Although little is documented regarding the Yankton sports scene prior to World War I, there are plenty of indications that baseball games, horse races, and track and field events were important adjuncts to the life during the last third of the 19th century to the pioneers of the Dakota Territory.

Athletics in Yankton High School and in Yankton College were, of course, restricted by travel difficulties and lack of comunications between communities - but there are record of football contests involving these schools during the 1890s. The first Yankton College game recorded was just south of what is now Observatory Hill. in 1889 YC took on a team from the University of South Dakoa, with the USD team winning 12-0. Ten years later, in 1899, the first indications of a Yankton High team was in Doane Robinson's Encyclopedia of South Dakota, when he told of a game between high school teams from Yankton and Tyndall, descibing it as the "first South Dakota high school game as such," but not giving any details - not even a final score.

Sports _ on the high school level, had their beginning as the calendar showed that the Twentieth Century was underway.

There are some confusing and incomplete reports of 1890 era Yankton College games, but they are not well-documented.

By 1902 there was a Yankton High Shool team. It was declared the South Dakota state champions (but by what agency is not clear) giving impetus to the century-long winning tradition owned by YHS teams. In 1903 the season was as successful as the previous year, but only one game was scheduled in 1904 (a 35-0 win over Sioux Falls) because the financial situation of the school couldn't justify fielding the team.

Uniforms, travel expenses, playing facilities, etc. were a few of the problems that stopped sports as a high school entity for the next five years. Then veteran coach Bill Carberry organized a team _ a team that won four games before being stopped by Mitchell. The following year Sioux Falls was the only one of six teams that defeated the Yankton team.

In 1914 Carberry gave up his high school post and moved to Yankton College. The school board argued and fussed over hiring a new coach, but public opinion ruled and they hired a young man named Busk _ coach Busk, as no first name is known. That team again went all the way until they came against their nemisis from Mitchell High, who shut them out 2-0, setting up a big revenge game in 1915.

That momentous year, with players like Bill Dunn, Adolph Pederson, John Morrison, Clarence Courtney, Harry Christorherson, Frank Rogers, James Donahue, Ray and Roy Milliken, and Bill Kositsky, the YHS team (no team name at this early date) went all the way, beating Mitchell 65-0 in the final game and outscoring their opponents 241-26, no team getting more than one touchdown against them.

A special train came to Yankton from Mitchell for that big game, played to 3,000 fans on the Yankton College field at fifty cents per fan. It was a gala affair, with the Yankton City Band playing at the game, with a dance following the contest.

Meanwhile, Yankton College was enrolling some top athletic, as well as academic talent. In football, the Yankton College team, named the Greyhounds in 1916, reached the height in 1919. Coach Vince Montgomery and his star quarterback Carl Youngworth, who was destined to be the backbone of all YC athletics, were almost unbelieveable. After beating Western Union (LeMars IA) 83-0, they romped over Sioux City's Trinity College 87-0, then rode roughshod past Northern Normal 95-0. The Wayne State (NE) fell 62-0, the same score that the Hounds ran up against Huron College. They scraped by Sioux Falls College 20-0 on Pioneer Day, bringing them to their annual donneybrook against Dakota Wesleyan with six wins, and outscring their opponents to that point 409-0. But, on a wintry Thankgiving Day game, things went from bad to worse and the forlorn Greyhounds dropped the season finale 20-6.

Baseball was a game widely played in the days before the start of the new century - but most of it was "town team" sand lot competition, again not well documented. The most prominent team was the Yankton "Coyotes" _ a team with its roots in circa-1870. That team was a big hit and became a star attraction at the South Dakota State Fair when it was held in Yankton from 1896 to 1904.

In the days before the outbreak of World War I, the first semblence of sports organization showed on the scene. The South Dakota High School Athletic Association was born in the school year of 1905-06, organized by the state's school principals at their annual convention. Sioux Falls High School principal A. A. McDonald was the chosen leader and founder of the original structure of the group, and he stayed in charge for the next 20 years.

Boys basketball, although starting rather slowly in South Dakota, became a strong factor in South Dakota. In the early days girls basketball was popular, but within a couple of years the boys game gained strength. In 1910 the state-sponsored basketball schedule was taken over by the boys game. The girls did not regain their rightful place on the state's courts until 1974. More about that later.

