Thursday Cardinal Couple -- Rez Ball: Part III and "Dream rudely awakened"

WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

game update:

Yeah, we know the Dream blew a 16
point lead in the 4th quarter to lose to
the Chicago Sky Tuesday night in Atlanta.

We got nothing here. We watched it and
we're done with it.

Fire Michael Cooper. A six year old could 
have coached that one better. Sure, the guy
had tongue cancer. I've never seen a tongue
win a WNBA Championship though.

Yo...defensive genius. Put someone tall on
a 6'5" slasher ( see: Elena Della Donne) who
can hit from outside. It boggles the mind...

( WE ARE PLEASED TO PRESENT THE FINAL PART OF GARY
WITHERSPOON THREE-PART INSTALLMENT ON "REZ BALL"
WE THANK GARY FOR THIS IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE 
TRADITION, HERITAGE AND SUCCESS OF ACTIVITY !! in case
you missed any of these reports, they are in the Cardinal
Couple archives. We recommend you read them all...)

REZ BALL:  An Awareness and History



A few months ago I read a comment from Russell Begaye on the Facebook page run by
fans of Shoni and Jude Schimmel. Russell Begaye is a member of the Navajo Nation
Council and is currently campaigning as a candidate for Navajo Nation President.
Begaye wrote, “I never thought I would hear national TV broadcasters talk about and
use the term rez ball.” His comment was noting with both surprise and pride how the
Schimmels had brought a unique and little known aspect of contemporary Native
American culture to a level of national awareness that few if any Native Americans
anticipated.


Despite the national awareness of “rez ball,” there is still not a very clear or very
adequate understanding of what Native Americans call rez ball. From the style of play
they see in Shoni Schimmel, non-Native American fans and commentators believe rez
ball is a creative and fancy style of play that involves a lot of no look passes, fancy
dribbling and creative shots. While artistic passes, fancy dribbling and creative shots
commonly occur in rez ball, these patterns do not fully convey the essence of rez ball.
Rez ball is not easy to define. Shoni Schimmel has often been asked to define it and
she tries to provide some idea of it, but it is a cultural feature that does not lend itself to
easy description or translation for someone who has not seen it or played it. As a
retired professor of cultural anthropology and a professor of American Indian Studies, I
am used to discussing and defining cultural patterns not familiar to outsiders of a
culture. That background and training does not mean I can do this cultural translation
fully or adequately, but I will give it a try.


My other credentials for being able to define rez ball is that I have been exposed to it for
more than five decades, I played rez ball for about two decades and I coached boys
basketball at the Navajo Academy (a college prep school in New Mexico) for five years.
My exposure to rez ball is primarily with the rez ball played on the Navajo reservation.
However, at Navajo Academy we played Native American teams from many other
reservations, so I have some broader exposure to how basketball and rez ball are
played on other reservations as well.


Rez ball has developed on many reservations and probably has various aspects that
are distinct to different reservations in different areas. Nevertheless, today there are
many tournaments that are open to and participated in by players from many different
reservations and areas, so most of the players today are exposed to how the game is
played on many different reservations. But the rez ball I see in Shoniʼs game in the
Northwest is very similar to, if not exactly the same, as the rez ball I saw all over the
Southwest going back 5 decades. It definitely seems to me that rez ball is still pretty
uniform across decades of time and in a wide variety of places.Before I can attempt
 to define or describe rez ball, I need to discuss how, where and
when basketball is played on reservations. Basketball is a very popular phenomenon
on most reservations and among urban Native Americans as well. My description of the
phenomenon of basketball in general and rez ball in particular is focused primarily on
my experience on the Navajo reservation and to a lesser extent to my exposure to rez
ball in the general Southwest and Northwest.


