Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School, Basketball Champions of the World

by Linda Peavy, Ursula Smith

Most fans of women’s basketball would be startled to learn that girls’ teams were making their mark more than a century ago—and that none was more prominent than a team from an isolated Indian boarding school in Montana. Playing like “lambent flames” across the polished floors of dance halls, armories, and gymnasiums, the girls from Fort Shaw stormed the state to emerge as Montana’s first basketball champions. Taking their game to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, these young women introduced an international audience to the fledgling game and returned home with a trophy declaring them champions.

World champions. And yet their triumphs were forgotten—until Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith chanced upon a team photo and embarked on a ten-year journey of discovery. Their in-depth research and extensive collaboration with the teammates’ descendents and tribal kin have resulted in a narrative as entertaining as it is authentic.

Full-Court Quest offers a rare glimpse into American Indian life and into the world of women’s basketball before “girls’ rules” temporarily shackled the sport. For anyone captivated by Sea Biscuit, A League of Their Own, and other accounts of unlikely champions, this book rates as nothing but net.

Genres: Nonfiction, Basketball, History, Sports, Indigenous, Native American

479 pages, Hardcover

First published November 10, 2008

Reviews

[Julie Richert-Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

When those of us who live out our lives in North Central Montana think about what was happening here 120 years ago, THIS would be nowhere on the radar. Now that I have read about it, I don't believe I will ever stop thinking about it. What a completely incomprehensible wrinkle in time. . .
The full scope of the story is a slow build, as the author painstakingly lays out circumstances and motives and social and societal contexts that bring this unlikely cast of characters together. It's a little bit too bad that one has to know from the beginning where the whole thing is headed, because the improbability ratings are up there.
Steering deliberately away from the deeply troubling moral questions and appalling consequences of Reservations and Indian Boarding Schools, Peavy chooses to focus on these very special girls, the people who genuinely cared about them, and what they made of this unlikely opportunity. She tells THEIR story, with full attention and great dignity.
An added delight is all of the details of how a World's Fair was planned, built and carried out. Although, brace yourselves for the "Anthropology Exhibit" (cue: white people as the actual Neanderthals).
Anyone who has ever experienced small town High School basketball and its disproportionate ferver will immediately recognize the responses of audiences across the West as the girls journeyed to showcase their sport and their accomplished, classical educations. It is a story full of heart and so many lovely moments of amazing care and loyalty that the team summoned, as their defense against a shockingly unfair world.

[qwan666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I study Native history in college so I sometimes use this book for research. I've also read it for fun a few times, but I'll admit my opinion may be swayed because I've spent time with the authors and the book is about the basketball team my great grandmother, Nettie Wirth, and auntie Lizzie Wirth played for in the early 20th century in Montana. For an outsider, it would be a story about a women's basketball team in the late 19th/early 20th century, made up entirely of young Native women from a US government run boarding school. It talks about their experiences in boarding school and playing basketball against both women and men (they whupped a lot of men's teams). They also went to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. You can also check out the PBS documentary, Playing For The World.

[Yasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of 10 girls that took the sport of basketball and ran with it. I don't know anything about the sport of basketball and so when terms were used were lost on me. Nevertheless it is an important count of girls in the early days of school sports. However, while we should be gratified for this book to tell us the lives of these girls it is also a shame that without it we would not have heard of them. It is equally sad how a few of them died young and were never known by their families and what accomplishments they had. Although at times the reader can feel that the book is making out the positive experience at the school was quaint. After all a few of the students at the school of Fort Shaw had run away home. The school was not "home away from home" for all. These girls were fortunate in their remarkable abilities to play basketball, but what about the other girls and boys? True enough this book is only about the girls that played basketball and not about the school. Wisely in this day and age many readers would have conflicted feelings about the school and others like it and conflicted feelings about how the girls were constantly on display as curiosities, was it their natural abilities as women that made them play they way they did or because they were trained? It could be said at the end of the day the important thing was that their descendants were proud of their achievements and indeed they made history. With history were it was a lot is at play here and not just a national/international sport and it's hard to accurately and fairly put all aspects into play. The authors decided to focus only the main subject at hand. The girls and how they played. For that they do a very good job.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

For enthusiasts of early 20th century world fairs, the early days of basketball (especially women's basketball), or those who want to read another story of the American Indian residential schools. I fall into the latter bucket. I specifically chose this book because my great-grandfather appears as the mascot for the basketball team.

The book is a portrait of an unlikely story: young American Indian girls at a residential school in Montana become the best women's basketball team in the world. At their peak, anyone else who comes up against them is just crushed. You don't read a lot of stories about such dominance.

The authors researched each girl on the team, plus the coaches, school administrators, the previously mentioned mascot, etc. We get to know them well. There is plenty going on in their lives, usually horrible events that they need to work through, such as abusive family members, young friends and family who get deathly ill at school, and others who try to run away from the school. We also see what other things the girls do alongside their basketball seasons: they dress up, learn instruments, perform selections from Longfellow's Hiawatha , and more. You understand why they were considered a "living exhibit."

Fans of the Gilded Age will enjoy seeing some familiar faces such as Geronimo and Helen Keller. I think the book is a warm introduction to turn-of-the-century American Indian life.

[Billy Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

How this story was discovered is a book in itself. A hidden treasure (Photo & Silver Cup) "hidden" among many artifacts in a "off the road" museum sparked the author's research and findings of this terrific story. Peavy and Smith immaculate account of the 1904 World Champion women's basketball team is incredible. Most humble beginnings these young ladies achieved from the reservation to the Fort Shaw Indian school and eventually Basketball Champs.
Not only athletes, they also were musicians, seamstresses, cooks, and leaders in their education and career. Fantastic read! Pick it up and Read it!

[John Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a history buff, I found this book very fascinating. Though I'm not a basketball hearing about the early days of the game and women's basketball was still fascinating and the chapters about the St. Louis World's Fair were also great. The descriptions are so good that it makes you wish you were there at times.

[Hali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was quite astonished when I stumbled upon this book. I didn't realize that soon after basketball was invented it girls' teams played it (although most girls couldn't play in front of an audience). The level at which the Ft. Shaw Indian girls took basketball was awesome. They even beat the reigning champs of Missouri when they displayed their skills at the St. Loius World Fair in 1905. Before this book I really didn't know that girls were allowed to play sports (or that many schools set aside money for a team) until the law in the 1970's which made it mandatory for schools to implement a girls' team for every boys' team.

[Sue]

I caught the last few minutes of the radio show 'Native American Calling' that talked about this book. It sounds very inspirational. Plus, we've been watching Ken Burns documentary on the West, so I'm especially interested in how the Native Americans handled the terrible changes they faced.

[Vilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book abt a native american girls' team around 1904. Whether you read all or skim parts it is an opening into a world we don't know much abt--when basketball was new and a lot of stereotypes needed challenging.

[Weradi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Montanan I wanted to read about this team of Indigenous girls who attended the Fort Shaw Indian School and went on the become the world champions at the St. Louis Lewis and Clark Exposition fair in 1904.

[Eleanor]

I am anxious to read this book about a native american girls basketball championship team who went to the world's fair.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review at http://idrottsforum.org/macmal_peavy-...