Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 85

Health Sports i Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D. Sunday, April 28, 1985 3 in Lloyd Dobratz 'The Shot' rings after 43 years 'CB wt By KEVIN LOLLAR Argus Leader Staff The life of Lloyd Dobratz has been a series of odd chances and strange coincidences. A broken arm in fourth grade led to a last-second shot that gave Redfield the 1942 state Class basketball championship. The intercession of a South African doctor in Germany saved Dobratz life during the final months of World War II. Dobratz choice of a hospital in Clinton, Iowa, over any other in the country for his post-war convalescence led him to marriage.

It all started with a piano stool. "Going back to my music background, which is nil," he says, "I fell off the piano stool when I was in elementary school. In those days they didn't take you to X-ray. The doctor looked at it. I think it was broken, but they didn't set it.

"So my right arm was kind of turned over, and it made a left-hander out of me. I'm semi-ambidextrous. I write right-handed, I bowl right-handed, but anytime there was a strain, I went to use my left "I never learned to play the piano, but that little incident helped my career because it helped me to fool people. Like in basketball, when I'd make a fake to my right, they'd think I was going that way, then I could go left." So, about eight years later, Dobratz and the Redfield Pheasants were in the championship going to the right, but I swung to the left and took the left-handed shot, about 18 or 20 feet. "Over the years, that has gone to the corner; it's become a hook shot; it's been from the middle of the floor.

I've read so many different accounts of it, but when it went through the net, the game was over." Dobratz received a lot of attention from "the shot." After graduation from Redfield in 1942, he entered Augustana College on a basketball scholarship. He had never been to Sioux Falls and says that as soon as he arrived on the train, he fell in love with the city. Dobratz was a starter on the basketball team his first season, but before the year was out, he was informed that he would be drafted as soon as the spring semester ended. Dobratz volunteered for the paratroopers and became a member of the 17th Airborne Division, 513th Parachute Regiment. His feelings about combat were like those of most soldiers.

"You get tired of training. You can't wait to get into battle. It's like sitting on the bench in a game you can't wait to get into the fight. But when you get into the battle, you can't wait to get home. It was one of those things that you anticipated.

In combat you wanted to do something." Dobratz got into the fight in December of 1944. During the Battle of the Bulge, the 513th DobratzSee 7 Profile Name: Lloyd Dobratz Date of birth: Aug. 3, 1924 Hometown: Redfield. Occupation: Athletic director, Sioux Falls Public Schools Education: Redfield High School, 1942; Augus-tana, B.A., 1949; University of Minnesota. M.A., 1950.

Family: Wife, Penny; daughter, Pat, Moscow, Idaho; son, Terry, Phoenix, Ariz. fame of the against Armour in the Corn alace. The Pheasants were up 26-22 with less than two minutes to play, but the Packers made two quick steals and two baskets to tie the game. Dobratz talks reluctantly about the rest of the game. He's afraid people are tired of the story.

As far as he's concerned, he was just at the right place at the right time. "I think with about five seconds left, one of the guards threw the ball to me. There were two defensive men back, and I started to drive to the right. They started moving back on me, so when I got to the top of the key hole, I cut across the top of the key hole and took kind of a natural one-handed shot. I had faked them to the right, and they assumed I was wet tliiir li i--Till a Argus Leader photo by LLOYD B.

CUNNINGHAM Lloyd Dobratz, retiring supervisor of athletics for the Sioux Falls public schools, stands in his office doorway beside pictures and clippings from favorite moments in his career. Burt Continued from 2 PlElOlPlLlE nr tot II -i I usvd i golf tournament being played, or a welcome-home celebration, or whatever else might be going on." For the 6-foot, 180-pound Burt, three interviews stand out from his three decades in television. "I talked to Babe Ruth at the old Sioux Falls airport a few weeks before he died. Never forget it. I had a nice visit with Ed Sullivan when a variety show he put on at the Coliseum bombed.

And I won't forget Jesse Owens telling me how much too big for him his track shoes were during the Olympics of 1936." Memories of the SDSU-USD basketball trip to Cuba in April of 1977 also are vivid. Daughter Linda became a physical-education teacher. Cheri, two years younger, is an airlines flight attendant. Both were cheerleaders at Washington High and USD. One of Burt's trademarks is that from late-morning start to 10:30 p.m.

news-block signoff, he stays neatly combed, shaved and attired. Yet a group of particularly messy young athletes remain his favorites. After Washington High won the 1965 -state basketball championship in the Sioux Falls Arena, the Warriors dragged a meticulous sportscaster into the shower. This time, as Jim Burt went off into the night after a day of sports, he was damp, disordered, but discs. I had five job offers," Burt said.

"The one I took was at Creston, Iowa, 100 miles east of Omaha. I signed KSIB, a new station, on the air Dec. 7, 1946. 1 did everything there from records to newscasts." Six months later, a telegram arrived in Creston which shaped the rest of Burt's broadcasting life. "Bud Fantle asked me to come to KELO, which had split with KSOO.

He wanted me right now. That was June of 1947. It wasn't long and I was on a Greyhound bus to Sioux Falls, and working for what I think was $125 a month. "Olive was pregnant with our first daughter, Linda. She went to Bay City to her folks' home because we couldn't find a place in Sioux Falls to live," Burt said.

"I lived in the YMCA nine months. Linda was born in Red Wing, across the Mississippi from Bay City, Feb. 18, 1948. In March we moved into a duplex on 22nd and Willow. Three years later we bought our house on Williams Avenue.

"KELO's studios were on Eighth and Phillips, and Evans Nord was program director. Nobody had anyone in sports as such in those days, but I liked 'em so I took 'em." Starting in 1949, Burt broadcast the football and basketball games played by Washington High. Soon was added a composite schedule of University of South Dakota, Augustana and South Dakota State games. "We tried to even them out." Burt said. "Pretty soon State and Augie had other stations doing -them, so we hooked up with USD.

A change in programming that I fought eliminated play by play from KELO several years ago. "I know that the line costs for both radio and television kills you. But I thought that games on radio were a public service, a part of diversified programming. I lost." Burt described the transition from strictly radio to a combined radio-television format, under Joe Floyd, as "Just plain hard work. As far as the TV was concerned, we played it by ear on almost everything." Burt alone remains from KELO's original on-air television staff.

He describes the early split-assignment days as hectic. "We all would work a board trick on TV or radio, roughly three hours, six days a week. Then there were the TV shows at 6 and 10. After the 10 o'clock block, I'd run over to do a 10:30 radio sports show. "There was the play by play to do on radio, Fridays and other evenings and sometimes two games on Saturday.

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