 "Photo: USD Archives and Special Collections")
 "Photo: USD Archives and Special Collections")
The normally calm and reserved Jack Doyle came alive with a flurry of excitement.
Flipping through his scrapbook, the former USD men's basketball coach pointed to pictures and soon found himself lost in the memories of a "historic" trip to Cuba in 1977.
"It was something I'll never forget, and I'm sure our players will never forget," said Doyle, who retired from coaching in 1982 and is now working for the USD Foundation.
This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of a joint USD/SDSU "basketball diplomacy" trip to Cuba in which the 11-member South Dakota squad played two games against the Cuban national team.
But for those involved, the five-day excursion to communist Cuba was about more than basketball, or baloncesto. It was about improving relations between the two countries. Although the South Dakota team lost both games by 19 points, in retrospect, the results really did not matter as much as the visit itself.
"For the players to have the chance to visit a country like that was a tremendous educational experience," Doyle said. "Basketball was almost secondary."
Planning the trip Cuban President Fidel Castro originally wanted the New York Yankees to visit Cuba, but Major League Baseball preferred to have a team of all-stars make the trip. However, Cuban officials then contacted South Dakota Senators George McGovern and James Abourezk and proposed a plan for a team from South Dakota to come down and play.
Soon after, a decision was made to include players from South Dakota State. The team would now be made up of five players from USD and five from SDSU, with one alternate. In addition, the trip would be open to any citizen who was willing to pay $500.
"When we first heard of the possibility, we were all excited," Doyle recalled.
After approval from the U.S. State Department, the trip was a go. Unlike planning for a two-day journey to Omaha, Neb., or Fargo, N.D., university officials were left to prepare for a trip that no other U.S. sports team had made in 17 years.
"Our biggest question was, 'How are we going to get there,'" said Ted Muenster, who was USD's vice president of University Relations in 1977 and is now president of the USD Foundation.
Brian McDermott, a junior on the 1977 USD roster and current men's basketball head coach at Southern Oregon University, recalls being both puzzled and excited upon hearing the news of a "basketball vacation" to Cuba.
"There was some confusion right away, because it was so different for all of us," McDermott said in a phone interview from Berkeley, Calif. "I remember wondering who was going. We had no idea what it would be like."
'Almost like playing in Brookings' Having practiced just twice as a team prior to leaving for Havana, the 11 players on the South Dakota team were thrown on the court against a Cuban national team that featured three starters on the 1976 Cuban Olympic team.
"We just told the guys to go out and play as hard as they can," Doyle said. "It wasn't so much about winning as just having fun."
Both games were played in front of 15,000 people in the Havana Sports Arena and were broadcast on national television in Cuba. In addition, the team was informed that captives of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion were held in the arena.
Asked whether he and the other players felt intimidated, McDermott joked, "It wasn't so unlike places here. It was almost like playing in Brookings."
Of the dozens of photos taken during the two games, Doyle said the one lasting image that stands out is USD's Ron Pedersen and a Cuban player bringing out their respective country's flags to half court. Each team was lined up behind them, with a large image of Che Guevara (a Cuban revolutionary figure) in the arena rafters.
"I'll never forget the feeling I had when the American flag was carried out onto the floor," Doyle said. "The Cuban fans all whistled to show their appreciation. It was a very emotional moment."
Of all the memories Ron Lenz, a former USD sports information director, took from those two games, he most fondly remembers an incident between an Associated Press photographer and an American flag.
"I was standing there along the sidelines next to an AP photographer, and I saw that our flag didn't have stars on the backside," Lenz recalled. "Apparently, someone accidentally brought a wall flag, which was blank on the back. The AP guy took the picture, and the flag ended up in a bunch of pictures all over the world."
Intense media coverage Among the 100 people who boarded a Southern Airways commercial plane to Havana were reporters from the New York Times, London Times, Los Angeles Times and Newsweek magazine. Additionally, all three major U.S. television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) sent crews along for the trip.
"They were mostly news media; not really any sports guys," Lenz said. "There was a lot of enthusiasm for them, because it was such a huge event. They didn't really cover the basketball part of it because they were along to cover Cuba."
Sifting through old news articles regarding the trip gives the impression that the team from South Dakota was not only representing the state or the two universities, but the entire country.
"When we put on those 'USA' jerseys for the games, we knew what we were representing," McDermott said.
An April 9, 1977 article from the Washington Post quipped, "There are no palm trees in South Dakota and hardly any communists. Still the distance between Mt. Rushmore and Carlos Marx is not nearly as great as the hostile past would suggest."
USD alum Tom Brokaw, who was the host of NBC News' "Today Show" in 1977, was originally scheduled to make the trip to Cuba, but was instead in Russia at the time. The day after the first game in Havana, someone quoted him as saying, "I could have told the officials it wouldn't work, because you can't put a Coyote and a Jackrabbit on the court together."
What did the trip mean? Looking back at the trip, those involved say they were hopeful their "basketball diplomacy" would lead to enhanced relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Now, 30 years later, they struggle to locate ways in which their visit changed things in a diplomatic sense.
"It's not what it meant, it's what it didn't mean that I think is important," Muenster said. "The trip didn't result in a beginning of a thaw with our Cuban relations. Things between the two countries are just as heated."
In terms of what the Cuban trip meant to USD, Doyle was quick to say, "I don't know that a lot changed at USD because of our visit. There was a lot of attention paid to us once we got back to Vermillion, but after a while, it was all back to normal."
Thirty years later, the USD/SDSU excursion to communist Cuba is just a relic of the 100-year-old USD athletic department. The trip isn't mentioned once in the current basketball media guides and there are no banners or plaques inside the DakotaDome commemorating the event. Yet that cannot take away the memories the players and coaches took with them.
"Everyone was proud that USD was asked to make this historic trip," Doyle said. "We talked about maybe going back, but it never happened. That was a once in a lifetime thing."
Reach reporter Jeremy Hoeck at Jeremy.Hoeck@usd.edu.
Related story: Foreign trips uncommon for USD
Be the first to comment on this article!