At about the same time the track and field athletes began to compete. The first state meet took place in Sioux Falls on May 4, 1906. However, prior to that, events like the Yankton Relays were held around the state and improving facilities were in evidence.

Boy's basketball continued to flourish and the state association put on the first state tournament in 1916 in Huron, with Sioux Falls winning the initial crown. The state high school basketball tournaments have continued ever since _ always a highlight of the state's sports picture. In 1936 the schools split into Class A and Class B according to student enrollment. They split into three classes in 1986, AA, A, and B.

Aside from a hiatus during the war years of 1917 and 1918 the SDHSAA has held state boys track and field meets since their inception in 1906. They finally added girls competition in 1974, alhough there was activity in some schools earlier. The late Howard Taplett incorporated girls track into Tyndall (now Bon Homme) High School activities in the mid-1960s.

In 1924 the Eastern South Dakota Conference came into being, with Yankton , Mitchell, Aberdeen, Watertown, Brookings, Madison, Huron and Sioux Falls Washington as charter members. Vermilion and Redfield were short-time members of the league, but each dropped out in the 1920s. The league was originally called the Big Eight and had a basketball only schedule, but it soon expanded to include football and track.

The ESD underwent a few changes over the years, but Yankton, Mitchell, Watertown, Aberdeen, Huron and Brookings have stayed steadfast. Sioux Falls Washington outgrew the conference in 1953 and was eventually replaced by the Pierre Governors, while Madison withdrew in the 1980s and was replaced by a strong Brandon Valley program in 1990.

From an association that started as a boys basketball conference, the ESD now competes in football, basketball, cross country, wrestling, track, golf and tennis on the boys side, and in basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, cross country, track, golf and tennis for girls. There is state competition in each of the sports, and soccer, softball and baseball are waiting in the wings.

The inclusion of girls sports to the state's athletic curriculum is the most important happening on the state's sports scene since the begining of the 20th Century. It was mandated by the ferderal government under Title IX of the Equal Rights Amendment, which requires equal opportunities for both sexes - with a loss of federal funds for noncompliance.

The change not only altered the high school picture, but also affected colleges and universities, and the expansion of the sports vista has` proven to be an outstanding success

The Yankton High School Bucks (so named in 1922) and the YHS Gazelles (who came into being in 1974) have, over the years, racked up an amazing record in athletics. Beginning at the turn of the century when the Yankton football team claimed state titles in several of the early years (although there were no playoffs and other teams also claimed the same titles) the Yankton High School teams have been success-oriented. The Bucks' decade of the 1920's is one of the most brilliant chapters in the state's sports book. The 1922, 1923, 1924 and 1925 YHS basketball teams won state championships under coach Clem Letich. Then, after a three year hiatus, they won again in 1928, 1929 and 1931, dropping a disappointing final game to a fine Huron team in 1930, claiming seven state championships in ten years. Although it took a long time to win another, the Bucks were always competitive. In 1974, with Bob Winter in charge, they finally won again and followed that four years later when John Ehret's excellent 1978 team won the Class A title in the first state tournament to be played in Rapid City.

Most of the championship teams of the 1920s won the right to play in the national high school tournament played in Chicago. The 1924 team went all the way to the finals before losing to a strong Windsor, Colo. team in a game in which the Bucks were sorely hampered when one of their stars, John McDonough, was injured in a semifinal. McDonough, along with all-American Guy "Snatz" Warden, Randall "Putts" Jacobsen, Clarence Weiger, and Robert Reedy made up the Bucks roster. The entire population of the City of Yankton was on hand at the Milwaukee Railroad depot to welcome their heroes back from the Windy City following their valient stab at bringing home the national title. A band led a parade through the streets, with bonfires, speeches and great enthusiasm lighting up the late March sky. The Mother City was indeed the state capital of basketball.

In the brilliant annals of Yankton High athletics, one of the best has to be the 1930-31 Bucks. Coach W. W. Stephenson had an excellent group of high school athletes. The football team, won all nine of their regular season football games but, because of a peculiar method of chosing champions (called the Dickinson ratings,) they were declared co-champs of the ESD Conference. Both Sioux Falls and Watertown were also unbeaten, and they hadn't played one another. But the Bucks left little doubt as to who was the mythical state champs when they went to Rapid City to play Euc Cobb's Rapid City High School Cobblers in a post-season game and won 20-0. That was their ninth shutout of the season. Only the tough Brookings Bobcats scored on Yankton that season, and they had two points on a safety that Stephenson decided to deliberately give up in order to force Brookings into an almost impossible field position at the end of the game. The Bucks won that closest game 6-2.

