VERMILLION, S.D.—Midway through an interview with Arlene DeVany and Nancy McCahren at the Sanford Coyote Sports Center, a former University of South Dakota basketball player walked into the room and said hello.
 
Both DeVany and McCahren, who were there to watch the Coyotes play NDSU, recognized him immediately.
 
"We're the oldest surviving fans of Coyote basketball," McCahren told him. "You know that, don't you?"
 
And Nate Blessen, a former North Central Conference MVP and All-American who went into the Coyote Sports Hall of Fame in 2011, knew better than to step in that trap.
 
"I wasn't going to go with 'oldest,'" he said, laughing. "I was going to go with 'most important.' That's what I would have led with."
 
In reality, both titles are likely accurate. DeVany and McCahren happily admit they have "landmark" birthdays coming up. DeVany will be 90 and McCahren will be 85. Between the two of them, their fascination with Coyote basketball goes back to their childhoods. Call it a love affair with the sport of basketball and the Coyotes in particular.
 
They consider themselves very fortunate to be able to continue to follow the men's and women's teams as closely as they do. Just as obviously, the basketball programs could say the same about them.


 
"It was pretty amazing," said DeVany, a retired teacher who graduated from USD in 1952. "I can't tell you why my father, a farmer during the depression, thought we should go to the basketball games but we went."
 
Later, DeVany discovered one of the reasons her father liked attending Coyote games was because he enjoyed watching Carl "Rube" Hoy coach. He was not unique in that regard.
 
Hoy, who served as the basketball coach, athletic director, assistant football coach and head track coach, was a prominent figure in Coyote athletics from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s. Through the decades, he may have been best known for his animated courtside manner.
 
"Coach Hoy was very busy on the sidelines making sure his students could make baskets," DeVany said. "He worked very hard on behalf of his students."
 
Hoy was also McCahren's father, which explains the link between DeVany and McCahren and to a great extent their collective link to USD basketball.
 
"We'd always sit right across from my dad," McCahren said. "People used to say they didn't come to the basketball games to watch the game, they came to watch my dad. He never sat still. He was going to the left, he was going to the right. I had a conversation with a former player who said he never wanted to sit next to Coach Hoy because he was afraid he'd get bowled over."


 
The memories of watching her father coach go back to early childhood for McCahren, who has served as a professor and administrator at the school dating back to 1962. She retired as executive director of USD's Alumni Association in 2004 and was inducted into the Coyote Sports Hall of Fame as a special contributor in 2015.
 
She, like DeVany, makes Coyote basketball games part of her life. The pair also share a joy for watching freshmen make their way to graduation. It's one of the great things about basketball – if you go to the games you become familiar with the players to a greater extent than you do in most other sports.
 
"Watching young men start out – and maybe they're not very adept at the game yet – and then watch them progress," DeVany said. "By the time they're seniors they're different players. Overall I'm amazed at the quickness and how it's changed in basketball over the years."
 
While both can recite game scores and star players from half-a-century ago, they're also both following the 2019-20 men's and women's teams very closely.
 
"I'd always sort of wondered why Brandon Armstrong came here to play basketball," DeVany said. "He's from Texas, of course. But then I heard him interviewed one night after a game and I have not heard a young man who was so positive in his attitude. I thought 'Good for you, Brandon.' I've always tried to send vibes his way. And then Tyler Peterson, of course. We have a group of older ladies who watch games and we all claim to be Tyler Peterson's grandmothers. They're all delightful young men."
 
McCahren can pick out "dozens" of favorite players over the years, many of whom she's become friends with. The Hoy family funds a scholarship for a men's or women's basketball player every year. This year's recipient was senior Triston Simpson, another of the seniors DeVany and McCahren are going to miss dearly.
 
"It's going to be sad for me when these seniors graduate," McCahren said. "I've been very close to Triston. He's just a neat kid. So are the rest of them. I love those kids and I love Coyote basketball. That's been my life."


Arlene DeVany cheers on the Coyotes from her seat behind the scorer's table