Caitlin Clark will play her first pro basketball game tonight for the Indiana Fever of the Women’s National Basketball Association. In her four years at the University of Iowa she had already broken records and helped create a storm of interest in the women’s game. And she already has endorsements—now legal for college player—which make her a millionaire, but her starting salary as a WNBA rookie number one draft pick is set at $76,000.
This—and the millions of dollars that the men receive as rookies, and the hundreds of millions they receive as stars—is cause for conversation in the world of women’s sports. So too is the fact that Caitlin Clark is white in a game of African-American stars. The press is comparing this to the coming of Larry Bird—another white Midwesterner—into men’s professional basketball more than four decades ago. Bird and his rivalry and friendship with Magic Johnson vaulted professional basketball into the mainstream of men’s professional sports. Until then the NBA was an afterthought to major league baseball and football. Some see Caitlin Clark doing the same for the women’s game.
Clark’s game is three-pointers from Stephen Curry’s distance—well beyond the 3-point lines on the floor for the college, pro, men’s and women’s games. It’s passing, long heaves downcourt, and flashy hard bounce passes skipping by unready defenders to a teammate under the hoop. Rebounds and steals too, all based on quickness and an uncanny sense of the court and where everyone—friend and foe—is and is going to be in the next seconds.
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Caitlin Clark reminds me of Rezball. I’ve been watching Nixyaawii, the team from the nearby Umatilla Indian Reservation, play basketball for the last decade, and I have been seriously reading about and following boys’ and girls’, men’s and women’s “Rez Ball”—or Rezball—for almost that long. Lapwai, Idaho—on the Nez Perce Reservation—has accumulated more boys’ and girls’ state championships than almost any other Idaho team. The boys won their 13th state 1A D1 title this March, beating Lakeside from the Coeur d’Alene Reservation in a return and revenge rematch of last year’s title game. The Lapwai girls lost in the title game this year, which would have given them 12 state titles.
Lapwai listed 266 students this year—but that includes junior high! I don’t know about this year’s wins, but remember when they were on a multi-year win streak and regularly beating schools with five times the enrollment.
Back in Oregon, a few years ago a girl from Nixyaawii named Mary Stewart would nonchalantly bring the ball up court and skip a pass to a waiting teammate underneath, or head fake one way and another and drop in a three from long range. Kind of like Caitlin Clark!
Clark would be right at home in a Rezball gym. How to describe it? New York Times writer Michael Powell, in his book Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation, says that even when comparing with NBA run and gun teams, Rezball is a “blur.” It’s shooting within seconds of crossing the halfcourt line, swarming, often full-court, defenses, intensive teamwork and no-look passes. It’s also packed gyms on reservations, and packed fieldhouses with team followers at state tournaments.
And it is a national phenomenon. Not only at Lapwai, Idaho or the Chinle, New Mexico of Michael Powell’s book, but on reservations in Nebraska and the Dakotas, with players that are Crow, Nez Perce, Lakota, Navajo and members of many tribes. It might vary in the particulars, but the speed, pace, and skills of the game, and its place in the communities and the reservations where it lives are all Rez Ball.
A couple of years ago, I read Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana, by Abe Streep. Abe followed the team from tiny Arlee, Montana as it made its way to a Montana State championship. He’d written a long New York Times Magazine piece about Arlee’s run to the championship, and, with curiosity and the encouragement of players and the families he’d spent the year with, turned it into a book that would include accounts of the problems and joys of reservation life and the obstacles to fine basketball players continuing in the college game.
The star of the team Arlee clobbered in the championship game got a full ride to Montana State. Phil Malatare, who dreamed of playing at U Montana, finally got a walk-on, but didn’t have the right high school classes to attend the U. I wrote a blog post about it, and a friend from Missoula told me to look in my back yard. Malatare was at Eastern Oregon U., where he was newcomer of the year and then player of the year in the Cascade Conference.
He’s one of a few Indians who have been successful in the college game, away from family and friends and the fury and importance that Rez Ball has on the reservation. And, at this point, only five Native men and four Native women have made it to the NBA and WNBA.
Individuals have had a hard time making the leaps, but the game, Rez Ball, seems to have made its way to the pros. There’s Curry bringing the ball up and launching from near half-court, or breaking for the hoop and dropping it off no-look to a teammate. And now Caitlin Clark doing the same.
An old pro is trying to bring Rez Ball to our attention. LeBron James is producing a film based on Powell’s book on the Chuska New Mexico Warriors. Coming soon on Netflix!
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image AP