t to play it inbounds because we had spots. We could hit the ceiling spots and make a basket. But there were a lot of different gyms in those days.

MIKE: From Bruce, is that when you went to Hayti?

JIM: Yea, but see in 1950 there was the largest graduating class (at SDSU) and if you weren’t a baseball pitcher or catcher, you couldn’t get a job. I applied for 90 jobs and I never got anything. So I never did get a job my first year out.

MIKE: Really?

JIM: And then the spring of my second year, Ford Kiner from Hayti called me and asked if I was interested in coming up and looking at the job. Don Jurgenson is a good friend of mine. We played in the American Legion state tournament in 1950 and won it and that’s the last year they ever had it. He’s from Hayti. He recommended me. He recommended Bill Cook from Sioux Falls or Jim Marking from Parkston. And Ford kind of thought somebody from Sioux Falls was too big. Hayti was too small of a town for somebody like that to adjust to. So he interviewed me.

MIKE: So you get the job. What was the basketball program like at Hayti at the time?

JIM: Real good. Ford Kiner had some great teams there. In fact he left me with some pretty good players. Jim Peterson, Harley Peterson, Dick Sour, Stan Peterson. Garney Henley was a freshman.

MIKE: That’s a pretty good place to start, too.

JIM: They’d never been to the state tournament. We got to the state tournament that first year and we got beat by Ipswich in the Finals.

MIKE: So tell me about that stay in Hayti though because you had a heck of a run there.

JIM: Yea, well I had some great players. I had, you know, Harvey Schaefer, Lou Shelstead, Ron Proudy. I had a lot of good players. The next year we were undefeated and got beat in the first game by Ravinia in Huron. That was the largest crowd ever to see a basketball game (at that time in South Dakota). They had just opened the Huron Arena. Then the third year we beat White River in the finals to win the state tournament. And then my fourth year we got beat by White River in overtime. Then the Watertown job opened up and I was fortunate to get that.

MIKE: I’m glad you brought up White River because obviously with Louie Krogman the last few years, there’s been a nice resurgence. But people sometimes forget about the great heritage they’ve got when it comes to White River.

JIM: Yea, they’ve had some good teams. I’ve never seen this happen before. This big center’s glasses dropped to the floor and my center was smart enough to step on them. His dad came out of the stands clear up in the 15th row in the arena and brought glasses down to him. I remember that.

MIKE: So how did you get the job at Watertown?

JIM: Well they asked me to apply and I was the coach at Hayti. I was fortunate to get the job and after I got it I wasn’t sure. They’d never been to the finals of the state tournament. The last time they won a conference championship was in 1932. The first year was really tough. We lost more games my first year at Watertown than we lost all four years in Hayti. I think we were  5-15 or something like that. But then Tom McGrann came along. Thank God for that. 6′ 8″ boy and he was one of the first big men that were agile and mobile and you know, he could shoot and so forth. He got us to the state tournament the first year and then the next three years we were in the finals of the state tournament with Watertown. And we played three games in Williams Arena, which was really great. The Gophers were trying to recruit Tom. Our athletic director and their athletic director were good friends, so we played three preliminary games before Big Ten schools. One was Austin. We went down there and McGran and those guys were juniors and we beat them by 30 points and they went on and won the state tournament. And then the next year we beat International Falls and then we beat North St. Paul. So we had a pretty good run. Under Bob Burns, when he was coaching football, he beat some pretty good football teams in Minneapolis also.

MIKE: The 1959 Watertown Arrows picked up the state title under Jim. So tell us about that state tournament. You mentioned the fact, too, that you guys were playing up in Minneapolis. How many games a year were you playing back in those days?

JIM: Oh I don’t know. 22 probably, 24. You never started until about the first of December.

MIKE: Here’s one of the things that I found interesting. When I look at the bracket for the 1959 State A tournament, Aberdeen, Huron, Beresford, Watertown, Sioux Falls, which of course is now Washington.

JIM: Washington High was the largest school in the nation, not just South Dakota you know.

MIKE: And then the Flandreau Indians, Rapid City, and Lead. There’s only five of those teams anymore that you’d even find in the big school class.

JIM: Yea, that’s right.

MIKE: Now you guys took on, you had Beresford first round, correct?

JIM: Well the year before we got beat by Huron with Rex Swett and Denny Busch over in the finals.

MIKE: Which by the way was a heck of a basketball team.

JIM: 58, yea, they were a heck of a basketball team.

MIKE: First round you got Beresford.