I distinguish basketball and rez ball from each other. Rez ball is that played in pick up
games and in open independent, non-school basketball leagues and tournaments.
School teams are often coached by coaches with training in traditional basketball, and
they often insist to one degree or another on their players and teams playing a more
traditional non-Native style of basketball. However, rez ball still heavily infiltrates and
affects the way more “traditional” basketball is played in school competition. This is
because about half the coaches today are Native Americans, and they typically
embrace and support more rez ball features in the way their teams play than is the case
with non-Native coaches. The other factor is that no matter how hard some coaches try
to get their teams to play a more traditional, non-Native style of basketball, their players
frequently revert to the rez ball styles they know and like. These players are also often
more effective in winning games when they infuse the game with a lot of rez ball
patterns.


One thing that is common across time and place is the popularity of basketball
tournaments. To generate significant cash, all various community groups need to do is
sponsor a basketball tournament. These sponsors charge each team an entry fee. It
might be $150 and each player will pay $15. The sponsor gets the gym, the referees
and the trophies. The sponsors charge an admission of $3-$10 and sell concessions.
Back when I started playing at these tournaments, the teams were all menʼs teams, and
most tournaments had at least 18-24 teams. The teams are usually guaranteed two or
three games. Sometimes the the tournament brackets were split between teams who
had players who were 35 and older and those who who were under 35. Today most
tournaments usually also have at least two brackets, one for men and one for women.
There are often more womenʼs teams entered than menʼs teams.


Native American women took to basketball very quickly and became good very fast. In
reservation areas today, girls high school basketball generally attracts as big or bigger
crowds than boys high school basketball. Over the past three decades, teams from the
reservation areas have won most of the state tournaments in the 3A classifications in
which most play in both New Mexico and Arizona. There has often been two teams
from the reservation who have played in the state tournament championship game.
One year three of the four teams in the state girls semifinals were reservation teams.
Navajo fans will drive 150-250 miles to fill up the 20,000 seat arena in Glendale where
the championships are played. Boys teams from the reservation have also done pretty
well, but not as well overall as the girls teams have done.


One somewhat unique development in the independent (non-school) reservation
tournaments discussed above are coed brackets. These generally require at least two
 players of each gender be on the court at all times. The teams are usually made up of
five females and five males - sometimes 4 and 6. The difference in level of play
between the men and women is not as great as one might imagine, and these coed
tournaments are a lot of fun for both the players and the fans.


Reservation high school games are usually packed for both the girls and the boys. In
many areas the girls games outdraw the boys games, but both are very popular and
gyms are filled. Lines start forming hours before the game in many places. About 15
years ago, Ganado High School on the Navajo reservation in Arizona built a state of the
art 5500 seat basketball arena that had individual chairs with backs for every seat in a
360 degree circle around the court. It is a better facility than many colleges play in.
This facility was and is used for the sponsored tournaments of independent teams as
well as for school games.


Not to be out done, Chinle, a town 50 miles to the north, built a 7500 seat arena The
Chinle facility has often been used for regional state tournament playoff games, as well
as for regular high school games, independent menʼs and womenʼs winter leagues, and
for sponsored independent tournaments that usually occur in the late spring and
summer. The facilities can also be used for large gatherings. Now Window Rock High
School is building a 10,000+ seat arena. Games at these facilities are generally full.
The people love basketball. The only sport that can generate anything close to the
amount of interest there is in basketball is rodeo. While interest remains high in rodeo
and most communities sponsor a rodeo each summer, the interest in and participation
in basketball easily exceeds the interest in, attendance at, and participation in rodeo.
In order to understand rez ball, one must understand the popularity of the game in
Native America. Basketball is not just a winter sport. It is played and watched 9-10
months a year. It is usually only left dormant during the months of September and
October, which are filled with cross country and football as well as with rodeo and
other athletic events.

gw


WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK, COMMENTS AND INPUT ON
GARY'S TRILOGY. WE APPRECIATE THE TIME, EFFORT AND 
DEDICATION THAT HE PUT INTO THIS SERIES AND LOOK FORWARD
TO ANY FUTURE CONTRIBUTIONS THAT HE WILL GRACE THE
CARDINAL COUPLE PAGES WITH...)

