HOOP DREAMS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTHS

They aren’t just streetballers from inner-city projects who hope to one day overcome their oppression and earn a college scholarship, their potential ticket to playing in the NBA. Rezballers from Native American reservations share that same dream, but the difficulties of living in desolate quarters have made their skills and vision virtually undetectable. But thanks to NABI, the Native American Basketball Invitational, American Indian teenagers now have a reason to rejoice within their tribal communities.

This past week marked the fourth straight annual NABI tournament (the Final Four was held in Arizona at the Phoenix Suns arena, the US Airways Center). I spoke with Gina Scarpa, NABI Co-Founder and Tournament Director, to learn more about NABI’s humble beginnings and how it’s continuing to grow.

Q: Where did the idea come from?
A: We decided to start a tournament for Native American athletes because of the lack of showcasing they get in college and pro sports. I mean, you don’t see a lot of Natives in collegiate or pro sports. It’s not that they’re not talented; it’s just that they don’t have the same opportunities to be showcased. Reservations are desolate. A lot of the coaches from colleges hit the larger cities – they can hit many high schools in one day, but it would take two to three days to get to a reservation. There were all these obstacles for Native American athletes, so we decided to create a tournament and bring the talent to them. And that’s how NABI was created.

Q: How did you promote NABI?
A: We started first really just promoting the idea to the tribes in Arizona because that’s where we’re from – the Phoenix area. We approached the Phoenix Suns because at the time Mark West was there – and still is there – as the GM and he was a former player. And they loved the idea. The next thing was to fly up to Beaverton, Oregon, and meet with Nike. And we got a meeting with them and they loved the idea. And then the Phoenix Mercury came onboard and, boom, NABI was born. So we first just promoted the event to the Arizona tribes and in our first year we also got an interest from tribes outside Arizona. So we sat and talked about opening up a tournament for tribes outside Arizona. Half the tribes are from Arizona. Our first year in 2003, we had 24 teams. Our second year, we had 45. Our third year, we had 97 teams apply within two weeks of open registration. And this year, we’re keeping it to 64 teams – 32 boys’ teams and 32 girls’ teams – because it’s more manageable and quality-wise. They’re from all over the country, including Canada. We’ve become the largest all-Native basketball tournament in the country.

Q: Is NABI a non-profit organization?
A: We were originally going to put the tournament under a non-profit, but we would’ve lost control of it because there are no guarantees with a government board. Our intentions – Mark and I – were always to give back to the Native country if it became successful. So we chose to do it under a LLC and have a non-profit entity where profits go into. This way, we always maintain control over the trademark and everything. Everyone was like, “Why didn’t you just do it under a non-profit?” Because we could have easily been voted out and lost all control of the event. And our relationships to make the event successful came from Mark’s relationship with the NBA and Nike. In order to maintain those relationships, we had to keep it under a LLC.

Q: Does the NBA help fund the event?
A: No, not yet. I was going to approach them because of how big the tournament has gotten. We were going to give it a couple years. I call it fermenting to just really get us flavor. It’s now the biggest thing in Native country among the kids, especially rez ball players. This year, we were going to approach the NBA’s sponsors to support this event, and I think we’re not going to have a problem with that.

Q: Are the headquarters in Arizona?
A: Yes. The Final Four games are played at the US Airways Center, which is the home of the Phoenix Suns. That’s another big thing. The kids just fight to play on an NBA court. And then, of course, the championship games are held with all the flash, the lights go out, the spotlights are on the kids. We get all the game opportunities from the Phoenix Suns, so it’s just like an NBA game. The kids are in all Nike uniforms and they stay at the nearby Hyatt Regency. The time they have out here is just amazing.

Q: When you say kids, what’s the age range?
A: High school.

Q: Is there a cut-off age?
A: Yes, 19. The whole purpose of the event is to showcase Native American high school athletes for the purpose of creating college scholarships. We’ve had some college scholarships awarded already from scouts and coaches that come out – mostly from tribal universities and junior colleges. We’re hoping to become NCAA-certified, but we had some trouble with the demographic rules this year. That’s why we couldn’t be certified.

Q: What kind of trouble?
A: The NCAA needs to become a little bit more sensitive to Native countries, their demographics and the sovereign nation issues. The reservation team can be from the same city or high school, but they can’t be outside of 100 miles. There are a lot of tribes that don’t have high schools on reservations, so the kids go to BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] boarding schools, which sometimes are cross-country.