The talented group of YHS athletes then put together one of South Dakota's all-time great seasons. Led by 6'5 four-year all-stater Ray Hamann, who controlled nearly 95% of the center jumps, (there were jump balls after each made field goal or free throw in those days) the sharp-shooting Bucks ran rough-shod over all 28 of their foes. Junior Floyd "Andy" Schenk, in fact, ended the season with more points scored than all of the opponents scored as a team, and senior Stanley "Ganner" Smith was only a few points behind Schenk. Hamann went on to become a basketball star at the University of Wisconsin in the Big Ten, and later became the first South Dakota cager to play professionally, as he played a guard for the old Oshkosh, B'Gosh team in the loosely-knit league that became the foundation for the National Basketball Association.

After that team had completed their undefeated state championship basketball season, they nearly complete the sports "hat trick" when they chased the unbeatable Sioux Falls track team to the wire for the state track championship, owned for years by the powerful Warriors of the venerable coach, Howard Wood. SF won be the skin of their teeth.

Colleges, too were experiencing growing pains in their athletic infrastucture. Although football, basketball and track and field remained the most popular game with the fans, the womens sports have increased steadily in the fan's eyes. Basketball, volleyball, track, and cross country teams from the now defunct Yankton College and then the Mount Marty Lady Lancers have demonstrated a marked improvement, and are able to compete with NAIA schools at a national level.

Yankton College closed their doors in 1984 because of financial woes - but not before making their mark in the Upper Midwest - academically and athletically. In sports the YC Greyhounds were widely recognized as one of the top track and field teams in the nation - particularly during the dark days of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Coach Carl Youngworth gathered some outstanding talent together for his track and field dynasty. The key was a farm lad from Onida SD, Joe Mendel, who was outstanding in all sports, but particularly on the cinder track, where he had _ in high school _ outscored the deep and powerful Sioux Falls High School 20-19 1/2 to win the 1926 state track title for his small school, a feat that still rates as one of the most outstanding ever accomplished.

But Joe was just getting started. At Yankton College, under the astute Youngworth, Mendel called the attention of the sports world to little Yankton College when he tied the existing world record in the 100-yard dash. He blazed down the cinder track in a time of 09.5 - a world mark at the time, and a state record that lasted unchallenged for a half-century.

"Smokey Joe," as he was widely known, was the fore runner in a splendid era for the Greyhounds. From 1928 until World War II changed the course of human events in 1941, the YC team dominated SDIC track and field _ and their football and basketball teams were always bidding for a title. With nationally-known athletes like Mendel, Ben Valder, Tom Ptak, Arnold Preheim, Ralph Halla, Bob Putnam, and Morgan T. Smith, the record fell and the championships mounted.

In later years, when a splendid and dedicated coach, John Notheis, came to Yankton to help the aging Youngworth, the strong track tradition remained. National and international competitors like Tom White, who narrowly missed the Olympic team in 1940, when he was rated as one of the world's best high hurdlers, and middle distance ace Paul Blaylock, who reigned as the national champion at indoor 1600 meters were among a hundred others who toiled to keep the Greyhound aura intact. The Yankton College Greyhound Hall-of-Fame in resplendent in the honor roster of people who have helped sports on a national basis.

Yankton College coaches like Youngworth, Doug Cowman, Jim Holwerda, John Eidsness, Ron Bertsch and Jim Thorson consistently produced high caliber Greyhound basketball teams. On the gridiron, Youngworth, Bus Gentry, Lorne Arnold, Bob Putnam, Vern McKee, Don Birmingham, Bill Bobzin, Jim Chesley and Stan Zweifel had some nationaly ranked football powers.

The 1970 Greyhounds boasted a pair of all-Americans _ both going in early rounds of the National Football League draft. Les "JJ" Goodman, the Hound's record-setting running back, was injured before he could get a career started, although he had worked his way up the Green Bay Packer list of running backs and quite possibly would have started for them in 1972 if a knee injury hadn't sidelined him. The other was Lyle Alzado, who not only made it _ but he made it big. Lyle, who never forgot his Yankton foundation, made the Denver Broncos starting defensive team his first year. He played for the Denver Broncs in the Super Bowl, then was traded to the Cleveland Browns before ending his 14-year pro career as an all-pro tackle with another Super Bowl team, the Oakland Raiders.

