The Fifth Annual All-Indian Eugene Boyd Memorial Basketball Tournament
A short and true sports story
1988
We were the Arrows, an all-Indian basketball team, running against a squad of tiny Yakama Indians. I’m 6-2 but I lost the opening tip to a squirrel-sized Yakama.
“Jump, damn it,” my father, the coach, yelled at me.
“You know I ain’t got vertical,” I yelled back.
But, a moment later, I leaped above that little Yakama and blocked his lay-up. I was just as surprised as everybody else when I pinned the ball against the backboard.
“Damn it,” my father yelled. “See! You can jump! It’s your white coaches who convinced you otherwise. It’s racism.”
“Dad, I pinned the ball with my fingertips against the lowest part of the backboard. It was lucky.”
My father kept telling me to jump but I played the rest of the game as ground-bound as always and scored 33 points. But it was Elroy Hummingbird who, after drinking a six-pack of Coors at halftime, hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer.
As we carried him around the gym, Elroy yelled, “This is the greatest day of my life.”