The South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame will induct 23 new members in September.
Included will be Miller alum Bryan Schwartz, who played at Augustana, where he set school records for single-season and career tackles, and then with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, where he was the team’s leading tackler as a rookie in 1995, setting a single-season team record and being named to the NFL All-Rookie team.
Also included will be White Lake and Dakota Wesleyan alum Jerry Miller, who was a very successful coach, teacher and administrator. He also helped start girls’ athletics in South Dakota and the state high school football playoffs.
Former Onida teacher, coach and administrator Marlyn Goldhammer will also be honored. Goldhammer was the SDHSAA executive director when football playoffs began, basketball was expanded to three classes and volleyball and other sports were added.
Also to be honored will be former Mobridge boys basketball coach Jim Schlekeway. He won 501 games with the Tigers, Todd County and O’Gorman.
Among those posthumously inducted will be Lien Marso, who led Harrold to the 1951 Class B basketball championship. Harrold became the smallest school to win a basketball state championship.
Other inductees are:
- Scott Bosanko – Northern State’s all-time leading in men’s basketball scoring
- Linda Collignon – led Madison to 16 consecutive Class A gymnastics championships
- Chuck Iverson – continues to hold every University of South Dakota men’s basketball rebounding record
- Clarence Kooistra – won 221 games as a football head coach, led Garretson to two state championships
- Don Larson – won seven North Central Conference track & field championships at South Dakota State, coached North Dakota State’s track & field and cross country programs for 41 years
- Dave Mydland – played college baseball at South Dakota State and played amateur baseball for nearly 50 years
- Terry Nielsen – tennis standout at South Dakota State, helped SD Sports Hall of Fame continue by having a statewide committee of sports enthusiasts run it
- Mark Ovenden – Sports Director of Dakota News Now; former play-by-play voice of USD and Augustana
- Brad Seely – two-time all-NCC offensive lineman at SDSU, coached special teams for eight NFL teams, including three Super Bowl-winning teams at New England
- Dawn Seiler – Aberdeen Central Athletic Director who retired from coaching in 2021 after 629 basketball coaching wins with McIntosh and Aberdeen Central
- Jeff Turning Heart – two-time Class A cross-country champion at Cheyenne-Eagle Butte and Native American cross country national champion
- Don Baker – coached track, cross country and basketball at South Dakota-Springfield
- Gene Breemes – coached Rapid City Stevens to 12 state championships in cross country and track
- Harvey Hammrich – 38-year athletic director at Watertown, Webster, Eureka
- Dean Minder – two-time South Dakota Sportswriter of the Year, Legion baseball coach and umpire
- Mattie Goff Newcombe – pioneer for women in rodeo in 1920s
- Mike Roach – former football coach at Rapid City Central and USD who later was an assistant coach for 28 seasons in the Canadian Football League
- Joe Thorne – SDSU fullback who was NCC MVP and All-American in 1961, was the first South Dakotan to die in the Vietnam War
The induction banquet is scheduled for Sunday, September 24 at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. These inductions bring the total number of inductees to 356.
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