PAULIE

GW

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Wednesday Cardinal Couple -- Rez Ball Part II

WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

- Rez Ball: Part II

( Today we bring you Part II in Gary Witherspoon's three part article on Rez Ball. If you missed Part I..it can be found in last Wednesday's CARDINAL COUPLE. Gary has also sent a WNBA Playoffs Preview that will run Thursday.)

Enjoy!

Part III:  Showboating or Showtime?

It has often been said that art is in the eye of the beholder, and I propose that is also true of whether a particular play or style of play is viewed as showboating or showtime. 

A couple of nights ago I was listening to an interview with the “Big O” Oscar Robertson.  The interviewer, Chris Webber, said he saw a film of one of Oscar’s high school games where his hand was above the square on the backboard on an attempted tip in, and he said he was impressed.  He said “I had thought players back in your time (late 1950s) were not as athletic as they are today.  Oscar said, “we could do all the things players do today, but we were not allowed to do them.  My high school coach said he would kick us off the team if he ever saw us do a dunk - anytime - not only in a game, but also in practice or even playing in a pickup game in the gym.  Our coach said that was showboating, and it was a corruption of the purity of the game, and made a travesty of basketball tradition and sportsmanship.”  That was the majority opinion back then.

Just last year, Marie Taylor, an ESPN reporter, said that Kim Mulkey told Brittney Griner when she came on the Baylor campus that she would be benched if she ever hurt the team’s chances of winning a game because of doing a dunk.  At this year’s WNBA All-Star game, the players on both teams set up a play so that Brittney Griner would have a chance to do a dunk, which was one of the highlights of the game.  There are more missed layups than there are missed dunks in women’s basketball.  Why is there so much prejudice against the dunk?

It is amazing how backward and short-sighted some basketball coaches have been and continue to be about their sport and profession, and how easily they forget that they are in the entertainment business.  We need to remember the history described above when we consider whetherrez ball is showboating or showtime.  Or whether rez ball and high flying poster dunks are just another culture’s style regarding how to play and enjoy the game.

There is a saying that has its foundation in the game of golf:  Different strokes for different folks.  We might extend that perspective to propose that in basketball there are different styles for different players.  Rez ball introduces non-Native Americans to a style of play built on the idea of playing the game for the joy of the creator, for the joy of the community and for the joy of the players.  Such a game can heal the sick, entertain the less fortunate, honor and celebrate all of creation.  These are actually the ancient traditions from which the modern game of basketball was developed and modified..

Magic Johnson came into the NBA in 1979 when the league was struggling.  He brought showtime to the league.  Without knowing it, his style of basketball and his approach to playing the game exemplified the ideals and essence of rez ball and put joy back into the game.  He came into the league with an effusive presence, a charming personality, and a smile that lit up the whole arena.  For him the game was fun and exciting, and that fun and excitement - that joy of playing - turned out to be contagious and captivating;  it infused the sport and the whole league with a new spirit and a new style.

It just might be that in a pattern similar to what Magic Johnson did for the NBA, Ms. Shoni Schimmel is in the process of doing for the WNBA.  Shoni runs the plays and tries to do what her coach asks her to do; but, with a little here and a little there, and a whole lot in the All-Star game, Shoni is introducing rez ball to the WNBA and to the whole world of women’s basketball.  By so doing, she is re-injecting a new level of joy into the game.  This will not corrupt the purity of the game, but take it back to its ancient origin and tradition.

It is relevant that Iroquois college lacrosse players, brothers Miles and Lyle Thompson, took the world of college lacrosse by storm in 2013-2014.  Playing for the University of Albany (New York) with a big time schedule, the Thompson brothers each scored more points (goals and assists) over the last two seasons than anyone else had scored in the history of college lacrosse.  In an unusual event, the Tewaaraton Trophy, the Heisman Trophy of Division I college lacrosse, was awarded to both Miles and Lyle Thompson.  The Thompsons, along with cousin, Ty, have led the Albany team in becoming the highest scoring team in Division I lacrosse for last two years in a row. In 2014 Albany defeated top ranked Loyola to reach the quarter finals of the NCAA tournament where they lost a heartbreaking overtime game to Norte Dame 14-13.  Albany squandered a 5 goal lead in the fourth quarter in route to the overtime loss.  Notre Dame went on to the finals.

