South Duh-kota: When will ESPN's jackassery over the Jackrabbits (and Coyotes) ever end?
I can't speak for all 37 of us country bumpkins who live in South Dakota, but I'd like to think we're a reasonably self-aware bunch.
We get it. To the rest of the country, we may as well be Luxemburg. Or Neptune. Or, worse yet, North Dakota.
(I kid. North Dakota is going to relate to this column. Trust me, we're in this together, as most people outside the Dakotas can't tell us apart).
We get it. We're "flyover country," and it's OK. We don't mind. In fact, some of us embrace it, if not prefer it. Some moved here, or stayed here, because of obscurity. To get away from people or attention (or the IRS, or the FBI). Leave us alone and stay off our lawns!
We get it. No mountains. No beaches. No major pro sports teams. No cities with a million people, or even a quarter million! (Calm down, Sioux Falls — I know, we're zeroing in fast).
We get it. There's not much reason to pay attention to us. Well, except when we bring it on ourselves with public service campaigns like "Don't Jerk and Drive" or "Meth: We're On It." Yes, they were both real. And they were spectacular....ly embarrassing.
(A Nebraska friend of mine once joked the state slogan to be "South Dakota: Our Bad." Yeah, that's how some Nebraskans see South Dakota. Or at least, those who have never been to the Corn Palace. A former co-worker and longtime Rushmore State resident said the South Dakota state slogan shouldn't be "Great Faces, Great Places," a nod to Mount Rushmore, but "We've Always Done it That Way." That's a column for another day).
We know what we have here and most find it alright. We're even gettin' kinda fancy lately, all 20th Century. The lucky ones just got indoor plumbing and electricity! Some of us have even had ESPN for 15 years!
And, that's unfortunate for those of us who have been tuning in that long to watch our two Div. I college institutions excel at their level of athletics over that time.
South Dakota State is on the verge of winning back-to-back FCS national football titles, after North Dakota State won nine of 12. Those schools have been almost literally going back-and-forth in men's basketball NCAA Tournament berths for over a decade. SDSU and South Dakota (USD) have done the same thing in women's hoops.
So, it's not like we haven't been on national television dozens of times. I can't speak for North Dakota, but again, I bet they can relate when I ask this:
Exactly when will the eggheads and talking heads at ESPN's family of networks be able to go an entire game, or even a full minute on a talk show, without screwing up the name of our schools, or the nicknames, or the cities they reside in?
It was cute in circa 2009, when we first saw a San Diego State Aztecs logo next to "South Dakota State" on an NCAA Women's Tournament bracket show.
We get it. All of a sudden, there were two SDSU's in D1 hoops, and that may have been perplexing, if not mind-blowing, to ESPN producers.
I mean, cut them some slack. Imagine the brains in Bristol bending while processing this concept:
One of those SDSU schools' nicknames is the Aztecs, and, more noteworthy, is located a few miles from an ocean in one of the sunniest and most traveled United States cities, where the average temperature in March is 67 degrees.
The other school's nickname is the Jackrabbits (that's Jackrabbits, one word, not Jack Rabbits, jackasses), and they come from a place most college-educated Americans can't find on a map, and where on some March days, you can't feel your limbs.
Aztecs, Jackrabbits. San Diego, South Dakota. Potato, poh-tah-toe. (Or as former vice president Dan Quayle spelled it, potatoe).
ESPN was clearly humbled by this gaffe. I'm kidding, of course. They probably had no clue until a mid-level suit at ESPN who actually cares about its competency became aware of a complaint from a viewer in the hinterlands. Justice was served when "S Dak St" and "San Diego St" were created to replace "SDSU" on the bottom-screen score crawls to alleviate the confusion for the rest of time. That didn't stop the occasional Aztecs logo to be placed next to "S Dak St" but... baby steps, right?
It has been 15 years. The baby still can't take a step without stumbling.
Three years later, when the Jackrabbits men's basketball team won their first Summit League title in 2012, and after a two hour broadcast where "South Dakota State" was uttered likely over 100 times and SDSU students stormed the floor in literally the greatest and most relevant moment in modern program history — the NCAA Tournament-clinching dream moment come true almost a decade after the move from Div. II to Div. I —the ESPN2 postgame studio crew referred to San Diego State twice!
Four years after that, after the Jackrabbits' third NCAA berth in five years, beyond reproach Scott Van Pelt called South Dakota State the "San Diego State Jackrabbits," which actually turned out better than if the respected anchor actually got it right, because in true good guy SVP fashion, he made good by donning a South Dakota State sweatshirt and cap in a forthcoming broadcast.
The blunder actually amplified the SDSU brand — free marketing! (I'll never forget sitting courtside at Frost Arena two years later next to an SDSU student from Brooklyn because he found out about the school while following the NCAA Tournament, and it seemed like just the kind of perfect, far-away, random and remote getaway from NYC. We had this conversation at halftime while, I shit you not, a live pig was being carted around the court and auctioned in the annual SDSU Pork Classic game. Some stereotypes do ring true. Welcome to South Dakota!).
You'd think the SVP snafu would be a high-profile enough moment for the executives, producers, and announcers at the Mother Ship to never mix up the SDSU's again.
Not a chance.
Six years later, in 2022, at halftime of another football game, in an effort to promote its broadcast of the South Dakota State-Montana State FCS semifinal game, an ESPN analyst bloviated about the Jacks' nation-leading rush defense while ESPN showed highlights of... San Diego State's rush defense.
This idiocy has certainly not been limited to SDSU confusion between the Jackrabbits and Aztecs. As I write this in December 2023, the University of South Dakota is playing the University of San Diego in men's hoops on ESPN+. Their brains must've exploded in Bristol to find out there is another USD!