In 1970 the Mount Marty Lancers made their auspicious debut on the are's basketball courts. When the long-time Catholic girls college turned co-ed, the administration made a committment to the community and to the students that athletics would become a strong part of the school's curriculum. It has done so, particularly in basketball, men's and womens. The Lancers, ten years after their inaugural year, qualified for the NAIA national tournament in Kansas City. They have again reached that lofty spot a couple of times in the 1990s, taking third place in the 1998 tournament, when their outstanding guard, Mac Ropps, made the all-American team.

The Lancers have recently made a new move upward. They joined the South Dakota Iowa Confernce a few years ago, competing at a championship level in basketball, in baseball and in track and cross country. They have now made a committment that will put them in a new conference to start the new century when then become a full member in the Nebraska College Conference, a ten-team entity that will include colleges and universities from Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota.

Rudy Gerstner, now a sucessful Yankton businessman, was the first Lancer basketball coach. Since 1993 former Yankton College coach Jim Thorson has been the head man in men's basketball _ and with a great deal of success. Chuck Iverson has become one of the finest women's coaches, and his coming edition of the Lady Lancers have championship ambitions.

Former Yankton College athlete Bob Tereshinski wasted no time in putting the baseball Lancers on the map. His baseball team has reigned with the state's best teams over the dozen years he has coached them and his athletes are coaching teams of their own in many of the area's comunities.

Tereshinski resigned following the 1999 season, and he will be replaced by one of his boys, Kelly Heller, who has assisted at both MMC and the University of South Dakota since his graduation from Mount Marty.

The increasingly successful Lancer and Lady Lancer track and cross country teams have prospered under the coaching of the dedicated Marlon Brink. His teams, still short in numbers, have been highly competitive and atre on the way up.

Pat Mickow-James has returned to the Mount Marty family as the coach of the volleyball fortunes. The Lady Lancers are starting to make their mark and, typical of the Lancer outlook, they are looking for championship teams in the near future.

The impressive room ful of trophies and championship memoirs that was left in the Yankton College trophy room and the growing honors for Mount Marty teams and athletes are great examples of well-run and dedicated programs, athletes and coaches. The Yankton High School records are a great source of pride to that school and to the Yankton community.

In the years that state championship have been fought for in South Dakota state competition, the Bucks have brought home 31 state championships in various sports and the Gazelles have, in the relatively short 25-year history of girls sports, own 13, nine of them in basketball and four in track.

In the ESD Conference, since its inception in the 1927, 77 boys crowns have been earned by Buck teams and the Gazelles have captured 29 girls titles _ records that rank among the tops in the competitive athletic family.

Yankton High School has, over the years, been blessed with the high caliber of coachiong in all sports that has resulted in the many successes and consequent respect. As a matter of fact the athletic coaches at the two local colleges have ben of similar quality.

Heading the colege list is the venerable Carl Youngworth, who came to Yankton College (actually he came to the Yankton Academy, a secondary school under the auspicies of Yankton College) in 1914 from his home in Tyndall. He was still on the staff when YC closed its doors in December of 1984 - a span of 70 years, with time off for service in both World War I and World War II, plus`a short two-years after he got his degree to do a little high school coaching. Carl and his charming wife, Cle, spent their lives in Yankton. Valued citizens as well as teachers, the Youngworths were home-away-from-home parents to literally hundreds of YC students over the years, and Carl's fine coaching put his Greyhounds on the national map, particularly in track and field.

The long line of dedicated teacher/coaches at Yankton High School began with Bill Carberry, their first coach back in 1910. Many followed, but time has faded their memories. In 1921 a young man arrived and made a big mark in just three years of service, Clem Letich, who was destined to become a great coach at the University of North Dakota, set the standard to which future YHS teams were dedicated. His three teams all were state basketball champions, and his 1924 team will always be the one rememebered for almost bringing home the national championship from the big Amos Alonzo Stagg tournament played each year in Chicago. The legendary Buck pride and spirit stems from that bright era.