The following is from the NY Times

The Thompsons — whose cousin, Ty, had 41 goals and 12 assists to help make Albany the highest-scoring team in Division I for two straight seasons — were born on a Mohawk Indian reservation in northern New York and relished the breakthrough because it was something very special.

“Words cannot describe how happy I am. It brought tears to my eyes,” Lyle added. “To share the award with my brother is an honor. For us, it is about bringing a positive influence and helping people, not just Native Americans, but everyone.”

Tewaaraton is the Mohawk name for their game, and the bronze trophy depicts a single Mohawk player adorned in a simple loincloth and golden eagle feather. It’s mounted on a hexagon-shaped slab of black granite, the six-sided base symbolizing the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy — the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes.

The Thompsons brought joy, innovation and flare to the game of lacrosse. They made quick and daring assists and made deceptive and creative shots from behind the back, over the shoulder, and between the legs that drove goalies crazy.  You could say they brought joy to the college game of lacrosse, or you could also say they bought showtime or rez ball to the college game of lacrosse, the Creator’s Game.

Lacrosse and the Thompsons are relevant to the rez ball and showtime discussion here because the lacrosse played by the Thompsons and the rez ball played by Shoni Schimmel derive from common cultural roots, values and emphases.  And the games they play, as well as the styles they exemplify, have their antecedents in the Indigenous sports history of the Americas.

Wednesday Cardinal Couple -- Rez Ball

WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

- Gary Witherspoon explores Rez Ball

( CONTRIBUTING WRITER GARY WITHERSPOON BRINGS THE FIRST OF A 
THREE PART SERIES ON REZ BALL. THESE WILL RUN ON WEDNESDAYS
FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS INSIDE LOOK INTO
THE PHENOMENON THAT HAS RECENTLY BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SHONI
SCHIMMEL AND NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN RESERVATIONS ACROSS THE LAND.) 

 Rez Ball in a Three Part Series

Part I:  The Origin and Essence of Rez Ball

Most people who have heard the term rez ball but who have not seen or participated in it tend to think of rez ball as a style of play.  While rez ball has many characteristic styles and patterns, the essence of rez ball is an attitude toward the game more than it is a combination of styles and attributes.  The game is played as an act of joy and as an act of celebration in competition.  The teams compete with intensity and ferocity but not out of hostility or meanness.  Those latter passions violate the original spirit and essence  of the game, which has its foundation in community and religious performance and celebration.

Basketball has its origins in the ball games played in Central America more than two thousand years ago.  These games were split up between two teams and built on the idea of putting a bouncing rubber ball through goals on each end of a court.  Native Americans were the first to discover the process of the vulcanization of rubber, and they had bouncing rubber balls long before the Europeans first saw them in the Americas.  The team and the goal oriented ball games had a wide variety of patterns as they spread throughout much of North America.  Europeans who settled in North America were introduced to these games in the Southeast, the Northeast and in the Great Lakes region.  The game of basketball as it is played today began as a winter adaptation or modification of lacrosse.  One of the things that is left out often left out of sports history in America is that James Naismith was a lacrosse player.  He had learned lacrosse from the Iroquois in the Northeast who had been playing the game at least a thousand years.

In order to develop an indoor winter sport, Naismith altered the basic rules of lacrosse and invented a modified version of lacrosse that came to be known as basketball.  The original version of basketball looked a lot more like lacrosse than the way the game is played today.  Originally the ball came back to the center for a face-off or jump after every point scored, and not all players on a team were allowed to play on both sides of the court.  Hands and dribbling were substituted for racquets as a way of advancing the ball toward the goal.

Lacrosse among the Iroquois emphasized the themes of joy, celebration, unity, health and good will (what we call sportsmanship today).  Lacrosse is the name that the French Jesuits gave to the Iroquois game that was actually played by virtually all Indian Nations in the Northeast and Great Lakes region.

