NABI’s impact on Native youth ‘incalculable’: Post up

By Melanie Cissone
Special to the Times

“Only a tribal kid’s shot has an arc made of sky.” – Run‘n’Gun from Natalie Diaz’s “Postcolonial Love Poem”

Part one: daybreak, lightbulb moments

NEW YORK CITY – In the pre-dawn hours of the A.C. Green Youth Foundation instructional basketball camp in the summer of 2002, Southwestern songbirds served as revelry in Prescott, Arizona. The summer sun poked its way above the horizon. Eager campers were still an hour from scrambling to dress, shovel in some breakfast, and get to the courts to learn hoop skills from the NBA great and the camp’s namesake.

With her head cocked and an ear tipped upward on the second morning of camp, GinaMarie Scarpa, the former executive director of the “Iron Man’s” foundation says, “I could hear this pap, pap, pap of a bouncing basketball.”

Wide-eyed, she exclaims, “It was five in the morning!”

Not sure why sleep-loving teen campers would rise before the sun, the curious mother of two investigated. Spritely and all Boston, Scarpa’s eyes dance and that unmistakable “Eastie” accent goes full tilt when she calls her boss. “Ther-ah a buncha Native American kids on the court playin’ ball, come quick!” she implores.

She gazes outward and her head moves left, right, left, right as if watching an actual game and says, “It was still dahk and these kids were sprintin’ up and bah-ck, up and bah-ck and up and bah-ck.” All she needed to see for the lightbulb moment were those kiddos on the court laughing, giggling, and acting considerably less shy than when they first arrived.

Fast forward to friend and Arizona Rattlers’ ticket manager, the late Scott Podleski, who invited pals Scarpa and former Phoenix Suns player Mark West to the 2002 Arizona Interscholastic Association Class 3A state championship basketball game in which the teams were composed largely of Native American players. Familiar with the run-and-gun style of play from having volunteered at Navajo Nation’s T’iis Názbąs Community School in Teec Nos Pos in northeastern Arizona, Podleski was no less transfixed than Scarpa and West by what he too was seeing on makeshift rez courts and reservation gyms throughout Indian Country.

The three watched the Indigenous competitors run non-stop up and down the full length of the court with split-second pivots to chuck the ball to another player or to shoot. Generalizations about height in basketball don’t obtain among Native players when you watch a Native team run a non-Native team up and down the court to exhaustion. Podleski turned to awestruck Scarpa and West to ask them, “Why don’t we see more Native players?”

Podleski, who passed away in April 2010, was referring to the absence of Indigenous athletes on college rosters, and on professional teams. This wasn’t a head-scratcher. Instead, for this motivated philanthropic trio, Scott’s question became a call to action. Kitchen-table-style, the three met, tossed some ideas around, and left the room having founded the Native American Basketball Invitational in 2003. Its mission? They set out to develop a first-rate NCAA-sanctioned basketball tournament for Native and Indigenous high school players to compete against each other and to bring exposure to their athletic talent.

But this is less a sports story and more a tale about a woman with compassion, tenacity, a sense of justice, and laser-sharp instincts about people and behavior. Scarpa has surmounted all sorts of personal and professional odds, not least of which was evolving a small 24-team tournament into the 225 teams that vied for the 196 slots this year, 22 years later.

From NABI’s first-year operating loss of $180K to having captured the attention of some of the world’s biggest athletic brands, major sports broadcasting networks, filmmakers, and sponsorship so abundant NABI has had to turn some away, that it’s become the biggest little high school tournament that goes unsung in the traditional sports world.

In addition to the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, and Footprint Center, tribal sponsorship comes from the Gila River Indian Community, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe. Educational sponsors include the University of Phoenix, Phoenix College, Arizona Science Center, and Grand Canyon University, where pool and bracket games will be played this year. To ensure NABI’s annual budget is met, corporate support comes from BHP, Rolling Plain Construction, Freeport McMoRan, KONE, Urias Communications, Penta, Legends Entertainment, Becker Boards, and Fry’s Food Stores, with presenting sponsorship from Resolution Copper.

