Mike Daly, part 1 — Life & career before SDSU head Coaching Years

FULL SHOW: MVFC top topics on a Thirsty Thursday & SD prep hoops legend Nate Malchow on his prolific career and surviving cancer

Nobody prepares to be diagnosed with cancer. But nobody seems better equipped to handle and battle it than Nate Malchow. After 40 years of competing and coaching sports (and some music) at a high level and with unrelenting focus and conviction, Malchow says he had the right mindset to tackle the chemotherapy, radiation, physical and mental fatigue, worries and doubts, and ability to keep loved ones uplifted. The Sioux Falls Washington activities director details that experience with the same down-to-earth and exacting way he drew up game plans and inspired girls basketball players to reach their full potential when he was the Warriors' head coach from 2005-14. In those nine years, Malchow turned a flattened program into a state powerhouse that won three titles and reached an additional championship game. At 36, the former Aberdeen Central and Concordia-Moorhead post player stepped down from coaching to take the WHS A.D. job. Why? With plenty of adversity and winning under his belt, Malchow told stories about these life events and more in an hour-plus conversation at Gibs Sports Bar in Sioux Falls, appropriately on the east side of the city, 2.5 miles from WHS. He also had stories about being ACHS teammates with current Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel, and playing against some of the Universtiy of Minnesota players who led the Golden Gophers to the Final Four in 1997. He also shared stories about his first coaching job as a graduate assistant for SDSU legend Scott Nagy, and his several years under Fred Tibbetts, one of the best girls' coaches in state history. All along the way, you'll find out why Malchow had the fight in him to overcome cancer and far more basketball opponents that overcame him. Thirsty Thursday MVFC '26 overview News flash: North Dakota State is no longer in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. Safe to say, the league is now up for grabs without the team that won 12 titles in 15 years, right? Or will South Dakota State just perk back up to No. 1, as the Jackrabbits did for three out of four seasons in 2020-23? That's one MVFC topic the Happy Hour host and Sioux Falls Live sports reporter Trent Singer covered on a "Thirsty Thursday" from kRav'N Bar & Grill. But, there are so many more topics to toss ahead of Tuesday's MVFC Media Day in Sioux Falls. You can watch Sioux Falls Live's coverage live starting Tuesday at 9 a.m. here on Sioux Falls Live [https://www.siouxfallslive.com/ksfltv] or on KSFL-TV (Ch. 36 over-air, Ch. 616 Midco). A subscription to Midwest Sports+ [https://www.midwestsportsplus.com/] — which includes access to live local high school football games this fall and dozens of prep football and basketball games from last season — will allow you to watch the coverage on your television with the MS+ app. The Thirsty Thursday guys also talk about the most intriguing things about the MVFC in '26, topics to bring up on Tuesday: * What is in place at SDSU to prevent the late-season four-game collapse after Chase Mason (and other key players) was hurt? * Who is in the Jacks' running back stable to give the run game and "explosive play" game a much needed boost? * Who, if anyone, emerged from the pack during the spring in USD's three-horse quarterback race under new head coach Matt Vitzthum? * What is in store for the SDSU and USD defenses? * Which of the non-South Dakota teams seems most equipped to win the league? After kicking around these topics, the hosts dig into the recent surges of the Minnesota Twins and Sioux Falls Canaries.

Nate Malchow on his prolific prep hoops career & battling cancer

Nobody prepares to be diagnosed with cancer. But nobody seems better equipped to handle and battle it than Nate Malchow. After 40 years of competing and coaching sports (and some music) at a high level and with unrelenting focus and conviction, Malchow says he had the right mindset to tackle the chemotherapy, radiation, physical and mental fatigue, worries and doubts, and ability to keep loved ones uplifted. The Sioux Falls Washington activities director details that experience with the same down-to-earth and exacting way he drew up game plans and inspired girls basketball players to reach their full potential when he was the Warriors' head coach from 2005-14. In those nine years, Malchow turned a flattened program into a state powerhouse that won three titles and reached an additional championship game. At 36, the former Aberdeen Central and Concordia-Moorhead post player stepped down from coaching to take the WHS A.D. job. Why? With plenty of adversity and winning under his belt, Malchow told stories about these life events and more in an hour-plus conversation at Gibs Sports Bar in Sioux Falls, appropriately on the east side of the city, 2.5 miles from WHS. He also had stories about being ACHS teammates with current Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel, and playing against some of the Universtiy of Minnesota players who led the Golden Gophers to the Final Four in 1997. He also shared stories about his first coaching job as a graduate assistant for SDSU legend Scott Nagy, and his several years under Fred Tibbetts, one of the best girls' coaches in state history. All along the way, you'll find out why Malchow had the fight in him to overcome cancer and far more basketball opponents that overcame him.

