If you have a pulse, you’ve probably heard of or watched the talented South Dakota State University basketball star Mike Daum, who is 6 feet 9 inches tall. 

He’s setting a record or two each time he walks out on the court for his final year wearing the Yellow and Blue.

People have gotten taller through the years, but as one who has never seen the top of his refrigerator, the spurt hasn’t exactly tilted my way. In fact, as we elders tend to do, I’m shrinking daily, and in concert with that, the top of my refrigerator just seems to be soaring away into the wild blue yonder. 

In 1926, the State College military unit measured and weighed all male students as part of the required ROTC program. They were surprised when Fred E. Kaiser of Estelline was measured to be 6 feet 8 inches tall. The agriculture major was the tallest student ever enrolled at State College. He didn’t play basketball for the Jacks, by the way. 

Kaiser’s one complaint about college life was that the beds in his dormitory were only 5 feet 6 inches long, which interestingly, is the average height of a male during Colonial times. 

Reading about all this tallness that’s going around inspired me to try to find out who was the tallest student ever at South Dakota State University. It isn’t the Dauminator. 

I assumed whomever was the tallest would be a male, and would probably have been on a Jackrabbit basketball team. So I looked up Ron Lenz, former Jackrabbit Sports Information director. He’s arguably the most knowledgeable person on SDSU’s sport history around. Ron is a walking encyclopedia of Jackrabbit facts and figures, and I hope he writes a book about all that sometime.  

Ron not only remembers names, he remembers heights, and maybe even the scores of the hundreds of Jackrabbit games he sat through and written about for decades. If he doesn’t know the answer, he knows where to find it. 

Ron mentioned the Ashley boys from Pierre, who found their way to SDSU in the 1970s. There was Joe, who started out at Iowa State, but soon returned to his home state to play for Coach Gene Zulk. Joe stood 7 feet tall. At Pierre High School, he recorded 405 blocked shots. He led his Governors to the 1979 championship, defeating Rapid City 68-57. Joe scored 32 points. 

Joe’s brother Bob Ashley was equally adept on the court. And I believe he is the tallest person ever to play basketball at SDSU, or to attend SDSU. He might even be South Dakota’s tallest man ever. 

Bob was listed in the game programs at 7 feet, but SID-Emeritus Lenz says he was actually 7 feet 2 inches tall.

Another tall cager for the Jackrabbits was lanky Brian Shanks of Lake Preston and then Huron. He was 7 feet tall. If you know of other Jackrabbit 7-plus footers, let me know.

Getting back into the altitudes of Mike Daum, there was Jim Walker, who was a great player an inch taller than Mike. Walker graduated in 1981. 

A teammate of Walker’s was Steve Lingenfelter, who was 6 feet 9 inches tall. Steve transferred from Minnesota and went on to play pro ball for nine years, returning to earn his SDSU degree in 1989.  

Another front-line starter for that great team was 6-foot-8-inch Bob Winzenburg, who graduated in 1984. 

I didn’t ask Ron who among this group of tall Jackrabbits could best shoot the three-pointer, but I’m going out on that high limb and suggest the winner would be Mike Daum. 

Fortunately for all of the “bigs” whom I’ve enjoyed watching during the 64 years attending games in the Barn and in Frost, I’m pretty sure those 5-foot-6-inch beds of the 1920s became surplus long ago.

Interestingly, I started out my college years at State standing exactly as high as the dorm beds were long. And like the dorm beds of that day, I’m also on the verge of being declared surplus.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.