Happy Hour with John Gaskins

One of the Minnesota Vikings' GOATs, Chuck Foreman, reflects on the rich, full, and funny life of teammate Jim Marshall, the 19-year Viking from the start of the franchise (1961-79) and part of the Purple People Eaters and four Super Bowls who passed away over the summer. Then, one of the Iowa Hawkeyes' GOATs, Chuck Long, broke down the early stages of SDSU transfer Mark Gronowski — both assessing Gronowski's play and how he fit into the offense.

Local legends and sports headline makers  who have captivating stories to tell. That is what "Happy Hour with John Gaskins" is all (well, mostly) about, and how the show is doing "last call" before ringing in 2026 with new shows srarting Jan. 5. From Christmas Eve to Jan. 2, we are re-releasing some of out best conversations of 2025. For Ep. 6, a pair of South Dakotans who are shining on the biggest stage in their collegiate sports — Milbank's own Kalen DeBoer and Sioux Falls native Bergen Reilly. DeBoer just led Alabama to the Rose Bowl and College Football Playoff quarterfinal in his second year with the Crimson Tide and is two years removed from guiding Washington to the national championship game after earning National Coach of the Year honors. Reilly just led Nebraska to yet another Big Ten volleyball title while earning National Setter of the Year honors. 

Local legends and sports headline makers  who have captivating stories to tell. That is what "Happy Hour with John Gaskins" is all (well, mostly) about, and how the show is doing "last call" before ringing in 2026 with new shows srarting Jan. 5. From Christmas Eve to Jan. 2, we are re-releasing some of out best conversations of 2025. Our first episode featured retired football icons John Stiegelmeier (SDSU) and Bob Nielson (USD). Ep. 2 brought back the venerable play-by-play voices of Augustana (Jeff Fylling) and USF (Tom Frederick). Ep. 3 was "The Kim Show" with South Dakota'a all-time high school football  coaching wins leader Kim Nelson and Disabled American Veteran of the Year Kim Hubers, the Iraq War vet who described her trip to New Orleans for the Super Bowl and to meet Minnesota Vikings star Justin Jefferson. It was her first venture to The Big Easy since helping Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. For Ep. 4, we gave you basketball legends Aaron Johnston (SDSU) and Matt Mooney (USD). Ep. 5 welcomes back the boys of summer - Jabari Henry and Gary Weckwerth. Nobody has spent more summers playing in a Sioux Falls Canaries uniform at The Birdcage than Jabari Henry. Nobody has collected more hits, doubles, home runs, walks, and RBI playing for the Birds. And on May 29, the Orlando native slugged a towering 414-foot "Bari Bomb" for 147th career home run, setting the American Association of Professional Baseball's all-time record. For good measure, Henry added another dinger later in the game. That is a snapshot of the nature of the almost-always smiling Henry. He goes big. It happened again on Aug. 7, when, down to his last strike against Winnipeg, Henry provided the only hit in a Canaries win at The Birdcage — an 11th-inning walk-off moon shot that curled behind and around the right field foul pole to send the stadium into pandemonium. The Birds had not registered a hit all night prior to that. Sioux Falls reached the playoffs for a third consecutive season. In the deciding third game of the first round, Henry blasted three homers to help the Birds knock out league leader and fiercest league rival Sioux City. It was the stuff of Reggie Jackson. Henry had become "Mr. September." His heroics were far from done. The Canaries' second round playoff series came down to a do-or-die Game 5. Henry hammered a three-run blast early to set the tone, then added a grand slam late for good measure in an 11-2 route of the Birds' other fiercest league rival, Fargo-Moorhead. That set the stage for a best-of-five championship series against defending champion Kane County. With the Birds on the brink of winning their first title in 17 years — and second in the club's 33-season modern history, Henry joined Happy Hour to look back on a remarkable career that was potentially coming to an end.  The 34-year-old had been at the ground level with manager Mike Meyer since Meyer arrived in 2017 and needed a veteran with an infectious personality to help scrape the Canaries from the bottom of the league.  It took eight years to climb to the mountain top together, but the two finally found the winning formula with a mix of grizzly independent league veterans and some young talent that played college ball just a few years ago in Sioux Falls at both Augustana and USF. As you probably know, Games 4 and 5 at The Birdcage will go down as unforgettable Friday and Saturday nights, with the old joint as electric as it has ever been. The Canaries came within three outs of winning Game 4 and took Game 5 into the 10th inning before the Cougars ripped the hearts of the Birds' chests. And yet, still, Jabari Henry went out swinging and went out smiling. In this chat from Sept. 18, just ahead of those fateful games, he takes us through his eight-year Sioux Falls journey, which included a detour for a season to the crown jewel of the league, the St. Paul Saints, who left the league after the 2020 season to become the Triple-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. How did Jabari pick up the pieces from an affiliated minor league career that was taking off, then crashed and burned, leaving him to join the independent ranks? And what turned him into "the most dangerous power hitter in the league, if not the league's history," according to Meyer, who has played or coached in the American Association for over 20 years? Gary Weckwerth A couple months before our conversation with Henry, we chatted with one of the two men who started it all with the Canaries back in 1992. Gary Weckwerth was the team's first general manager. Maybe you also know Weckworth as that guy that took over for legendary Sioux Falls sportscaster Jim Burt on the KELO-TV news in the 1980's. Maybe you know him as the guy that teamed with Pat O'Brien — then, a well-established national broadcaster on CBS Sports — and Mark Ovenden for the broadcast of the first-ever Sioux Falls Skyforce game in 1989. Maybe you know him as the guy that hosted the first South Dakota State football weekly TV show, starting in the 1990's with Mike Daly. You most likely know him as the first managing owner of the Sioux Falls Stampede, which skated out of the gates to instead on-ice and box office success in the 2000's and won two titles during his time. And you may or may not know him as the guy who, after the first few seasons with the Canaries, left the squad, then came back around over a decade later to co-own the team. His most famous move — changing the name to the Pheasants in the early 2010's, only to change it back to the Canaries after taking three years of public backlash for it. Weckwerth has been at the forefront of almost every major new sports development in Sioux Falls the last 40 years, whether he was covering it, running it or owning it. And "Weck" has plenty of colorful stories to tell about all of it, starting with his days as an aspiring sportscaster at St. Cloud State University, where he dropped out a couple semesters short of his degree to take an on-air job at KELO-TV. The rest is Sioux Falls sports history well lived, plus some bumps along the way — a sudden and unceremonious firing from the Canaries, the "Pheasants" pivot, his ongoing battle with cancer, and his return back to KELO-TV 30 years after he left it to get into the business world.  