JIM: Yea, we beat Beresford. Then we had to play Huron and that was a heck of a ballgame. That was the the state tournament and everybody knew it. Whoever won that ballgame. And we were fortunate enough to beat Huron. They had an outstanding coach and we were fortunate to win. And then we played Lead and they weren’t very good. McGrann scored, I think 36 points or something. He had the record for 15-20 years as far as most points scored in a championship ballgame. But that Huron game was a tough game. Whoever won it, and we were fortunate to win it.

MIKE: That was a 64-55 final over Huron and then as you mentioned, you handled Lead pretty easily, who had beaten Rapid City  45-38 in the other semi-final. 65-38 was the championship. So what was the reaction there in Watertown to that championship?

JIM: Well even the year before when we got to the finals, that town went crazy. Had a big celebration, you know how they do it. And then of course we won it and it was another big celebration. Doug Peterson went back, and it was his great leadership and we went back to the state finals of the state tournament the next year and got beat by Rapid City.

MIKE: And by the way, looking at that 1960 state bracket too white I’m on the subject. Also in that, Lead was back, Flandreau Indian School was back, but this time Scotland was in the Class A ranks in that tournament. They got beat in the first round by Rapid City.

JIM: Is that right? I didn’t realize that.

MIKE: We were talking about in 1960 that you got Watertown back to the finals and lost to Rapid City. When did you leave Watertown?

JIM: I left in 1960, the spring of 1960. Wally Diehl called me and wanted to know if I was interested in the assistant job at South Dakota State. Of course I was, and I went there in 1960.

MIKE: So who were you an assistant under?

JIM: Jim Iverson. Yea, we won a national title in 1963. We went down and we beat Southern Illinois and they had Walt Frazier if you can imagine that. Let see, that was the semi-final. The night before, Evansville with Jerry Sloan. And Southern Illinois had Walt Frazier.  I never saw so many sportswriters in my life. That was a dog eat dog game, then they have to play South Dakota State. Luckily Southern won, they had to play us. South Dakota State? They weren’t ready to play and in the first half and we got ahead of them by about 10 points at halftime. The second half started and they were taking our guard and forward pass away and it was just a matter of time. A kid lost his contact lens. Well anyhow, they looked for that thing until they get that kid in there, keeping the game going. They looked for that thing for five or six minutes. And you know what happened, they lost their momentum and we won the ballgame. We had a heck of a time beating them. We had a good ball club. We had Tom Black, who was an alternate at the Olympics, and Doug Peterson and Wayne Rasmussen  was a Most Valuble Player in the tournament. And we won it.

MIKE: I want to step back for a moment. Tell us about Jim Iverson.

JIM: He was a real fine coach, a real fine person. You know he played for Platte High School. You talk about Krogman out there in White River. Jim Iverson played all four years in the state tournament. And he was probably the purest shooter I’ve seen. I’ve seen a lot of shooters in my day, and I’ve played against him.  I was a senior at Parkston and he was a freshman. We played Platte. I think I held him to 10 or 12 points, which was a miracle you know. In one state tournament game, he scored 37 points and that’s a lot of points in those days. There wasn’t a three-point shot or anything. He was a heck of a basketball player. He went to Kansas State and we played them a couple of times and they always introduced him and he got a great hand. He was still a leading guard scorer up to so many years after, you know, points by a guard at Kansas State. And of course the three-point shot came in and took care of that.

MIKE: What was his coaching style, Jim?

JIM: We liked to fast break. We scrimmaged a lot. He liked to scrimmage. And he recruited well. We had good ball players. He had an outstanding record at South Dakota State, as you well know.

MIKE: So how did it come to be that Jim Marking became the head coach at SDSU?

JIM: Well, Iverson left and luckily I was his assistant coach and I was fortunate they gave me the job.

MIKE: Did they interview others or was it simply Jim’s gone and you’re the guy?

JIM: I think what happened, I think I lucked out. We won the state tournament at Watertown. Dr. Briggs (President at SDSU) happened to speak at the Rotary in Watertown. And of course we just won this tournament on Saturday and this was the next Thursday and they had me give a little talk and I got to know Briggs and I think that really helped me. So I don’t think they interviewed anybody else. I got the job anyhow.

MIKE: Tell us about the adjustment from coaching high school kids to coaching college kids. What was that adjustment like?

JIM: I don’t know, it’s fundamentals. I mean I think in high school you really try and spend time on fundamentals and when you get them in college you hope that they’re more fundamentally sound.  But a lot of times you overlook that too and end up spending a lot of time on fundamentals in college also.