Q: So you mostly focus on the reservations?
A: Yes. They have to be Native American, they have to prove it with a CIB (Certificate of Indian Blood) or Tribal Enrollment Card. And they have to be enrolled in high schools. Those are our only requirements. So the team can be an All-Star team made up of multi-tribes, but it has to consist of all Native American players.

Q: Do you have rules on academic standing?
A: We really encourage the coach to make those rules. In part of BIA rules, they have to have a certain grade point average. They have to maintain a good attendance record, so they use the NABI tournament as a tool for the coaches to get their kids to do better in school.

Q: Are educational programs included in your organization?
A: We have what we call “Native Circles” and we try to get Native role models whether they’re doctors or attorneys to come and talk to the kids about the importance of education and giving back to the reservations. Because now with all the Indian gaming and casinos, the Native tribes are buying all kinds of different enterprises, but they’re all being run by non-Natives. A lot of these kids don’t go on to further education to have the experience or education to run the casinos. So we’re trying to stress the importance to these kids, because the tribes make so much money from the enterprises, that they need to go back and run these enterprises on behalf of the tribes.

Q: What venues does the NABI use during the tournament?
A: Well, Phoenix is surrounded by reservations. We work with all the reservations around Phoenix, mostly Fort McDowell, which is the Salt River reservation. And we use all their high school recreation gyms. So we have like 120 games in five days. And then the Final Four will go on to play at the US Airways Center.

Q: How has the graduation rate been?
A: It’s been great. The first thing with NABI when we first started in 2003 is we were hoping within our first maybe three years that we would get recognized as a tournament that has some incredible talent for college coaches to scout. It happened in our first year. We had six scholarships awarded to the kids who played in NABI. So since our inception, we’ve had over 20 scholarships. And those are just the ones I’ve heard of. I keep hearing every year kids went on to get full-ride scholarships by playing in NABI that weren’t even reported to us. Scouts come out from a lot of the tribal universities and junior colleges.

Q: Describe the reservation basketball culture.
A: It’s rez ball. It’s a totally different style of play. Native American kids… When I say unbelievable athletes, they just have the endurance and the agility. I always say, “Off-the-charts!” They don’t like taking time outs. They’re always in the zone. We were televised live last year for the first time and it was really hard for them to take TV timeouts. It’s non-stop action. It’s an incredible game of basketball. It’s incredible.

Q: Do you anticipate any future TV deals?
A: We’re hoping. I think as the tournament gets bigger and bigger, ESPN2 will be knocking on our doors because they do a lot of the high school games already. And NABI is getting that big. Like I said, we had live television for the first time last year with the local Arizona KAZ-TV. They span out to urban Phoenix, metropolitan Phoenix, out in the northern area, Tuscan. So they have a really good audience. It was over a million viewers.

Q: What kind of sponsors do you have?
A: Tribal sponsors. Nike’s one of our biggest sponsors. A lot of the tribes sponsor us, especially in Arizona.

Q: Are you a former player yourself?
A: Actually, no. I played ice hockey. I’ve been working with kids, though, in non-profit fields for years. I was formally the executive director of the A.C. Green Foundation for like 10 years working with kids. I just love doing what I do. So it’s basically me and Mark West who’s an advocate for education and the idea of using your athletic ability to secure a college scholarship. That was his goal. He never really thought about the NBA – it just happened because he was prepared. So he tells the kids, “Yes, the NBA is wonderful, but do NABI first and make this your goal, and everything that happens after that is like icing on cake.” So my biggest thing with the kids is just… I grew up in a housing project back east. All the odds were against me and it was just because people stepped in and cared enough about me to change my life. So I’ve always had to stick my heart out for other people. That’s what I wanted to do with my life. And it just happens that I see a need in the Native community. I really can’t understand what they go through – the oppression in some of the reservations. But I can understand what it’s like to be treated differently because of where you come from.

Q: Is it fair to compare the oppression in the reservations to that in the inner-city projects?
A: I think oppression is oppression. I can’t say they’re similar because they’re not. African Americans struggle with things different from how Native Americans struggle with things. But when you start to look at the common denominator, it’s oppression. It’s loss of hope, loss of the dreams and not having the role models they need to succeed. I can recognize the oppression because I came from an oppressed area and I know what that did to me as a kid.

Q: For some of these kids, is basketball their last hope at getting into college?
A: Yeah. I think there were some kids who came into NABI never dreaming of going to college. Before stepping on a court playing in the NABI, they were just ready to graduate high school and do whatever their life took them. They were just going to accept that. But we’ve had kids who have just really changed their lives.

For more information, check out www.nabihoops.com.