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Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970
A prominent Navajo educator once told historian Peter Iverson that “the five major sports on the Navajo Nation are basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball, and rodeo.” The Native American passion for basketball extends far beyond the Navajo, whether on reservations or in cities, among the young and the old. Why basketball—a relatively new sport—should hold such a place in Native culture is the question Wade Davies takes up in Native Hoops .
Indian basketball was born of hard times and hard places, its evolution traceable back to the boarding schools—or “Indian schools”—of the early twentieth century. Davies describes the ways in which the sport, plied as a tool of social control and cultural integration, was adopted and transformed by Native students for their own purposes, ultimately becoming the “Rez ball” that embodies Native American experience, identity, and community. Native Hoops travels the continent, from Alaska to North Carolina, tying the rise of basketball—and Native sports history—to sweeping educational, economic, social, and demographic trends through the course of the twentieth century. Along the way, the book highlights the toils and triumphs of well-known athletes, like Jim Thorpe and the 1904 Fort Shaw girl’s team, even as it brings to light the remarkable accomplishments of those whom history has, until now, left behind.
The first comprehensive history of American Indian basketball, Native Hoops tells a story of hope, achievement, and celebration—a story that reveals the redemptive power of sport and the transcendent spirit of Native culture.
Indian basketball was born of hard times and hard places, its evolution traceable back to the boarding schools—or “Indian schools”—of the early twentieth century. Davies describes the ways in which the sport, plied as a tool of social control and cultural integration, was adopted and transformed by Native students for their own purposes, ultimately becoming the “Rez ball” that embodies Native American experience, identity, and community. Native Hoops travels the continent, from Alaska to North Carolina, tying the rise of basketball—and Native sports history—to sweeping educational, economic, social, and demographic trends through the course of the twentieth century. Along the way, the book highlights the toils and triumphs of well-known athletes, like Jim Thorpe and the 1904 Fort Shaw girl’s team, even as it brings to light the remarkable accomplishments of those whom history has, until now, left behind.
The first comprehensive history of American Indian basketball, Native Hoops tells a story of hope, achievement, and celebration—a story that reveals the redemptive power of sport and the transcendent spirit of Native culture.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 30, 2020
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June 13, 2021
I confess, I have a real soft spot for scholarly work that draws out nuance and paradox, especially in complex historical settings, while also advancing a powerful case. Wade Davies, in this excellent analysis of Native American basketball, does all three things extremely well. The core paradox that he homes in on is the problem that in many case North America’s Indigenous peoples learned sports and made them their own in institutions designed to deny, if not annihilate, their Native-ness – principally schools. Although he focuses on basketball in mainland USA (including Alaska) there are elements of the argument that resonate for me with work on hockey and to an extent lacrosse in Canada’s residential schools.
Most of the book deals with schools, in part because for the most part, that is where Native basketball was played, although there is also good discussion of higher education, the military and commercial touring teams as well as basketball ‘in the community’. (Although he stops in the early 1960s, this latter theme is developed well in Alan Klein’s recent ethnography of basketball on the Pine Ridge Reservation.) In the big picture, Davies utterly rejects the diffusionist myth that Native Americans adopted basketball on terms imposed by the colonisers. While this approach pervades the book he makes it explicit in two ways: the first is through some discussion of Indigenous sporting cultures to outline the kinds of play and movement practices the young people forced into the schools arrived with – that is, he explores how the kinds of play associated with basketball might link to Indigenous ways of being and moving. Secondly, he also makes the powerful case that students in schools had a degree of autonomy in their play and often organised basketball on their own terms meaning that it developed partly outside the constraints imposed by schools’ assimilationist imperative. Herein lies the paradox – as Indigenous people learned basketball in the schools they made it their own, leading to the form now often referred to as ‘Indian’ or ‘Rez Ball’.
Not surprisingly much of the emphasis is on the ‘big’ schools were there are better records – Carlisle, but more so Haskell and Chilocco. Haskell is important in the story both as a significant site of basketball play and, given its location, links to the University of Kansas and by default to James Naismith – although Naismith’s direct links are less notable (such as they were) than Haskell’s links to local basketball networks. Davies however has done well to get well beyond these ‘usual suspects’ with an extensive array of sources that means he has drawn on a wide range of schools and localities across the north and south mid-west, south west and west coast (the expulsion of Indigenous peoples from the east means the lands west of the Mississippi feature more). As part of this narrative he also shows convincingly that early success by Indigenous teams was in part related to the relatively disorganised character of the game, and that by the 1920s as league and conferences became more organised Indian Schools were specifically excluded, allowing settler schools in many cases to claim championships that the Indigenous teams had dominated.
Here, as elsewhere, Davies is also keenly aware of the disproportionate gender emphasis on men’s and boy’s sport. He makes sure to highlight girl’s teams so the well-known case of Fort Shaw gets a good hearing – but so to do teams from Phoenix, Chemawa and elsewhere. This attention to gender presence also extends to his discussions of commercial touring teams and to community basketball: there is much less to tell about women’s basketball in colleges and the military although his opening anecdote relates to the Schimmel sisters (Umatilla) who played for the University of Kentucky Louisville in the early 2010s (who he returns to in the conclusion) making clear from the outset that this is a story of men and women in Indigenous basketball.