MIKE: You had a great…I don’t want to call it a secret…but you had a great approach to recruiting. Tell us about your recruiting approach.

JIM: Well, it’s different today. I was a high school coach and I hated college coaches coming around and bothering my ball players. So, I always waited. You couldn’t do it now because they recruit three years ahead of time. I would wait until the season was over. I may have called or wrote a letter, but never tried to contact them or bother them during the season. And as soon as the season was over then I would be in touch. And I always had the philosophy that there’s three people involved: a mom, a dad and the boy. Guess who’s going to decide where that boy’s goes to college? Mom. Mom. That’s the God’s truth. I can list all of the players I recruited, and I had some great ones, and every Monday morning, ol’ dad here would call up mom and we’d have coffee over the telephone. I worked on the mom, and luckily it paid off.

MIKE: It certainly did pay off. Also, when you take a look at  South Dakota sports there really were some magical names that were playing high school sports at the time in the 60’s and into the early 70’s. And a great run of talent in the small school ranks and you were able to convince them to come to South Dakota State University. Tell me about some of those kids, Jim.

JIM: Well, that’s correct. There’s only probably three or four kids in the state maybe that played North Central ball at that time. You really had to work on the Thomas’. John Thomas and his brother Mel, and Dave Thomas, and (Lee) Colburn, and Gene Zulk and Guy Mackner and Denny Womeldorf from Wessington Springs. With Denny Womeldorf, I went to Mitchell to watch him play and in the first half he took the ball and he made a nice two-handed chest pass to send it way down the floor. You’d never seen anybody make a two-handed chest pass. The next time he used a reverse pivot for a layup and the next time down he hits a jump shot. I found his dad at halftime and I said I’ll give your boy four years. In those days you could do that. Four-year scholarship. You could pay a four-year scholarship. And of course he really panned out. He was the Most Valuable Player one year in the North Central. There were a lot of good players. Like you said, there were a lot of good players in South Dakota at that time in high school.

MIKE: And I have to tell a quick story about Denny Womeldorf, and I actually found this out from Ron Lenz. I was trying to contact Denny a few years ago and I found out that he was a pharmacist at Wall Drug. And I gotta be honest with you, all my years in South Dakota I never knew that Wall Drug actually had a pharmacy. I had no idea but we were able to get Denny on the show and just a great guy who really relished his time at South Dakota State.  Jim, you had to be pretty satisfied because a lot of those people that played for you went into coaching themselves. I’m thinking of Gene Zulk, obviously, but there were some others that went into the coaching field.

JIM: John Eidsness, I should mention him too. He and Womeldorf were a great pair of guards. In fact John Eidness should be in our Hall of Fame. John Eidsness shot 50% from the field and close to 90 in free throws and he and Womeldorf were quite a pair of guards. In fact, I don’t understand this. This day and age, they substitute after three minutes. They run three guys in you know, and run guys out. Well my philosophy was if you’re one of my best players, the more minutes I could play you the better the chance we got to win. Eidness and Womeldorf both knew in the first half they had one minute. I’d take them out and as soon as the minute was up I didn’thave to tell them to go back in. They’d watch the clock and they just went in. Unless that group was doing well, then I’d tell them to hold back, you know. And the second half they’d play the whole ball game. Full court press, fast braking. In fact Eidsness was coaching Concordia and he called me one day and he said: “Coach I can’t get these guys to work that hard, to get in that great shape.”

MIKE: You did have an incredible run at South Dakota State University. Tell me about some of those teams because you were able to pick up some nice championships and again had some great players along the way.

JIM: Well the first one we won was with John Thomas and Zulk and Mackner, and Mel played a lot. And Eidsness and Womeldorf, we won it with them. Then we won it the next year. We had some tough luck in the Regional to go to the National. We got beat by Indiana State by two points in one Region and it was always on the road you know. That was tough. And then of course later on we had Thomas and Colburn. Lee Colburn and Dave Thomas. Dave Thomas scored 44 points and had 26 rebounds in a Regional tournament game. That isn’t too bad a day’s work, you know? In fact two Big Ten officials worked that tournament and they said those two guys are something else. I mean that Colburn could drive. He had no fear of nothing. I mean I expected him to be picked off the floor some day and never find all the pieces. He would go for that basket hard and Dave was a great rebounder and good. They were both drafted you know. Lee almost made it. Dave Thomas, he couldn’t see very well. He couldn’t dribble very well. But he could pass and shoot and play defense. In fact  one night we were playing Mankato in the Barn. The ball got caught clear up in a bar in the top behind it and these Mankato guys are running up there trying to hit and our kids were too. And I told our ball boy: “Go ahead and get a ball to knock that ball off.” Dave Thomas nonchalantly walked over and didn’t even take a deep knee bend jumped up and tapped that ball out. The ball game was over boy. Those Mankato’s guys eyes. They couldn’t believe that.

