A Season on the Rez

The girls’ coach sat behind Mendoza. Girls’ games draw thousands of fans on the rez. Male assistants sat behind her, in unspoken competition to take the helm when Mendoza retired or got fired. The end can come suddenly in the high desert.

Teenage girls occupied the next block of seats, singing to Beyoncé and braiding one another’s hair. The boys commanded the back and slouched like cats, heads and arms on one another’s shoulders and backs. Some tapped out texts. Others stared out the window as their land, the vast Dinétah, rolled past. Two freshman boys, awkward fawns, peered, eyes wide and furtive, at the seniors, the coach, the girls.

All were excused early from class for the three-hour drive from Chinle, their town at the mouth of Canyon de Chelly, to Snowflake, a Mormon outpost on the arid plains 130 miles south.

There are few grander sports than rez ball, a game of acrobatic layups and jumpers and running that found its origin in that Native American time before horses. Navajo learned basketball in Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools and made it their own, a game played by grandparents and parents and children.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/sports/chinle-basketball-navajo.html?emc=rss&partner=rss