If you’ve followed the Flandreau Fliers at all over the course of the last 50 years, then you know that Dave Jewett has rarely missed a game. The former basketball and volleyball coach was an athlete himself when he attended Flandreau High School graduating in 1972. He’s been true to the Purple and Gold ever since.
So it was almost a natural move for him to get behind the mic in the crow’s nest at the gym just a few short weeks ago and start calling both the Flandreau boys and girls basketball games.
Someone, he said, had to do it.

“I watched a couple of away games last year and it was just dead silence, and then the camera was so bad that you couldn’t even pick out who had the ball. So I contacted Rick Weber here awhile ago and asked if he’d want me to announce. And he said, awesome. But you’ve got to watch your mouth,” Jewett said, laughing.
He said it’s been easy to do, both the calling and keeping it all in check — other than in the final second of the boys game versus McCook Central about two weeks ago. That was a tough one.
“We were up by two with 5.2 seconds to go, we got the ball in bounds and they fouled us,” he explained. “We went down to shoot a one and one and missed it, they rebounded and from half court the kid launches it, banks it in and makes it to beat us by one at the buzzer,” said Jewett. “I was proud of myself for not swearing on the air.”
It was a tough call and a tough loss for the Fliers. Still, it’s been his favorite moment of calling games thus far.
“When I get home, I watch the games to see how bad I might have screwed up. We had over 400 (people) watch the game the other night, that’s pretty cool,” he said. “Most people have been positive so far, everybody seems to like it. I told them they’re pretty hard up for entertainment,” he laughes.
Jewett hopes to continue calling games if the school will let him. He’s at every home and away game that he can be anyway, he said. His hope is that next season, even at the away games, he’ll get set up to broadcast the games and offer live commentary.