SDSU's legendary women's coach and USD's all-time best Div. I player share their epic stories of the hardwood and their lives that led them to it.

One Kim spent 45 years in one role: High school head football coach. Once he retired from that, he transitioned to... being an assistant high school football coach.   Another Kim has spent her life serving her country and all her fellow military who were hurt or died fighting for it.    In 2025, both Kims were richly rewarded for their decades of service.    Kim Nelson joined the staff at Sioux Falls Christian as offensive coordinator for his former Sioux Falls Roosevelt assistant Jared Smith. Together, they won a Class A state title in November.   As America's "Disabled American Veteran of the Year," Dell Rapids' own Kim Hubers was sent to New Orleans for a Super Bowl function, which included a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with Justin Jefferson, the biggest current star on her favorite NFL team. It was her first visit to The Big Easy since a trip 20 years ago to help Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.   Both Kims are exemplary leaders and darn delightful people to chat with, making them ripe for engaging Happy Hour conversations.   Hubers joined shortly after her Super Bowl trip in February. Nelson came later, on June 22.       KIM NELSON He just can't shake the coaching bug. It has been in his blood since he played for his father — a legendary head high school coach in Minnesota — and "every night" he still thinks about the game and how he can draw up plays to make it fun for the next crop of young talent. South Dakota's all-time high school wins leader Kim Nelson "retired" from 45 years of prep coaching in November 2023 after his 15th and final season at Sioux Falls Roosevelt, his fifth and final stop/success story. But he kept on coaching. His foray into the college world — which he had been dreaming of trying for years — did not last long at the University of Sioux Falls. So, Nelson just leaped right back on in Roosevelt as the freshman coach and varsity consultant under his replacement, Jason Stahlberg. But for the upcoming 2025 season, Nelson has moved across town to work for former Roosevelt assistant coach Jared Smith as Sioux Falls Christian's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. This is Nelson's wheelhouse. Why did things at USF not work out? Why the move to SFC? And why has Nelson always flown in the face of Midwestern, cold and nasty weather, football tough guy logic and literally thrown caution into the wind (and rain and sleet and snow) by preferring a pass-happy attack through most of his nearly five decades of coaching? The Lake Benton, Minnesota, native and Dakota State alumnus is more than happy to explain and even more eager to tell stories of some of his best teams and players in his runs at Milbank, Rapid City Central, Sioux Falls Washington, and Roosevelt — each of the three latter resulting in trips to the Dakota Dome to play for state titles (including the elusive championship win in 2011 with the Roughriders). Adam Vinatieri, Taryn Christion, Tucker Large, and Griffin Wilde all played under Nelson and he has vivid and colorful memories of each. Plus, Nelson had the chance to play in front of Vikings legend Bud Grant, then coach the son of then-Vikings coach Mike Tice at Edina High School in suburban Minneapolis at the highest level of Minnesota prep football. Both of those experiences came with awesome stories. Sit back and relax as 50 years of football breeze by on a summer afternoon at The Gateway Lounge with the laid back but fiercely intense-about-football active coach.   Kim Hubers The last time Staff Sgt. Kim Hubers was in New Orleans. She spent six weeks helping clean up the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina as a member of the South Dakota Army National Guard. People who had lost everything in their lives literally fell into her arms. Twenty years later, the lifelong Vikings fan was wrapped in Justin Jefferson's arms as part of a Super Bowl trip rewarded to her through the USAA (United Services Automobile Association). Hubers brought 18-year-old daughter Aubrey to experience not only the suite life in the Superdome for the big game itself, but the Saturday Fanfest, where they met and shared a few minutes with the Vikings' All-Pro receiver. Hubers, the 2023 Disabled American Veteran of the year, tells vivid memories of her Katrina experience and explains the emotions of returning to a place that was so devastated and is now "electric" with people, music, art, culture, and the buzz of the Super Bowl. She also describes the physical and mental pain suffered her entire life from her year in the Iraq War and six weeks in Katrina, and how she channels it into serving other disabled veterans. It is an hour full of heartache and heartwarmth.