Following Letich was a small, dapper disciplinarian, another future Hall-of-Famer, Warren W. Stephenson. His winning teams in his first years set the stage for another YHS dynasty - a promise that, like so many promises, was scuttled by the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Bucks struggled like the rest of the country and were awakened in 1941 when George Nielsen built another super-Buck football story, an undefeated team the rekindled the spirit.

But World War II brought different goals and more important things to be concerned with, and it wasn't until 1947 that the Buck spirit was again brought to life.

It took a shot in the arm from a former USD Coyote star, who also starred as a paratrooper in WWII, to get things going - and it didn't take him long. Bob Burns was in Yankton just two years, but he made things happen. The Yankton football fortunes again rose to the top, with 8-1 and 7-2 record in the two seasons he was here. In addition he sparked the organization of the Yankton Quarterback Club, a strong and important organization of sports boosters that has continued undiminished since 1947.

Bob took over for the venerable Howard Wood at Sioux Falls Washington after two years at YHS and soo had that school's football program recognized as one of the finest in the entire Midwest.

Competent coaches like Dwayne Clodfelter, Lars Overskei, Don Allan, Rich Greeno, Don Baker, and Jack Richardson took their places and responsibilities, continuing the Bucks' winning ways.

Then, in the middle 1960's, a pair of coaches, both, incidentally from little Wessington Springs right in the middle of the state, took over. Max Hawk, who proved himself to be a brilliant high school football mentor, had been coaching in Scotland for a few years, while Bob Winter had been on the Yankton High staff for two years after his graduation from Yankton College.

The two took over the duties held by Baker and Richardson, who opted to move into the college ranks, both taking jobs at Southern STate College in Springfield.

Hawk stayed at YHS for 30 years and built an almost unbelieveable record. His 30 teams won 232 football games and lost but 65. He coached 17 ESd Conference champions and his teams were adjudged state champions eight times, including three that occurred after the state finally began football playoffs in 1981. He had five undefeated teams and ten others who lost just once during the year. In addition, he led the coach's fight to begin playoffs, showing a stubborness and political savvy that wouldn't be beaten.

Bob Winter, meanwhile, soon had his Bucks on a winning path, and ended a 43-year state championship drought when his 1974 Bucks won the state Class A title, the first for Yankton since the great 1931 champions.

Winter, who had a 153-77 record with the boys, then took over a brand-new challenge, girls basketball in 1975. His Gazelles immediately forged to the top and from the first state championship in 1975, until he turned the reins over to Doug Pesicka in 1991, the Winter-coached girls had a record of 322-53, with 12 conference titles and eight state championships in just 16 seasons.

Both Hawk and Winter have been recognized by the National Coaches Asociation as Coach of the Year for their sports.

Other Yankton coaches with national honors include Norm West, who had 10 ESD championship and seven state titles to his credit in golf. Three talented golfers, Jim Ahern, Jim Binder, Jr. and Brian Kortan won state individual honors.

Rich Greeno, who toiled with the Yankton track and field fortunes for a dozen years before moving to Sioux Falls Lincoln, was recognized for his leadership and record in both schools. He was the architect for future Buck and Gazelles, which was carried on by the versatile Jim Miner, who coached the Bucks to three state boys crowns and the Gazelles to the top four times.

Miner was also recognized as Hawk's chief aide in football for 28 years, and then had a four-year success story of his own before retiring last year, Miner's Buck football teams owned an unbeaten season, a state and an ESD championship and a very good 33-12 record.

There are many other expert coaches who have helped in the overall YHS success, including the unsung hero, Ray Kooistra, whose great talent in training young footballers made it easier for Max Hawk and his crew later. There is Ginger Larson, who took the Gazelles volleyball program from a beginning in 1992 to one of the state's outstanding teams by the centuries end. And Ken Schaefer, whose wrestlers brought home the only state crown owned by the proud Bucks; and Gene Borman, whose dedicated coaching brought cross country success home; and he was augmented by the enthusiasm of the fine distance coach, Dan Fitzsimmons, whose desire and hard work ethic also makes the Gazelle gymnasts winners. There are so many more deserving contributors.

In the comparatively short history of Mount Marty College, the Lancers basketball success has been in good hands with Rudy Gerstner, Frank Evans, Bob Wilber and Jim Thorson all having a hand. Chuck Iverson, te current AD and girls cage coach, has his exciting program well in hand.