MVFC most anticipated topics & a July surge from Twins & Canaries on a Thirsty Thursday with Trent Singer at kRav'N

News flash: North Dakota State is no longer in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. Safe to say, the league is now up for grabs without the team that won 12 titles in 15 years, right? Or will South Dakota State just perk back up to No. 1, as the Jackrabbits did for three out of four seasons in 2020-23? That's one MVFC topic the Happy Hour host and Sioux Falls Live sports reporter Trent Singer covered on a "Thirsty Thursday" from kRav'N Bar & Grill. But, there are so many more topics to toss ahead of Tuesday's MVFC Media Day in Sioux Falls. You can watch Sioux Falls Live's coverage live starting Tuesday at 9 a.m. here on Sioux Falls Live [https://www.siouxfallslive.com/ksfltv] or on KSFL-TV (Ch. 36 over-air, Ch. 616 Midco). A subscription to Midwest Sports+ [https://www.midwestsportsplus.com/] — which includes access to live local high school football games this fall and dozens of prep football and basketball games from last season — will allow you to watch the coverage on your television with the MS+ app. The Thirsty Thursday guys also talk about the most intriguing things about the MVFC in '26, topics to bring up on Tuesday: * What is in place at SDSU to prevent the late-season four-game collapse after Chase Mason (and other key players) was hurt? * Who is in the Jacks' running back stable to give the run game and "explosive play" game a much needed boost? * Who, if anyone, emerged from the pack during the spring in USD's three-horse quarterback race under new head coach Matt Vitzthum? * What is in store for the SDSU and USD defenses? * Which of the non-South Dakota teams seems most equipped to win the league? After kicking around these topics, the hosts dig into the recent surges of the Minnesota Twins and Sioux Falls Canaries.

Mike Daly, Part 2: The SDSU Years (1991-96) and everything after

The man who changed the face of South Dakota State football isn't John Stiegelmeier. It was the head coach who preceded Stig: Mike Daly. At least, that is what Stig said in his recently-released biography book Stig & The Rise of South Dakota State Football. Daly hired Stig twice. First, as a volunteer student assistant when Daly was the Jackrabbits defensive coordinator in 1977. Fourteen years later, when Daly was hired as head coach after a decade away, he elevated Stig from defensive backs coach and recruiting coordinator to defensive coordinator. After six winning seasons — SDSU won six or seven games every year, was 40-24 overall and 31-22 in the North Central Conference — Daly walked away from the school and from coaching for the rest of his life. He was just 46 years old and had 20 good coaching years left in him. Instead, Stig took over. Solid but not elite level football continued until administration and boosters got serious in 2003 and decided to make the leap to Div. I. The rest is history. SDSU became a powerhouse and eventually a national champion under Stig. Does Daly regret walking away so soon? Why did he do it in the first place? What kind of pride does he take in Stig crediting him for laying the championship foundation? More importantly, how did Daly do it? Before Daly arrived as head coach in 1991, SDSU was usually an afterthought in North Central Conference football, regularly smothered by titans like North Dakota State and North Dakota. Even arch rival South Dakota reached the national semifinals twice in a row in the 1980's. The Jackrabbit awakening all started with a TV show — The Mike Daly Show — and an absolute conviction that football should be taken seriously by players and coaches, even if the administration wouldn't. The stories of the turnaround in Brookings are just a fraction of Daly's rich football life.

Mike Daly, part 1 — Life & career before SDSU head Coaching Years

The stories of the turnaround in Brookings are just a fraction of Daly's rich football life. There was growing up in Fairmont, Minnesota, without his father — a World War II Presidential Unit Citation honoree who died of polio when Mike was a year old. There were his college days and early coaching days at Augustana, where he met and enjoyed the beer-tapped refrigerator of fellow assistant Don Morton. There were a few years in the 1970's as an assistant at SDSU, where Daly hired Stig, before Morton became NDSU head coach and whisked Daly away. In the next decade, with Daly as Morton's defensive coordinator, the Bison would win a Div. II national title, Div. I Tulsa would have one of its best teams in school history, and Wisconsin would give the duo a Big Ten opportunity of a lifetime. The Badgers were not a football-first institution. Morton went 6-27 in three years and was fired after the 1988 season. Daly was left unemployed until a chance encounter at a grocery store during a summer fishing trip changed everything. Now 76, Daly describes all this on a lazy Tuesday afternoon in Gateway Lounge — one of his regular Sioux Falls haunts — in the affable ease that made him a popular coach. Come for the story about meeting Richard Nixon at a high-end restaurant in Miami the night before Tulsa played the No. 1 ranked Miami Hurricanes in 1986. Stay for the emotional story about how the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers may have saved the life of his only child, who is now the CEO of a hospital in Wisconsin.