Lifting Native youth in the name of sport has been no small feat.

“From the start, she saw herself in the kids,” said A.C. Green earnestly about the twinkle in Scarpa’s eyes and the determination in her soul.

To support his friend and former employee, Green attends the tournament nearly every year. In their beloved adopted City of Phoenix, Green, who got his start in Los Angeles, almost always wears a Lakers T-shirt to rattle Scarpa’s Boston Celtics cage.
Having witnessed the skill among young Native players with little in the way of a level competitive playing field, Scarpa saw in them the stock from which she came. Having grown up in East Boston in public housing, eating commodity food—food that came from state subsidies—, the half-Italian, half-Mexican Indigenous Scarpa identified immediately with what it might have felt like to be a Native kid growing up on a reservation; the clang of what can’t happen rang as true for her as it did for the student athletes she was meeting early in NABI’s history.

“I understood,” she remembers, “What the can’t-do box felt like,” referring to categorizations by upbringing, education, ethnic background, the lack of opportunity, and the potential downward spire that leads to waning hope.

Leaps of faith

With slight variations between Boston’s Eastie and Southie accents, listening to Scarpa is like listening to Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting.” Dunkin’ over Starbucks’s always, the wicked smahhht founder says, “I like a little coffee with my cream,” as she unpacks 21 years of NABI history. From its early days of a start-up garage operation to today, it’s a thrill to watch the tournament’s championship games televised as they play on the hardwood of the Footprint Center, the sports arena and concert venue where legendary Phoenix Suns’ and Mercury players have faced off against other teams since 1992 and 1997, respectively.

The impact of NABI on Native youth is incalculable; beyond the excitement of teens competing in packed Phoenix-area high school gyms during pool and bracket play, players are exposed to college coaches and scouts, they attend a college fair where many consider higher education for the first time, and they listen to the inspiring words of motivational guest speakers that have included, among others, NABI alumni who played college ball and/or pursued dreams that lead to rewarding careers. Many donate their time.

Referring to the early days of NABI before Rez ball was a phenomenon when it was a style of play familiar only to Native Americans, Scarpa says, “Some of our kids had never been off the reservation. Literally.” As a witness to the lack of familiarity about athletic, educational, and career opportunities among Native youth she was inspired to include an educational component to the programming and to ask motivational speakers to address participants at the week-long tournament.

Scholarship money to the tune of $10,000 each is awarded to a NABI girl and boy high school senior. To qualify, these student-athletes will have demonstrated financial need, written a compelling essay, maintained a 3.0 GPA, served their communities, and have been admitted to an institution of higher education. NABI has awarded over $450K in scholarships and financial aid to date.

Myriad dogged tasks come with running a tournament of this magnitude. Each year Scarpa cajoles long-standing and new sponsors; secures special hotel room rates for participating teams and their families; oversees tournament promotion on social and traditional media; and makes sure registration details and playing rules are understood. She organizes a growing two-course NABI benefit golf tournament, and she maintains a creative hand in the development of the coveted NABI Nation merchandise that often sells out on check-in day. The sublimated uniforms and other merchandise, designed by the Phoenix Suns design team, have been a massive hit since Scarpa made the decision to bring the production into NABI’s control.
There have been leaps of faith along the way. Nonetheless, in an environment where amateur athletes are now permitted to license their name, likeness, and image (NLI), NABI Nation itself represents a brand entity with ties to Indian Country worthy of any suitor wanting to acquire a property with that kind of influence. The tournament has recently developed a platform to expand NABI Nation to sanction tribe-specific or regional qualifier tournaments. These are a natural and limitless progression.
Lynette Lewis (Diné) founded her own company as an offshoot of her decade-long experience working for Scarpa under the former auspices of the NABI Foundation. Lewis manages all the complicated elements of the tournament itself. The executive producer and director of NABI Network, Robert Judkins (Lipan and Chiricahua Apache). He produces the streamed NABI broadcasts where viewers watch games and sideline commentators Tyler Jones (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) of Host and Analyst of Chat Sports NFL and College Football; Denver’s Weekend Sports Anchor at 9News, Jacob Tobey (Mashpee Wampanoag); and the newest team member, radio and podcast personality Faith Lukes (Tulalip).