The book is broadly chronological, although with considerable overlap in chapters 3-7 that focus on schools even as they become less important after World War 2. The thematic emphasis in latter chapters on colleges, the military, commercial and community play also allows for some overlaps although the different sectors of play mean that this is less the case than in the opening sections. These overlaps enhance the argument by highlighting, especially in the schools, the complexities and multifaceted character of Indigenous basketball.
Crucially, Davies does not attempt to construct a single history of Indigenous basketball, recognising important local variations. He makes good use, for instance, of the distinctiveness of basketball in Lumbee communities in North Carolina where a lack of federal recognition means that Lumbee were not forced into residential schools, giving basketball in Robeson County a very different feel and some distinctiveness in style. Crucially, in rejecting the simplicities of diffusionism Davies is able to point to the complexities of ‘the rise of American Indian basketball’. In doing so he also manages to avoid the limitations of many foundational studies, so while this may be a text against which subsequent studies work, just as Davies builds of previous scholars – John Bloom, Joseph Oxendine and more – the nuance and complexities of his argument mean that this excellent piece of work is likely to survive the critique of those studies, just as Bloom, Oxendine and others have.
This, then, is an excellent piece of work that is both scholarly rigorous and widely accessible. I heartily recommend it.
Most of the book deals with schools, in part because for the most part, that is where Native basketball was played, although there is also good discussion of higher education, the military and commercial touring teams as well as basketball ‘in the community’. (Although he stops in the early 1960s, this latter theme is developed well in Alan Klein’s recent ethnography of basketball on the Pine Ridge Reservation.) In the big picture, Davies utterly rejects the diffusionist myth that Native Americans adopted basketball on terms imposed by the colonisers. While this approach pervades the book he makes it explicit in two ways: the first is through some discussion of Indigenous sporting cultures to outline the kinds of play and movement practices the young people forced into the schools arrived with – that is, he explores how the kinds of play associated with basketball might link to Indigenous ways of being and moving. Secondly, he also makes the powerful case that students in schools had a degree of autonomy in their play and often organised basketball on their own terms meaning that it developed partly outside the constraints imposed by schools’ assimilationist imperative. Herein lies the paradox – as Indigenous people learned basketball in the schools they made it their own, leading to the form now often referred to as ‘Indian’ or ‘Rez Ball’.
Not surprisingly much of the emphasis is on the ‘big’ schools were there are better records – Carlisle, but more so Haskell and Chilocco. Haskell is important in the story both as a significant site of basketball play and, given its location, links to the University of Kansas and by default to James Naismith – although Naismith’s direct links are less notable (such as they were) than Haskell’s links to local basketball networks. Davies however has done well to get well beyond these ‘usual suspects’ with an extensive array of sources that means he has drawn on a wide range of schools and localities across the north and south mid-west, south west and west coast (the expulsion of Indigenous peoples from the east means the lands west of the Mississippi feature more). As part of this narrative he also shows convincingly that early success by Indigenous teams was in part related to the relatively disorganised character of the game, and that by the 1920s as league and conferences became more organised Indian Schools were specifically excluded, allowing settler schools in many cases to claim championships that the Indigenous teams had dominated.
Here, as elsewhere, Davies is also keenly aware of the disproportionate gender emphasis on men’s and boy’s sport. He makes sure to highlight girl’s teams so the well-known case of Fort Shaw gets a good hearing – but so to do teams from Phoenix, Chemawa and elsewhere. This attention to gender presence also extends to his discussions of commercial touring teams and to community basketball: there is much less to tell about women’s basketball in colleges and the military although his opening anecdote relates to the Schimmel sisters (Umatilla) who played for the University of Kentucky Louisville in the early 2010s (who he returns to in the conclusion) making clear from the outset that this is a story of men and women in Indigenous basketball.
The book is broadly chronological, although with considerable overlap in chapters 3-7 that focus on schools even as they become less important after World War 2. The thematic emphasis in latter chapters on colleges, the military, commercial and community play also allows for some overlaps although the different sectors of play mean that this is less the case than in the opening sections. These overlaps enhance the argument by highlighting, especially in the schools, the complexities and multifaceted character of Indigenous basketball.
Crucially, Davies does not attempt to construct a single history of Indigenous basketball, recognising important local variations. He makes good use, for instance, of the distinctiveness of basketball in Lumbee communities in North Carolina where a lack of federal recognition means that Lumbee were not forced into residential schools, giving basketball in Robeson County a very different feel and some distinctiveness in style. Crucially, in rejecting the simplicities of diffusionism Davies is able to point to the complexities of ‘the rise of American Indian basketball’. In doing so he also manages to avoid the limitations of many foundational studies, so while this may be a text against which subsequent studies work, just as Davies builds of previous scholars – John Bloom, Joseph Oxendine and more – the nuance and complexities of his argument mean that this excellent piece of work is likely to survive the critique of those studies, just as Bloom, Oxendine and others have.
This, then, is an excellent piece of work that is both scholarly rigorous and widely accessible. I heartily recommend it.
June 25, 2022
I loved this book for the fact that is discusses basketballs impact on society, in this case the Native American population. I liked all the different aspects of basketballs’ impact. Good social commentary on basketball.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews