This is the basketball team from Fort Yukon.
They live eight
miles above the Arctic Circle. There are no roads leading to their village.
Some of their families have to deal with poverty, alcoholism, and violence. One
of the players says Fort Yukon is like a bucket of crabs: "If one crab
gets a claw-hold on the edge... and starts to pull itself out, the others will
reach up and grab it and pull it back down."
But they’ve got a coach who
won’t quit and when these boys get onto the court, all the rest of it just goes
away. It’s a great story about an underdog team, the unusual life they lead and
the great basketball games they play.
It’s Eagle Blue: a team, a tribe, and
a high school basketball season in Arctic Alaska
(Booktalk by Kirsten
Edwards, King County Library System)
Fort Yukon
Alaska was a beaten down place. A town where the native culture had fallen
apart to be replaced by shrink-wrapped food, television, snowmobiles, and
alcohol—lots of alcohol. Families were in various stages of disintegration, and
kids felt they had little or no future. That was Fort Yukon when Dave Bridges
took over coaching the high school basketball team, the Fort Yukon Eagles.
He turned
the team around with his emphasis the on basics: team work, sharing, and a
crushing defense that simply wore their opponents down. These were the same
traditional values that had made “The People”, the Athabascan natives who lived
in Fort Yukon, a once proud nation. For six straight years the team had won the
regional basketball finals and gone to the state tournament. Last year they
made it to the 1A state finals
For Fort
Yukon’s boys, whose lives at home and in the classroom were constantly subject
to disruption, the basketball team become the one place in town where they
could work hard and be successful.
For senior
Matt Shewfelt, whose father and brother had played on older Eagles teams, this
was a last chance for family glory, a last chance to play a game he loved
before he entered an uncertain adult world. This year Matt will be the Eagles
captain--the senior on whose slim shoulders the hopes of “The People” would be
carried.
The team
was a source of pride for the people of Fort Yukon, and in this community that
was very important. In the long dark Fort Yukon winter, the one thing people
looked forward to was the basketball season.
Coach
Bridges left the first practice that winter of 2004 unable to contain his
excitement. Eleven boys had shown up, more then had ever turned out for a first
practice. He knew some would not return. But no matter what, he would have a
full squad this season, and it would be a very good team. This just might be
it, the team he had been waiting for, the team the whole town had dreamed of.
This just might be the year the Fort Yukon Eagles go all the way.
Eagle Blue:
A Team, and A Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska by
Michael D’Orso
(Booktalk
by Tom Reynolds, Sno-Isle Regional Library System)
This true
story, set in the snowbound Alaskan village of Fort Yukon reveals how
basketball can intensify the spirit of pride. Although tribal heritage has been
beaten down by drugs or domestic violence , many generations celebrate success
on the court with six consecutive regional championships.
Typical of
many isolated Alaskan communities, the main transportation is by plane. These
added expenses for all competing teams becomes a community funding effort.
Temperatures in negative numbers can cancel a flight and force a loss by
default.
Many voices
narrate the quest for the ultimate state championship, from the nonnative
coach, to family and fans of the team. Descriptions of games played crackle
with intense immediacy.
(Booktalk
by Lyla Anderson)
Last
Updated: May 14, 2008