Scarpa also engages a consultant who coaches on-air Native announcers on the art of calling a game or providing nuance to their commentary from the sidelines. There’s an all-Native beehive operation of logistics coordinators, social media, and public relations pros who organize announcements, volunteers, gyms, and schedules. NABI Nation walks the walk by showcasing both enthusiastic Native high school athletes as well as the skilled squad that make things go when it’s go time.

Amber Theoharis, an Emmy-award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, and Las Vegas Raiders’ sports anchor, coaches NABI’s on-air broadcast team. The professional broadcaster said, “Business is just better when we hear from different voices.”

“Uplifting diverse broadcaster voices is imperative to expanding mindsets for all kinds of young people,” she continued, “These voices open the door of possibility for all who watch.”

Inspiring boys and girls

Motivational speaker, master of ceremonies, and actor, Chance Rush (MHA Nation-Hidatsa) has been emceeing NABI from its inception. “She sat there and looked at me,” recalling a conversation with Scarpa that first year, “She said this is gonna be big one day.”

“She put us on a platform. This wasn’t in a little gym. She believed in us so much she said, ‘We’re gonna play where the Suns play,’” the emcee and Killers of the Flower Moon actor said about the import of staging the finals at what used to be the America West Arena.

Last summer, for NABI’s 20th anniversary, Scarpa invited Milwaukee Bucks MarJon Beauchamp of the Mission Indians and LaJolla Band of Luiseño Indians, one of just two Native American players in the NBA. His bright smile and happy-to-be-here attitude were ever-present during the latter half of the NABI tournament. Scarpa refers to it as “MarJon Magic.” Beauchamp signed every autograph and talked casually to players courtside answering student-athlete questions about the arc of a career that got him to the Bucks.

Scarpa parlayed the relationship with Beauchamp into a three-day NABI Officially Endorsed Tournament. Just three weeks ago, the first-ever MarJon Beauchamp All-Native Tournament hosted by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe in Auburn, Washington, witnessed an enthusiastic 33 boys’ teams, and 18 girls’ teams compete and rub elbows with one of two NBA unicorns.

“It’s important for me to represent the Native American community,” Beauchamp told Dylan Ackerman of the Seattle Times. “I’m one of the few — one of two — in the NBA. Native Americans, we’re not on the top of the list. I just want to try and push that out there and make it known,” he said.

In collaboration with Window Rock Unified School District 8, Navajo Nation hosted its inaugural NABI Nation-endorsed tournament, the Magic Classic, in May. This is significant when you consider that approximately 24% of the record-breaking 196 teams registered for NABI 2024 are Navajo.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in Kirtland Dynasty, a forthcoming documentary about Kirtland Central High School’s Lady Broncos, “As long as I can remember, Navajo people like to shoot the ball.”

Along with a chance to play post-season, build skills, and capitalize on natural talent, the advantage to the locally based tournaments is that the championship teams already accepted to NABI can expect a 100% reimbursement of paid NABI team fees. Otherwise, non-refundable, NABI tournament fees top out at nearly $1,000 for six to eight players including a head coach and an assistant coach.

Other noteworthy NABI motivational speakers have included female sports legend, Ann Meyers Drysdale. Meyers is not only the former general manager of the Phoenix Mercury, and a noted Women’s National Basketball League and Olympic broadcaster, but she was also the first female player to sign an NBA contract in 1979 when she tried out for the Indiana Pacers.

