Winning Isn't Everything

I thought I had escaped the whole “tall girls play basketball” cliché unscathed.

Wrong.

I stepped up to claim the unwanted coaching position for the Dena’ina Cheifs of Pedro Bay.

I only have two players, which has made practice interesting. In addition to having extremely limited basketball knowledge, I am forced to make necessary coaching and playing adaptations. Practices consist of strength training, drills, many pathetic attempts to run plays, and lots of one-on-one full court scrimmages. I figure with technique and endurance nailed, we can make the rest up as we go….


To compensate for the isolated nature of the villages (We are off the road system, and inter-village travel is done by plane), all the basketball players and coaches in the district come together for ‘jamborees.’ A typical jamboree lasts about three days. At the jamboree, schools participate in leadership activities (a pathetic attempt to socialize the village kids), and combine to play in basketball tournament.

Wahoo. 

The first basketball jamboree of the season took place at the home of the Meshik Wolves in Port Heiden, which is in the south end of the district. Port Heiden is not included in the gorgeously breath-taking  Alaska most people envision the state to be like. It is flat, has no trees, and the tap water is brown. The water literally looks like weak tea. Despite local’s reassurances, I never dared to actually drink the abomination. I did, however, get to see a herd of wild caribou.

Notwithstanding being locked in a school for three days with a bunch of high school kids 24/7, sleeping on a classroom floor, listening to the perpetual dribble of a basketball, it was fun to see new faces, a new school, a new village, and my teacher friends. I was also eager to learn something about coaching myself. Coaching is not something that you can learn from a book. Believe me, I tried.

At this particular jamboree, schools combined to have three-man co-ed teams. We combined with Egigik. Egigik is infamous for being the worst athletes in the district. Literally, every school prays not to be combined with Egigik. During one practice before we went to Port Heiden, I asked my students why they had such a stigma, they replied, “because they can’t even shoot the ball.” I thought they were just being malicious, so we had a discussion about being nice to everyone.

Wrong, again.

As a teacher, I teach tolerance, and believe myself to be tolerant of everyone. But I must admit, I found myself clueless as what to do as a coach with this situation. Aside from being the worst basketball players ever, one of the two young gentlemen from Egigik honestly could barely run. He tried; god love him, he dumped his heart and soul into the attempt, but the result was absolutely comical, and I found myself thinking of dead babies to stifle the laughter. The Dena’ina Chiefs did not find the situation amusing. My Pedro Bay players were pissed, and it showed on their faces. They were embarrassed. I tried to give these Egigik boys some coaching, but they were completely unreceptive.

I eventually starting picking up things from other coaches, and even recruited a friend (who is a counselor within the district and was at the jamboree doing leadership stuff) who played basketball in college to sit with me and watch my ‘team,’ and give me pointers. I was told that I could be the best coach in the world, but there is nothing much to do with these players other than give them a couple of tips, and hope it helps….

We won two out of our three games. Our only loss, we were annihilated so badly that my Dena’ina Chief players wouldn’t even speak with me for some time afterwards….I shared my concerns with the district athletic director. He told me that someone had to be paired with Egigik, and whoever it was, was not going to be happy about the situation, and he felt team Pedro Bay has the most patience.

After our last game, both the Egigik boys enthusiastically thanked me “for being such an awesome coach.” They shared with me that in addition to not having a coach, never having any sort of formal practice, they have never been on the winning team of a sporting event- EVER.