“I used to probably be a little crazy, kind of a maniac maybe, but I’ve calmed down as I’ve gotten older,” SDSU associate head coach Rob Klinkefus said, smiling. 

Following in the footsteps of his father Kent, a long-time high school basketball coach, Rob Kilnkefus, known as “Klink,” has been coaching since his teenage days.

“I started coaching kids when I was in high school as far as fifth-grade AAU tournaments,” Klinkefus said. “And then in college I coached an AAU team even though I played college football.”

Klink starred as a quarterback at Division III Buena Vista in northwest Iowa and, upon graduating in 2000, he went into education.

“I was the K-12 dean of students at Storm Lake St. Mary’s,” Klinkefus said. 

When his school day with the kids ended, he headed right back over to his alma mater. 

“I was the assistant baseball coach at BV, I was the running back coach at BV, assistant basketball coach at BV and then I coached summer baseball,” Klinkefus said. “And all those sports overlap, so I was on the move and on the go all the time.” 

He would join the BV basketball staff as a full-time assistant the following season, and five years later in 2006, an encounter with then-SDSU assistant basketball coach Troy Larson would ultimately bring Klinkefus to Brookings. 

“We were actually both at a game at Emmetsburg, Iowa, and he said ‘Would you have any interest in being the G.A. here?’” Klinkefus recalled. “I said ‘Yea, I’m in,’ you know, basically on the spot.”

Thirteen years later when Eric Henderson was named head coach at SDSU, there was only one guy he wanted as his right-hand man. 

“Our personalities just meshed really, really well,” Henderson said. “And so to have anybody else there with me, I just hoped he wanted to do it. That was my only thing, I hoped he wanted to stay a part of the program because I knew I wanted him.” 

And a big reason why — their mutual respect.

“He’s not afraid to get into an argument. He thinks he wins them all, and if he doesn’t, he’ll still think he’s winning,” Henderson said, grinning. “But it’s fine, it's cool. We laugh about it at the end of the day, it’s pretty cool.”

“You don’t always have to agree with everything going on within your staff, but as long as you know everybody is doing it to make the team and the program better, you’re going to be all right,” Klinkefus said.

Now in his fifth year as the associate head coach, Klinkefus primarily works with the post players, is in charge of the Jackrabbits’ offensive scouting and, during live games, he’s also in charge of substitutions. 

“We talk before the game … hey what do you want it to look like and some things like that or what we want it to look like; but then I just let him run with it,” Henderson said of the in-game substitutions. 

“He’s usually on the same page with how those rotations are going,” Klinkefus said, “And if he’s not, he tells me, and I’m good with that.” 

With six NCAA Tournament appearances under his belt during his time in Brookings, the players listen when Klinkefus speaks.

“He knows how to win this league, and when he's speaking about how to get it done in the three games in the Summit League Tournament, he knows what it takes,” SDSU senior forward Luke Appel said. 

Now in the midst of his 18th overall season at South Dakota State, Klink is more than content right where he’s at. 

“This community has been incredible to me, and my family Megan, Roman and Morris, and they treat us great,” Klinkefus said. “I don’t know, when you have something good, I guess it doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to be out there chasing everything in the world. I know how good I have it here.” 

The Jacks are back in action on Thursday on the road against Kansas City.