​Celebrating 48 Years of the Saturday Morning Coaches Show with Dick Newman

​Ever since I started working at the radio station, I’ve been coming in on Saturday mornings to run the board for Dick Newman as he hosts the Coaches Show. Airing every Saturday from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, the show features Dick interviewing Lac Qui Parle Valley coaches about their games from the previous week. With a new school year starting, this marks Dick’s 48th year hosting the show—we think!

​This past Saturday, Coach John Shurb, who has been coaching three sports for many years, was our first guest. Before going on the air, the three of us tried to figure out exactly how long Dick has been doing this.

​Here is a little background on the history of the Coaches Show:

Dick first started on a Christian radio station in Milbank, South Dakota, co-hosting with Tim McNamara, who was a teacher at Madison High School at the time. The station only gave them seven minutes to wrap up the Madison High School results. Dick recalled that Bob Monte, Madison’s football coach, was only halfway through his roster when Christian music started playing right over them—they had been cut off!

KDMA radio in Montevideo entered the picture next. They ran a two-hour Coaches Show on Saturday mornings, where Dick was a regular fixture for several years.

In 1983, Maynard Meyer and Terry Overlander started KLQP in Madison, which became the show’s long-term home.

​I joined Dick on the air in 2007. John, Dick, and I settled on 48 years because Coach Monte was Dick’s very first guest, and Monte left Madison around 1978. If our math is right, that makes nearly half a century of Saturday morning broadcasts!

​Just think about how many different coaches he has interviewed over that time. Dick himself was a teacher and coach at Madison, and later at LQPV for many years. In fact, Dick was my own teacher and coach back in the early ’70s, coaching me in football, wrestling, and baseball. I still remember him in 1972 when I was a freshman and he was the new physical education teacher. He ran PE class like a military boot camp!

​Dick and I have known each other for well over 50 years now. While he still helps me broadcast sports on Q-92 from time to time, and does wrestling with Danny Lee, the Saturday morning Coaches Show is his baby, and he has done an amazing job with it. When coaches aren’t available live on Saturdays, he comes into the studio on Fridays to record them ahead of time. He constantly goes above and beyond to make the show top-notch, and it has been an absolute pleasure working alongside him.