Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus #2 St. Thomas on March 5, 2026 , Loss , 67, to, 80
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FINAL
Men's Basketball
67
vs #2 St. Thomas
80
South Dakota State University Athletics
Catching Up with Kurt Meister
1/19/2016 4:46:00 PM | Men's Basketball
South Dakota State last hired a new men's basketball coach in 1995, and as Scott Nagy approaches his 400th career win, one of the players there for his very first win reflects on his career at SDSU.
GoJacks.com caught up with Jackrabbit Legend Kurt Meister to ask him about the coaching change that changed the course of SDSU Basketball and perhaps even his career, along with a few other topics.
What do you do for a living?
I've been a teacher for 17 years and have taught geography at John Marshall High School, my wife's alma mater in Rochester, Minn., for the past 14 years.
You married former Jackrabbit women's basketball standout Angie Swenson, do you have any future Jackrabbits?
We have three children. Lincoln is an eighth grader, Lilly is in sixth grade and Alayna is a third grader. They all play sports and love the Jacks, they also really don't like USD or NDSU – weird how that happened? We also have taught them the negatives of Augustana, even though we don't play them anymore.
The media guide from your senior year says that you majored in history. Have you used that degree since graduation in 1998?
Yes, I did my student teaching at Sioux Valley High School with Jerry deBlonk, which was a fantastic experience and got me excited to be a teacher. I received my history (social studies) degree and was hired right out of college at a great district.
Do you still follow the Jackrabbit basketball team?
You bet, technology makes it much easier now with the iJacks app and ESPN, etc…We try to make one football game and one men's/women's basketball game each year, as well as the auction in April. I'm a JV basketball coach and my three kids play – this makes getting to games difficult. We went to watch the Jacks play Middle Tennessee at the Pentagon – every time we make it to Brookings it makes us wish we lived closer – we really enjoy it.
You played in a slower grind-it-out system as a freshman, then got a new head coach in your sophomore year in Scott Nagy, who wanted run up and down the floor. How was that transition for you as a player?
I'm not going to lie, I was a little freaked out – 6'8", 265 lbs and very average athletic ability is not a good equation for running the court. Coach Nagy and (assistant coach Matt) Margenthaler kept working with me and it was a great thing. He stressed that I needed to be the first down the court, if I didn't get the rebound. "Yeah right", I thought, but didn't say it. I'm glad he did this, because if forced me to be a different player – a much better player. I realized how much fun the game could be and our records showed it.
You're one of only 45 players in school history to score more than 1,000 career points, and only 17 Jackrabbits have scored more. What does that mean to you now?
It's great to be a part of this list of players, being a history guy I would always look at the numbers of former players in the media guide, I wanted to be on that list and I was lucky enough to achieve that goal. Now I realize it was a reward for four years of great basketball with great guys. I can also point it out to my students in case they don't believe I played ball, I can even say I played DI, which is not true but that won't hurt them too much.
Do you remember when you scored your 1,000th career point, or did you not know until someone told you?
I do remember this, we were playing Augie at home and I was 16 points shy of 1,000. Packed house and we beat them good, really fun game. I ended the game with 15 points. The next game was at UNO, which was a fieldhouse with 50 fans in the seats – brutal place to play. I scored a layup in the first minutes; I found out the next weekend that I scored 1,000 points... Nobody stopped the game or anything, that's all right though, it would have been weird at that place, could have heard my parents cheering though.
Your wife, Angie, put together quite the career at SDSU as well, scoring 1,335 points in her career. Does she ever remind you that she scored more points than you?
Once in a while. She was a great player, she has this up and under move that ends with a finger roll – I still don't know how she does it. We still joke about her lack of assists.
The teams sometimes traveled together in the NCC days, is that how you and Angie met, or is your first meeting a good story?
Angie and I met at a "social gathering" in the basement of a double wide trailer off campus (classic SDSU story) during the first week of school my freshmen year. I can still remember our first encounter; I walked right up to her and said, "Man, you are tall!" I'm sure she was smitten with me at once. We did travel together and play those Friday-Saturday weekend games in the NCC, it was a great schedule, but we didn't see each other much on those trips, different schedules and game times.
The Jacks opened your senior year with a school-record 21 wins. What do you remember about that streak? The pressure must have been incredible!
I can remember going down to Vermillion and winning our 18th or 19th in a row, that was a great victory over a hostile crowd. An elderly gentlemen called me out and yelled "you're bush league Meister" – I guess I can take it as a compliment. After we won our 21st we were ranked No. 1 in the country, then went to play NDSU – they had an average team that year, but the announcer announced us as "South Dakota State University, the No. 1 team in the country playing the Bison on FRIDAY THE 13th" and what do you know, we laid an egg and got beat. Not too much time to dwell on it, as we had to go to Grand Forks and play UND the next night.
We won that game with a bench-clearing (UND team) brawl on top of Casey Estling. One of the coaches for UND who was in the brawl, was Ben Jacobson – the current Northern Iowa coach.
When you reflect back on your career at SDSU, what do you think about the most?
It's hard to explain how great of an experience it was, especially coming in from Hamilton, Ill., (population 3,000) with very little knowledge of SDSU or anything about South Dakota. All the great people, great relationships I have with teammates, coaches, etc… The fact that I shared many experiences with Angie is a huge bonus, we both look back and share memories and pass some of them on to our kids. I'm so proud to tell people that I'm a Jackrabbit and wear the apparel all the time. I especially feel blessed when I speak to people who did not have a great college experience like we did.
Who was the best player you played with at SDSU?
Wow, that is a tough one, there's no way I could single out 1-10. My career spanned from Ryan Naajtes to Jermaine Showers, Tom Rops to Jason Sempstrott to Brian Norberg – too many to name.
What did you think when you first heard about the move up to Division I, and what do you think about it now?
I'm not going to lie, I thought it was nuts…playing DI sports? Who are we going to play? Will there be any significant wins? Are we going to be THAT team that everyone wants to beat the snot out of? Can they get the recruits they need?
What a great move it has been, playing high-level DI teams at Frost and beating Minnesota, TCU, Iowa, Iowa State and Washington over the years. Being in the NCAA tournament, it has been great.
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