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Expanding basketball coverage

Time to recognize the Class AA Lakota


 

 

It isn’t easy covering half a state and then some. So much easier if we called ourselves the Oglala Sun News Today, or the Sicangu Sun News Today, but we do our best to give our readers some insight into all Lakota basketball. That isn’t easy because our sports staff basically consists of me and an occasional photographer.

Obviously we cover reservation schools, but we also try to cover nearby schools, like White River, Winner, Bennett County, Oelrichs and Chamberlain. Every year the demographics evolve, certain schools change their makeup, and we have to adjust accordingly. The biggest change now is at the Class AA level.

Let’s look at Rapid City boys’ basketball.

Rapid City Central has five Lakota ballplayers. Rapid City Stevens has seven. Douglas has seven. I was born and raised in Rapid City and have followed local basketball since the early 1960’s, and that is the most Lakota ballplayers ever playing at the top Class.

We cannot ignore these players, so we are going to make every effort to cover their teams, but while covering those teams we will cover the entire team, we won’t focus on just the Lakota players. Every kid deserves coverage based upon his basketball contribution, not his heritage.

There was a time when the Rapid City Journal had this coverage covered, but economics whittled their staff by half; they just don’t have the bodies to cover these teams, and this at a time when we have the technology and fan interest, to justify expanding coverage.

To the extent St Thomas More and Rapid City Christian have more Lakota ballplayers we will cover them as well. Both schools have outstanding coaching and athletic programs. I am especially impressed by boy’s basketball coach and activities director Kyle Courtney at Christian. He gets pure hustle from his players, and he builds solid bridges of friendship and cooperation wherever his teams go. Any Lakota ballplayer of faith that fits into their school setting is going to get some excellent basketball instruction and opportunity.

The changes at Douglas have been the most dramatic. Coach Travis Miller has a team with huge potential that will only get better as the season wears on. They are not a world beater, but they are going to hand out some upsets this season and turn some heads.

Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the Wasicu is an integral part of our world. That is never going to change. When I covered Dickinson, ND, at RC Central last Friday, Dickinson had an electrifying playmaker guard named Aanen Moody. He pronounces his first name Awnen. He put up 45 points, and after the game I had a long talk with him, because he’s also quite the conversationalist, and I told him his style of play was order made for LNI, he just grinned and said “I love rez ball!”

This kid is the second best player I’ve seen this year, after David Wingett of Winnebago, and when we respect and graciously embrace non-Lakota ballplayers of great skill, who respect and graciously accept us, it not only makes us better people, it makes for great basketball, creates an aura of community, of tolerance, even family. All of these ballplayers are somebody’s kid, and the Dickinson team was full of interesting characters Lakota basketball fans would take to quickly. The Dickinson Midgets were an easy team to like, and a hard one to forget — reminding us every player deserves to be treated same as we would want people to treat our kids.

It would be great if all fans, coaches, players, journalists, and especially referees make a point to honor that in 2017.

(James Giago Davies can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com)


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