In baseball, Bob Tereshinski has brought respect to the MMC campus with one of the best small college baseball programs in the Upper Midwest. And Marlon Brink has both the men's and the women's cross country and track and field ready for the tough competition that the Lancers and the Lady Lancers will face in their new alliance in the Nebraska Intercollegiate Conference, where soccer will also be added to the Lancer arsenal.

Baseball is the most lasting sport in Yankton. It had it's beginnings here just a few short decades after Abner Doubleday was credited with Americanizing the old British game of "rounders" and making it an American institution.

There was a Yankton team known as the Coyote from 1870 through the first part of the 20th Century. They competed against teams from other area towns and every now and then had the opportunity to meet one of the many traveling teams that hit the Upper Midwest quite regularly.

Perhaps the high spot of Yankton baseball activity came in the years immediately following the second world war. A semipro team known as the Terrys (short for the Territorials in honor of the Mother City's days as the capital of the Dakota Territory) was formed, after a great deal of success with having an amateur team in the old State League. Using talented major league-bound college stars, an eight-team league in South Dakota and Nebraska played brilliant baseball, and the baseball park situated on the banks of the Missouri River was often host to crowds of up to 3,000 fans.

The practice of mixing the youngsters on the way up and some old pros going the other way became distasteful to the NCAA, and the Basin League was doomed after about ten good, entertaining years. Amateur baseball, however, flourished, with local talent like Cliff Hicks, Frannie Horacek, Hal Anderson, Red Loecker, and others with marked ability, bringing state championships to Yankton on several occassions.

The Yankton youth baseball programs also became strong and, in the late 1950s, coaches Don Baker and Rich Greeno took a teener team to the national tournament in Hershey PA, where they made a good showing.

Golf, too, has been a popular and strong Yankton sports area. Started back in 1923 when a group of local fans purchased some pasture land four miles north af town, Yankton has benen known as a state leader in the ancient sports. Outstanding citizens like Bill Fantle, John Keating, Ralph Wheeler, Harry Margolin, Percy Ohlman, and the Binder brothers, Fred and Emil, headed a successful effort to get prospective golfers to get their shovels and rakes and to go to the new site to help build the course. The cooperative effort paid off in the making of a challenging sand green, nine-hole layout that served its purpose until circa 1950.a

In 1950 a new site was purchased from Yankton oil man R. D. Hill, situated just on the northeast city limits of Yankton. A stony pasture, another cooperative effort by members like Laddie Cimpl, Frank Yaggie, Larry Wallbaum and a couple of second generation Binder brothers, Harry and Jim, forged a handsome new layout, a private club named Hillcrest. With sporty grass greens, it was originally nine holes, but later the members wanted an 18-hole playing field, so, in the late 1960s, another sixty acres across the road was turned into what has become one of the most challenging and beautiful golf corses in South Dakota.

In the 1990s, there was pressure from the golfing public to build a municipal golf course, and the Fox Run course, located on the nothwest part of town, with leadership from City Manager Bill Ross and Parks and Recreation Director Roger Pierce, has become an important sports adjunct to the city.

Hillcrest, each August, hosts a widely known tournament called the Hilcrest Pro-Am, which has become an integral part of the Dakota Tour, a series of tournamenst that draws pros as well as amateur players.

Several Yankton golfers have been state champions, including Maynard Mogck, Jim Ahern, Tom Hendricks, and Bill Branson, and with a spectacular woman champions for several years, Indy Titterington.

The courses have allowed Yankton to have some excellent high school and college players and teams.

A new kid on the block is soccer, which has taken the entire country by storm. Yankton has been fortunate enough to have some outstanding soccer fields, either already to play or being groomed for the hundreds of young people who play.

With an unsurpassed parent cooperation, there is little doubt that soccer has a potent future, although it is not yet recognized as an interscholastic sport. It has been incorporated into most college programs (including Mount Marty College.)

Other sports activities are perpetually parts of the sports scene. Swimming teams compete with each other throughout the year, now that so many indoor pools exist. Yankton has one of the finest in the Summitt Center and the DakotaDome in Vermillion is alweays busy.

Softball, bowling, bicycling, road races, pool, and other activities all have their day in the sun, and Yankton takes part in all of them.