The Iroquois call lacrosse (they have different names for it in their own languages) the Creator’s game, and
say the game was given to the people from the creator for the joy and amusement of the creator, and the joy and amusement of his children.  Thus the game is to be played with an attitude and sense of joy, celebration and gratitude.  The creator is said to thoroughly enjoy watching the players compete in this game.  The creator’s joy is enhanced when the players play with more intensity, deception, creativity and joy. 

The game is also to be played with a sense of thanksgiving for all creation.  The biggest lacrosse games of the year were played as part of the Iroquois four day rite of Thanksgiving, also called the Green Corn ceremony among many other tribes of the Eastern US.  I am going to quote from the website of the Iroquois Nationals, the only Indigenous sports team from North America to field a national team in international competition.  The Iroquois Nationals made the final four of the 2014 World Cup of Lacrosse.  They finished third in the World Cup behind the US and Canada and ahead of Australia (fourth).  38 nations from North America, Europe, Africa and Asia participated in the World Cup of Lacrosse.

“Lacrosse was a gift to us from the Creator, to be played for his enjoyment and as a medicine game for healing the people . . . Before each game, players are reminded of the reason for their participation . . . The creator has endowed upon all human life, a game called dehonchigwiis (lacrosse) for all to enjoy. The young men who participate in the creator’s game will generate a gift of healing that we may have peace of mind.” (http://iroquoisnationals.org/the-iroquois/the-story-of-lacrosse/)

This is the real history and origin of ball games and team sports in the Americas.  It was from this tradition that James Naismith devised the game of basketball.  Rez ball comes from this tradition, and the predominant essence of rez ball is joy - joy for the creator, joy for the participants and joy, health and peace of mind for all the players and spectators.

In the recent WNBA All-Star game, it appeared to me that Shoni Schimmel finally felt fully free to play rez ball; and, in doing so, she let everybody see the joy with which she plays the game and the joy she infuses into the game.  Shoni personifies playing for the joy of the game.  She plays hard with passion and intensity; she plays to win, but she does not fall down and cry a river when she loses.  Playing the game has given her the joy of participation and the opportunity to entertain with skill, artistry and creativity.  She is thankful for playing, even after a loss, and she moves on to the next opportunity to play for the enjoyment of the creator and the people. While she may not be able to articulate this in these words, she has in multiple ways imbibed this from the sports traditions of Indigenous America, and she exemplifies and personifies those traditions as well as any basketball player today.  That is a big reason why Native American fans and other fans as well have embraced and adored her.  Her performances and the enthusiasm and joy she brings to the game is captivating, and is completely in tune with the ancient sports traditions of Indigenous America

At least twice and probably more than that, Rebecca Lobo has been the color commentator on ESPN of games in which Shoni has played.  I remember her specifically saying something like this in the latter part of the Louisville/Tennessee game in 2013, and she repeated it again in the WNBA All-Star game:

“Shoni Schimmel is absolutely fearless.  She has no fear.  She plays the game without fear.”  I laughed when I heard that both times.  What in the world is there to fear.  Why would one play with fear, I thought.  Shoni plays out of joy, not fear.  Shoni plays for the joy of creativity and for the joy of participating and winning.

A lot of the patterns and styles of Rez Ball make logical sense when you understand the attitude and passion that infuses rez ball.  When you understand that you play with joy and for joy . . . the joy of the Creator, the joy of the people, the joy of the players and the joy of participation, so it makes total sense that that joy is expressed in and realized in creative and artistic plays, passes and shots.

The object of the game is to outscore your opponent, so the emphasis in playing the game is on offense, on
scoring. Defense is just something you do until you get back on offense.  The focus on defense then is on stealing the ball or causing a turnover.  If you cannot steal the ball or force a turnover, then you can get the ball back by blocking a shot or rebounding a missed shot.  And, finally, if you cannot steal the ball, force a turnover, block a shot or rebound a missed shot, you can get the ball back when your opponent makes a shot.  If you can force or entice your opponent to take two point shots, you can still outscore them by making three point shots.

