March Madness

“'But I don’t want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can’t help that,' said the Cat. 'We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.'
'How do you know I’m mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,” said the Cat. 'or you wouldn’t have come here.'”
... Lewis Carroll

The Regional Basketball Tournament was held this weekend in Bethel. Our school’s 4-day weekend known as Spring Break is scheduled every year around this tournament. The school shuts down, much of the community heads to Bethel, and the games begin.

The school district office even sends out e-mails to every employee district-wide as each game is played, offering news of the winners, an attachment of the most up-to-date bracket rankings, and even a camera schedule so that people can watch the games via VTC (video-teleconference) at the outlying schools. I received 15 such e-mails between Wednesday and Saturday.

To say that high school basketball is important out here on the tundra would be the understatement of the year. The school literally revolves around gym schedules and tournament dates. Teachers are expected to volunteer to supervise, sell tickets and concessions, prepare food for visiting teams, drive teams to and from the airstrip, and anything else you can imagine. Parent involvement is sporadic, at best. But, you can bet they’ll be at the games! (that’s another post topic)

Let me digress for a moment. The district grading system is 90-100 A, 80-89 B, 70-79 C, 0-69 F. There are no D’s here. The district powers that be simply deem a D as unacceptable. Okay, I’ll buy that. However, that only applies to report cards, not to sports eligibility. There is a 60-69 D added in just for sports eligibility, to make sure there are enough players to make a team. That seems to be a pretty glaring glitch in the system.

Many of the players have NBA dreams, obviously because the sport is so heavily emphasized in the community and the schools. Keep in mind that the average height of a Yupik female is 5’0” to 5’2” and the average height for a Yupik male is 5’4” to 5’6”. It is very unusual to see a male over 6-feet tall. I have yet to meet a woman as tall as I am, 5’10”. When I look at the facts, it seems odd that basketball would be where the emphasis is placed out here. Add to that the fact that the only basketball courts outside (which is where the kids play all summer) have to be on raised, wooden platforms because of the permafrost in the tundra and this seems like a very illogical way to spend money and time.

I understand the argument that basketball is a diversion to keep teens out of trouble.
Academics, public speaking, Battle of the Books, theatre, dance. There are any number of more feasible routes for this energy and money that would produce more longstanding results with skills that would be valuable for their rest of their lives. As far as sports, what about track and field, wrestling, or even hockey. This place is frozen a good seven months out of the year with frozen rivers and ponds everywhere and there is not a hockey team anywhere around.

Instead, Eskimos are encouraged to play basketball. Will this lead them to college scholarships? Will this earn them a living on professional teams? History says, “No.” So, why does the school system so adamantly support such a project?

***Oh, and by the way, the Kwethluk Girls' Team won and are headed to State. There was no Kwethluk Boys' team this year because there weren't enough academically eligible boys to make a team.***