Garnier, Oliver

The Pine Ridge man was picked as the outstanding baseball player in South Dakota for the 1900s by the Argus Leader during the state’s centennial in 1989. Garnier had his best years in the late 1920s, when major league teams expressed an interest in him. In all, he played 51 seasons of town team baseball, […]

Gassman, Dave

Every summer for almost 50 years Gassman played baseball, nearly all of it in his hometown of Canova. For most of those years he did not just play, but dominated in spectacular fashion. In a 40-year amateur baseball career, the 6-2 1/2, 190-pound right-hander won more games (376) and struck out more batters (5,591) than […]

Gibbs, Donovan

(Born 1931. Died 2010.) 1949 Claremont High School/USD. Star running back who led Claremont to three straight unbeaten seasons to begin its national-record 61-game win streak for six-man football. In 1948 Claremont set another national record by scoring 608 points in a 10-game season and Gibbs likely set a national individual scoring record but game […]

Graff, Neil

Born Jan. 12, 1950 in Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls (1968 Lincoln High grad). 1972 University of Wisconsin grad. The only National Football League quarterback that South Dakota has produced, the Sioux Falls native spent six years with five teams in the 1970s. Graff got his start in organized football as a seventh-grader playing touch football […]

Green, Dick

Born April 21, 1941, in Sioux City, Iowa. 1959 Mitchell HS grad. Green was a slick-fielding second baseman for the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics for 12 years (1963-74), almost all of them as a starter. The 5-foot-10, 180-pounder hit .240 for his career. His best season was 1969, when he hit .275 with 12 […]

Gremmels, Jim

The Sioux Falls native and 1952 Augustana graduate has the distinction of being the first basketball player to win back-to-back Most Valuable Player awards in the North Central Conference, doing so in 1951 and ’52. The awards are especially impressive considering he earned them while playing on teams that finished last and next to last […]

Grubb (Coyle), Cathy

1979 Belle Fourche/1983 Northern State graduate. Cathy (Coyle) Grubb was a two-time All-American basketball player at Northern State who led Wolves to a four-year record of 98-15. She scored 1,342 career points and was one of the school’s best-ever free throw shooters (82 percent career average). She led the Wolves to third in the nation […]

Freund, Kay (Stormo)

A two-time South Dakota High School Girls Athlete of the Year, Stormo still holds the state record for the 800-meter run, a 2:07.9 she set in 1978. The time was the third fastest in the nation that year. Shortly after graduating as salutatorian, she won the 800 at the International Prep meet in Naperville, Ill., […]

Gabriel, Diane (Hiemstra)

One of the state’s greatest female basketball players, the Yankton High and University of Colorado standout got her start playing with her older brother in a church basement in New York City. Their father, Harold, was the pastor and he coached them in organized church leagues. Her family moved to Yankton before her freshman year […]

Goehner (Sieler), Heather

In 1998, Heather Sieler won the Howard Wood Dakota Relays girls special 800-meter run in 2:18.40 as an eighth grader. Later in the month she helped the Huron Tigers to runner-up honors at the state track & field meet with three gold medal performances. Her career track achievements include a dozen Eastern South Dakota Conference […]