In regard to the emphasis on three point shots, it is relevant to note that against Memphis this year, Shoni hit 8 three point shots in a row and 9 for the game.  That was only exceeded by one other player, Abby Scott, who hit 11 three pointers in one game in January, 2014.  Abby plays for New Mexico State and hails from the Warm Springs reservation in central Oregon, not far from Shoni and Jude’s Umatilla reservation.  Shoni hit another 7 three pointers in the WNBA All-Star game, and she won the collegiate three point shooting championship over all the best three point shooters in both men’s and women’s college basketball this year.

Because the goal is to score, you want to score as fast as you can, so you fast break after a missed shot or after most made shots, after a steal or a rebound, and you shoot as soon as you get a good shot.  Long passes get the ball down court faster, so you throw the long pass whenever anyone is open on the other end of the court.

Because a bad shot or a bad pass gives the ball back to the other team without your team scoring, you want to make passes that will help a teammate score or take shots that will help your team score.

These aspects of rez ball lead to a lot of long passes and a lot of three point shots.  Shoni is incredibly good with long passes.  She looks like she should have been a quarterback.  Coaches do not generally like long passes because most players throw wild, off-target passes when they attempt to throw long passes, but Shoni can often throw a one-handed pass off the dribble from one end of the court and thread the needle to a teammate at the opposite end of the court.  If you watch and count the success and failure of her long passes you will see she rarely throws a pass off target.  Turnovers almost always come from interceptions when a player from the other team crosses in front of her target or when a player leaps high and intercepts a pass that was online for its intended target.

Shoni pretty much single-handedly disarmed the presses of Baylor and Tennessee with her long passes.  She makes them look so easy, but they are not easy.  If most players tried them, they would likely turn the long passes into a disaster, and that is why most coaches are against long passes.  But Shoni has made those passes in rez ball games tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of times.  She has great hand-eye coordination, and that coordination plus all the practice she has had make her pretty lethal with the long pass.  Long passes are as common in rez ball as dandelions are in the spring

The one aspect of rez ball that drives traditional coaches crazy (and it did me too when I was coaching in high school) is that players play defense with their hands and not their feet.  First they try to steal the pass that goes to the player they are guarding.  If that does not work, then they try to steal the ball out of the hands of their opponent, and next they try to steal the dribble of the player they are defending.  When the player they are defending puts the ball on the court and begins to drive around them, they first reach in to knock the ball away, and then they allow the player to go around them and try to knock it away from behind the player.  The result is that they will often stand there like their feet are glued to the floor while the player they are defending goes right around them.  Lots of coaches have to go to zone defenses because of this.  It is a habit rez ball players have a hard time overcoming.

Finally, what follows from the premise that the game is played with and for joy is the tendency to make creative and artistic shots and passes.  Clever, deceptive and artistic shots and passes entertain the Creator, the participants and the spectators.  They  enhance the joy of the game.  But the game only makes sense when you go all out to win, so you only do the creative and artistic stuff when it has a good chance of succeeding and improving your chance of winning, or when you are playing pickup ball and not keeping score.  There is no joy in making a creative pass that goes array and causes your team to lose the game.

The styles and patterns of rez ball derive from the premises of the Indigenous philosophy of the game.  Non-natives take the game much too seriously, and make winning the sole goal of the game that must be pursued at almost any cost.  This philosophy takes the joy out of playing the game, and makes winning the only joy of the game.  Preparation for and the playing of the game become drudgery that only pays off if you win.  That is why players and teams play with fear as Rebecca Lobo’s comments indicated.  In the case to which she alludes, player play with the fear of failure; they fear missing their shot; they fear having their shot blocked; they fear making the bad pass or losing the game.  This philosophy causes players to play out of a fear of failure, rather than play out of the joy of participation, the joy of creativity and the joy of winning.

Shoni is putting the joy back into playing the game of women’s basketball.  Her Native American following mostly understand that, and other fans are beginning to get a glimpse of it as well.  Many of her critics just do not understand where her game is coming from, because her game does not come from cultural premises and philosophies with which they are familiar.

Coming next......Part II:  Showboating or Showtime...NEXT WEDNESDAY

--gdub--

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