Reviewed by: Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball 1895–1970 by Wade Davies Shawn Secatero (bio) Wade Davies Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball 1895–1970 University Press of Kansas, 2020 American Indian basketball has continued its prominence in Native sports as this book, Native Hoops, retraces its origins through dirt courts on the reservation, city basketball courts, and aging rims. Through extensive interviews and experiences of former players, Wade Davies provides the reader with a history lesson through the organization of American Indian basketball from 1985–1970. The book provides an analysis of talented Native players who molded this sport across our country to promote community pride, wellness, and playing strategies. As part of my review, I will take a holistic approach in addressing each of these aspects by incorporating the spiritual, mental, physical, and social well-being aspects of the book. In terms of spiritual well-being, Davies demonstrates a synopsis of the origins of basketball that acknowledges the purpose, background, and overall giftedness of playing American Indian basketball. The book's main focus points illustrate that basketball continues to captivate Native communities that cherished basketball and used it as a means of experiencing identity, pride, and well-being. Davies maps out an excellent brief history of basketball's roots through Dr. James Naismith, who invented the sport. Furthermore, Davies delves into the relationship of similar and historical Native sports that resemble basketball, such as the Mayan and Aztec ancient games of pok-ta-pok and ullamaliztli (p. 15). Several noted successful teams during the early 1900s included the Carlisle Indian School and the Haskell Institute, which embraced basketball and continued its prominence to inspire other rising teams such as the World Famous Indians (WFI), the Sioux Traveler Warriors, and the Fort Shaw Indian School Girls Basketball Team. Many of these players attended boarding schools far away from their homes and needed an outlet to handle the pangs of homesickness, cultural disconnections from their communities, and cultural loss. The book provides excellent research on American Indian basketball and its impact on many tribal groups throughout our country by acknowledging the mental well-being of thinking, heart, character, wisdom, and future. Davies provides a glimpse into his personal experience of living on the Navajo Nation reservation in the book's introduction and conducted interviews that contribute to the rich description of each community or artifact of basketball. As part of the [End Page 93] boarding school era, the author explains that school administrators liked basketball, which brought morale to the schools, increased community involvement, and promoted athletic enticements for students to stay at the boarding schools. For example, the author states, "The Indian schools used basketball to promote discipline in three ways: positively by relying on orderly design and rules orientation of the game to teach teamwork, sportsmanship and obedience" (p. 78). However, several school superintendents reported, "School records fail to demonstrate that basketball or any other sports had any profound influence on general academic performance or discipline." In another example, the book states that "Indian school athletes did not always focus their energies on impressing or defying non-Natives. They competed just as fiercely and proudly against other native teams vying for recognition across Indian country. As their communities had always done through traditional sports, they used basketball to share something in common with and distinguished themselves from each other and forge bonds and settle differences between localities and tribes" (p. 122). In terms of addressing physical well-being in the book, Davies acknowledges the importance of American Indian basketball through self-care, environmental factors, change, and the healing of players. He writes, "A basketball court was a warrior arena. If symbolically so" (p. 120). Davies provides impressive insight into the physical stamina of players and refers to these player strategies as "streaks of lightning" or Rez Ball, which describes the defensive and offensive plays of Native players including fast breaks. "Rez ball exists along a stylistic continuum extending across the twentieth century," Davies writes, "and should be understood as a product of an incremental evolution induced by changes of the overall sport (p. 270–71). He further describes the winning traditions of American...
Read full abstract