RAPID CITY - It's been nearly 40 years since Marty Waukazoo last played a basketball game for Dave Strain, but he still thinks of his old coach almost every day.

"Even to this day, you know, I'm still trying to make him proud of me," Waukazoo said.

Waukazoo, a first-team Class A all-stater in 1967, makes his home in California with his wife and children, where he has run a couple of Native American health clinics since 1979. One word pops up over and over again when he talks of Strain, the only coach to guide Rapid City Central to a boys' basketball title.

"Respect," Waukazoo said when asked what he remembered of his playing days under Strain. "He challenged you to become better as a basketball player, but also as a person. At that time, the Cobblers were the team in Rapid and all of West River. So to come up out of North (Middle School) and the Mother Butler Center to suit up for the Cobblers as a sophomore was huge for me. I just had so much respect for the team and for Coach Strain."

Strain coached at Central for 24 years, winning state titles in 1969 and 1980. He also had six runner-up finishes during those years as the Cobblers established themselves as one of the state's premier basketball programs. In addition to being the school's all-time winningest coach, Strain had a reputation for utilizing the talents of Native American players like Waukazoo and many others.

Waukazoo remembers the treatment from Strain well.

"It was terribly important," Waukazoo said. "I knew that we would get a fair shot, and that he somehow connected with the American Indian community. He always took an interest in the ball players from North - a whole string of them. I just always knew that I'd get a fair shot at playing."

That connection was one that was instilled in Strain as a youngster growing up in White River.

"I learned a lot from Indian ballplayers growing up," Strain said. "Growing up in White River, all of my heroes were Native American cowboys, so I kind of understand where those kids are coming from. I just always wanted to make sure they got an even chance to play, because they were good. People always ask me if I had any teams that didn't have any Native American players on them, and I always tell them the same thing. Not any good ones."

Strain still spends much of his time following basketball around the state. He's going to be spending much of this week at the LNI, watching another White River product attempt to break the all-time state scoring record. Strain admits to a little hometown pride when it comes to Louie Krogman and his quest.

"I think he's an exceptional player," Strain said, before adding some of his trademark historical perspective. "I actually saw (current all-time leading scorer Don) Jacobsen up at SDSU and (Jim) Iverson and a lot of other players. (Krogman) is right up there with all of them. Everybody likes to talk about his 3-point shot, and rightfully so, but the thing that I like so much about him is that he gets to the basket better than any high school kid I can remember. He just gets it there."

Strain also spends some free time helping coaches when his time isn't being consumed by his historical book business, Dave Stain's Dakota West Books. St. Thomas More head coach Dave Hollenbeck finds Strain's counsel invaluable.

"First off, he's a great coach," Hollenbeck said. "He's one of the all-time best in this state, but he's also a great man with a big heart. He's always willing to help anybody at any time, and he's been a huge help to me and this program."

One of Strain's former players doesn't doubt that for a second.

"His understanding of the game is incredible," Eric Doney said. "He has a complete understanding of the game - defense, offense, transition, everything."

Doney, who had three older brothers all play for Strain before his own all-state career for the Cobblers in the mid-1980s, remembers many instances of his old coach's generosity.

"I went to North Junior High, and there was a student there who came from a poor family that couldn't afford basketball shoes," Doney said. "So Dave went out and actually purchased the kid some basketball shoes."

It was that kind of attention that Doney feels is necessary to get Rapid City back to the kind of prominence in basketball that it enjoyed under Strain.

"He was always down at the junior highs working with kids at that level," Doney said. "He would come in on a Saturday and talk with us, help out our coaches. I remember him coming around to our practices on Saturday all the time just to help out the coach and work with us."

Doney, who is a mortgage broker in Rapid City, told another story illustrating some of Strain's personality when his family moved into its house just six doors down from Strain in the early 1970s. Doney's father mowed the lawn and had bagged the clippings. Strain came down and asked to use them for his garden, which was fine with the Doneys.

"So everybody gets introduced and Dave goes back home," Doney said. "He comes back a little while later with a brand-new fiberglass backboard and rim and says that he noticed we had four boys, so we should have it. He just had it sitting in his garage, I guess. A week goes by and the hoop was still sitting in our driveway and hadn't been put up. So Dave comes by, knocks on the door and asks why the hoop isn't up on the garage yet. My dad was so terrified, well that's probably not the right word, but you know Dave Strain. So Dad went out to the hardware store right then and the hoop got put up that afternoon. It's still on that house to this day."

Much like that backboard, the impact of Strain's teachings on his players lasts to this day.

"Forty-five years later and I still think about him almost every day, all the time," Waukazoo said.

"He still is a major influence in my life."