MIKE: The legacy of the barn is one that unfortunately a lot of people are forgetting about. Tell us about playing home games at the Barn at SDSU.

JIM: It’s something people still talk about that witnessed games in the Barn. People wouldn’t let you get behind. That’s the truth. If they got behind they rose up and chanted. It was unbelievable, the spirit in that barn. But what made me feel bad is they said you can’t win if you don’t play in the Barn. But the next year we played in the new place and won a conference championship. I got a picture showing the total, it held 9,600 people and that was full and there was standing room only. And after that it said we had over 8,000 over the next six games, so that’s pretty good crowds in those days.

MIKE: That’s phenomenal. What was it like moving from the Barn to Frost Arena?

JIM: It was really tough because we didn’t get to practice. The first day we went over there we were down on our hands and knees with towels getting the wax off the floor and so forth. And we played North Dakota State and North Dakota U. I think the first two. In the first game, we got beat there. And they had all kinds of ceremonies. There was the student body president, she talked for about 15 minutes before we were trying to get on the floor. Our kids, you could just see them getting nervous there. And then the next night, we beat North Dakota U, I think it was. Then we went on. That year, we had to beat North Dakota U and North Dakota State on a road trip. We beat Augie with (Bill) Gross. You know he was a tough player. Awful good player. We had to beat them, and we did. And it took 29 years later for a team from South Dakota State to win both ball games up north. We had to beat both them and they were both tough. North Dakota U with (Dave) Gunther was a tough ball game. We won by a couple of points. North Dakota State, in fact Kolpeck was the sportswriter there and he said our fast break was something to behold. He said it won the ball game for us.

MIKE: It was the golden days of the Runnin’ Rabbits, wasn’t it coach?

JIM: Right, right, right. They’ve got a picture of this new rabbit. They’ve got a ferocious one. Well we had a picture of a running rabbit. People were scared of the running rabbit. But that snarl is what they’ve got on that rabbit now.

MIKE: But after all that success, you decided to get out. Tell us about that.

JIM: Well I coached 25 years, and I loved coaching. And when the game started, I was nervous before the ballgame. Okay, when the game started, I was fine. No problem. But my 25th year there, when the game started, I was still nervous. I was worried about losing the ball game and so forth. It was a bad feeling. When I resigned, in fact I had a heart attack that same year. So I was glad to get out of it. I mean I was glad I did step down when I did. And I loved coaching and I got a good job with Blue Cross Blue Shield.

MIKE: I would guess though that there are still times now that you miss the sideline.

JIM: Oh yea, I watch these teams play and of course the three-point shot. I don’t know, they come down and launch a shot. We would have run them out of the gym, I know that much. They make about three passes and take a three-point shot. They don’t get the ball inside. It kind of bothers me to watch that. Some of these teams have good three-point shooters. We used to love to play these teams that shot 15-foot jump shots all the time. We’d run them off the floor and work for the good shot. Of course you didn’t have the clock in those days. That made some difference you know.

MIKE: I want to know your thoughts on the specialization of athletes that we see today. Because that certainly wasn’t the case back in your day, was it?

JIM: No it wasn’t. I still feel they should play. Clyde Hagen was another one I should have mentioned. He had a heck of a career for us in basketball. Helped us win three conference championships. His senior year he was all-conference football, all-conference in basketball and won the shot and the disc. I had all these guys. Eidsness and those guys. I encouraged them. If they wanted to go out, they should go out. In high school now, these poor kids. Their dads and moms, they want them to play one sport. I think they’d be a lot better off playing more sports.

MIKE: What are some of the great memories that you take away from your career in sports?

JIM: Mmm, boy. That’s a tough question. I know some of the bad moments, when we got beat in the finals of the Regionals my senior year. I think winning a conference championship at State, you know, were outstanding. Of course winning the National with Jim Iverson too, you know. Just from the players themselves, I had some great players and they worked so hard and as far as I know they trained. I had no problem with any training. It was their team and I always told them it’s your team, you’ve got to do with it what you want and take good care of yourself, and they did. So I think just the players themselves and the camaraderie with some of the other coaches. But the players themselves, working with them and so forth, was one of the greater thrills.