Of course, there was the time in 2017 when ESPN2 used a Jackrabbits logo in red coming back from break of its live broadcast of USD at No. 1 Duke. Forgive me, I forget the broadcast, so I'm not sure if they pronounced "Coyotes" as "Coyotees." It would not be the first, only, or last time that happened. (It's Ky-yotes, not Ky-yoh-tees, jackasses. Don't ask me why).
But the mountain top of mountain tops of infuriating ESPN buffoonery over South Dakota mix-ups was reached just two weeks ago on what is, so far, the peak of South Dakota sports teams on the national stage: The FCS quarterfinals on Dec. 9. North Dakota State at South Dakota in Vermillion — easily the highest-profile and most-watched sporting event generated from South Dakota in the history of civilization.
How do I know this? Easy. This game wasn't available on just ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN+, or The Ocho.
This was ABC. Actual free, network TV. The Keith Jackson network. The Big House. The Horseshoe. The Iron Bowl. The Rose Bowl. The Grandaddy of Them All. Whoa, Nellie.
Yes, the Jacks had played on ABC in a national title game twice. But that was in Frisco, Texas. This was straight outta SoDak.
It wasn't just on ABC. It was a miracle day and time slot to be on ABC. This was the only football game on any network or basic cable station the nation could see at the time.
Almost all of the literally thousands of other college football games at all levels during the regular season, for four months every Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight, competes with several other nationally televised games. The only other CFB game on national TV at this time was Army-Navy on CBS.
But, the Bison and Yotes had a half-hour head start. So, for 30 minutes, all eyes on anyone starving for football would be on, of all places, the DakotaDome. How surreal! How "I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd ever see this!"
I was electrified with anticipation all week. OMG, NDSU vs USD on ABC! How would it look? How would it sound? Is this real? Is network TV really broadcasting a stand-alone football game from Vermillion, South Dakota? This is going to be so cool!
Of course, my next thought was — ABC's sports are produced by ESPN. So, the question wasn't if the crew would find a way to screw it up, but how long would it take?
The answer? Precisely 8 seconds.
Aaaaaand here is how ABC opened with the first network TV sporting event televised in the history of the "booming metropolis of Vermillion, South Dakota!" Or, as the graphic read, "Brookings, SD" #GoYotes 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/WrewbfamDE
— John Gaskins (@johnkgaskins) December 9, 2023
Try to get past the immediate condescension and snark that literally opened the broadcast with the words "from the booming metropolis of Vermillion, South Dakota" (so funny I forgot to laugh) and see if you can decipher the mistake on the graphic which would simultaneously piss off both SDSU and USD fanbases.
"The DakotaDome - Brookings, SD."
Dude! The guy just said Vermillion!
We get it. It was probably written by a new baby-faced intern in Bristol assigned to put together these graphics and surely not an employee who was in the ABC/ESPN truck in Vermillion.
But how long does it take to actually look up the location of the University of South Dakota and type it in? I just researched this. It depends on your WiFi speed. In my case, it's foggy outside today, so it was seven seconds. On clear days, maybe four.
Most folks at ESPN, who mostly have degrees from prestigious journalism juggernauts like Northwestern and Syracuse, surely have heard of Google, right?
I guess not.
But, once again, thanks to the extraordinary sustained success of South Dakota State football, the Four Letter will get its latest mulligan on Sunday, Jan. 7.
The Jackrabbits (not Jack Rabbits, jackasses) will be on ABC playing for the FCS national title again. They'll be playing Montana (not Montana State, morons).
So, in preparation, this is my friendly memo to that ESPN crew and all TV networks that broadcast sports from here to the end of eternity. Print it out, bookmark it, file it under "SOUTH DAKOTA COLLEGE SPORTS BASIC FACTS A PRESCHOOLER COULD REMEMBER AND PROMINENTLY DISPLAY CORRECTLY ON A GRAPHIC OR MENTION IN A BROADCAST:
South Dakota State University is located in Brookings, South Dakota. Its nickname is the Jackrabbits. (Not Jack Rabbits, jackasses). School colors: Blue and yellow. Many people use SDSU as an abbreviation. It is NOT San Diego State, which is 1,783 miles away and whose nickname is the Aztecs. School colors: Red and black).
The University of South Dakota is located in Vermillion, South Dakota. Its nickname is the Coyotes (pronounced "Ky-otes," not Ky-oh-tees. Don't ask me why). Many people use USD as an abbreviation. It is NOT the University of San Diego, which is 1,632 miles away and whose nickname is — let me google this real quick — the Toreros. (That took seven seconds).
Hopefully, this will be a guide to avoid future embarrassment ESPN so far has clearly not cared about.
I know, the brain can only store so much. There's apparently not enough room for South Dakota up there. Or North Dakota.
Wait, there's another Dakota? Is that the one with Mount Rushmore?
Indeed, there is a North Dakota, with a pair of Div. I schools called North Dakota and North Dakota State. Indeed, I've been told, ESPN and other entities mix them up, too. UND logo used instead of NDSU. According to one North Dakotan, after NDSU won an FCS football national title, the NCAA sent the championship banner to Grand Forks. (That's where UND is, not NDSU, which is in Fargo, don't ya know?)
And, indeed, the North Dakota schools and South Dakota schools get confused.
A couple weeks ago, the Green Bay Packers radio announcer, 13 games into the season, referred to former Jackrabbit All-American Tucker Kraft — who has played in every game and has 22 receptions and two touchdowns — as "the third round draft pick out of North Dakota State."
The struggle is real. And it is spectacular.
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