Oregon Boys Show Well at the Phoenix Showcase

There is the unspoken belief that the sound of the basketball hitting the court is like the pounding of the ceremonial drum which mimics the sound of a heartbeat. Of all the sports introduced into our culture is it any small wonder that basketball is the one sport best suited for the 'wiring' of Native Americans who thrive on the constant motion and full court pressure? There is a joy to behold ten players moving like the winds across the prairie. Rezball is a continual dance with deep three's and swooping layups in endless waves where momentum swings happen as frequently as the bounce of a ball. So on a hot July weekend in Phoenix, families from all over North America followed their team into the scorching heat to see who had the best 'Rezball Team" and hey! The Oregon tribe though small, made their presence known. My first observation.....there's no bald Native American's. My tourney notes as the 'token bald guy' wandering happily through an endless gamut of boys and girls high school games at the Native American Basketball Invitational.  

Saturday's semifinals and finals were all played at the USAir Airways Center where the Phoneix Suns play. In its eighth year, it was founded by former Sun's forwards Mark West and Scott Podleski with the help of Nike's Sam McCracken. The engine pulling the whole thing together though is dynamo GinaMarie Scarpa who is a ringer for Fran Drescher. Podleski lost his battle to cancer this past Spring and AC Green, who also was on board in NABI's first year returned this season.

Not a single Oregon girls team this season. Warm Springs had sent teams in the past but Karlea Yallup from Madras played with Yakima's from White Swan who fared well at the tourney. It was nice to see someone carry the the banner for the White Buffalo's and represent her tribe.

Of the four boys teams making the semifinals one hailed from Oregon bearing the name Mean Machine. Chiloquin's Ed Case got one last chance to coach his son Edward Ciston Case who was very impressive. Also, junior Darious Jackson, the 6'6 post from Mazama looked very good. They cruised through their bracket play and played a scrappy game with Cheyenne-Arapaho before falling 67-62 in the first semi.

The other semifinal pitted a little team off the backside of Mt. Shasta from the Hoopa Tribe with a couple of 'ringers.' The ringers were none other than Orlando Vance from Parkrose and Madison's Angelo Tupper.  I saw the 6'7 Vance early in the season and his game has ramped up impressively. Agressive and fast around the basket, he dominated at times against The Warriors, a very good team comprised of Seminoles from Florida. Vance had help from Tupper, who may be a better football player but brought much needed beef to the frontcourt for the Wolfpack. (Great way to stay in shape, right Angelo!?!?) The Hoopa Wolfpack beat the Warriors 71-62 to advance into the final.

To play in NABI, players must have tribal registration cards. In addition, the rosters of all the teams listed their respective GPA's. In 2007, the tournament became  certified by the NCAA which allowed college coaches to attend and scout players in the hopes that more scholarships would be offered to Native Americans. The talent is there but it often gets lost. Many players can't afford to spend a summer on the more privileged AAU circuits so this is their time to shine. Players who'd graduated from 2010 were also eligible to play which helped the quality of play which resembled playoff ball in Oregon somewhere between the 4A and 5A levels.  

The little spot of northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico seems to be the hotbed of Native hoops. Of the eight teams (four girls and four boys teams), five hailed from the Navajo regions. The Cheyenne-Arapaho also continually field a great team every year and this was no exception as the boys defeated the Hoopa Wolfpack 60-49. On the girls side, Unknown Hoops from Fort Definance (its windy up there) and Window Rock from Northern Arizona ran past the Oklahoma Indians II (Kiowa's) by a score of 57-36. The four semi's had much more suspense than the two finals.

What was interesting during the week and into the finals was watching the action both on and off the court. On the court, teams would continually roll up big leads and lose them in an incredible shift of ebb and flow. Coaches seldom wasted timeouts to staunch the flow as other teams battled back. They almost always played through. Out on the floor handing out awards most of Saturday with AC Green and Mark West were two guys with even bigger totems. Ernie Stevens is a strapping man at 6'5 and a proud Haskell graduate who is now the Chairman of the Native Indian Gaming Association and Tex Hall, who heads the Inter-Trial Economic Alliance and also a member of the North Dakota Basketball Sports Hall of Fame for his basketball prowess at Minot State in the 1970's. Both stand 6'5 with long dark braids down their backs (not bald).  It was only fitting that McCracken had come to Phoenix to launch the new N7 (Nikes dedicated Native American brand) court shoe called the "TrashTalk" because it's stitched pieces of scraps to make one of the most comfortable lowtop court shoes I've worn to date. Both Hall and Steven's are forever linked as friends and continually 'trashtalked' on who's the better ball player. The sound of the ceremonial drum which may symbolize the ball bounding on the floor and also the heartbeat still beats strong in both of them as with the thousands who sat in the stands on Saturday. And as I walked out of the arena into the warm 105 degree Saturday late night, I could even hear the heart of one single solitary bald guy beating in time with the many, all with long luxurious hair. How do they do it?