Always cognizant of the fact that nearly half of the tournament is composed of girls’ teams, Scarpa is thrilled to see Meyers when she drops in. Maybe less recognizable than Green, West, or Beauchamp, Meyers’ athletic achievements might trump them all combined. Her firsts are too numerous to recite. Among them, she was the first woman to receive a four-year athletic scholarship to a university and played for Division I UCLA; she was the first D1 player ever to record a quadruple-double; and she played on the 1976 Olympic team in Montreal, which took a silver medal as women’s basketball made its debut on the world stage.

Scarpa and Meyers sit together on high school bleachers, talk, laugh, and watch games. Meyers can’t help but comment to Scarpa about players’ form as they look on and talk about family and careers.

This year’s scholarship recipients are Keon Talgo (San Carlos Apache) of Mesa, Arizona, who will be attending Cornell College in the fall, and Jaci Joy Gonnie (San Carlos Apache/Diné) of Leupp, Arizona, who heads to Rome City Institute. Yes, that Rome, the one in Italy.

Last December, while other college offers were coming in for Gonnie, the Winslow High School Lady Bulldog and RezBomber received an email from an RCI scout who had seen an ESPN+ broadcast of her playing in the NABI tournament.

Hesitant to let anyone close to her know about RCI’s invitation to attend school in Rome and play basketball in the Eternal City, Gonnie said, “It was during basketball season, and I only told my mom about it. I slowly started telling family and we were looking at it and into it. And then they were embracing me to do it.”

With opportunities to play against professional club teams and train with the Italian national team, Gonnie committed to RCI in early April.

Changing the face of basketball

Scarpa is especially fond of having hosted former Louisiana State University coach and Hall of Fame legend Dale Brown to be a keynote speaker at the 2007 NABI tournament.

In Hannah Storm’s documentary, “Shaq & Dale,” Storm describes how Shaquille O’Neal’s coach, mentor, and friend helped shape the sports career of the lumbering giant of a 13-year-old boy attending school in Germany. The acquaintance developed into a mentor-protégé relationship between one of college ball’s most famous coaches and one of the NBA’s greatest players. Shaquille says in the film of his mentor, “He cares.”

Coach Brown’s interest in Native Americans derives as much from his love of basketball as it does from a hardscrabble upbringing and the I’ll-show-them attitude detailed in a Nov. 18, 1985, Sports Illustrated profile.

The proud son of a single mother whose father left the family before he was born; Brown spoke about his legacy with Frank Cusumano of The Hollywood Casino Press Box in a 2018 interview. Critical of the NCAA’s lack of common sense, the player whisperer famously told Cusumano, “They practice monumental hypocrisy and legislate against human dignity.”

Why does this matter to a story about a Native American basketball tournament?

When Scarpa sought NCAA certification in 2007 for NABI, the NCAA wouldn’t sanction the tournament initially because it argued, that teams had to abide by a “same state rule.” It was a box Scarpa simply couldn’t check. Logically, an all-Native tournament had to respect tribal sovereignty. It was and continues to be an all-Native tournament designed in part for Native youth to get exposure to college scouts and coaches. For a girl from Boston’s Italian-dominant East Side who grew up in a low-income housing project, the college sports oversight organization might just as well have challenged Scarpa to a street fight. Guess who won?

When the 25-year veteran nine-time SEC Coach of the Year learned that Scarpa not only took on the athletic Goliath and ran circles around it, Coach Brown wrote in a letter to her, “You changed the face of basketball.”
“GinaMarie is a spitfire,” Brown said.

“I’m from Indian country,” he says, describing his Minot, North Dakota childhood. It’s a town flanked by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation to the southwest and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas to the northeast.
Brown recalled his high school basketball days, playing among or against Native teens, “They were a dominant force on the court.”

The fast-talking, quick-witted then 85-year-old has a deep understanding of the history and recited some of the reasons why the NABI tournament is important to Indigenous teens.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the most neglected group,” he said referring to Native Americans more generally.

“We have a perfect record of shame,” Brown said.

The gold standard

NABI no longer maintains its NCAA certification. A remarkable achievement at the time, it became a costly administrative challenge. Instead, Scarpa made the strategic decision several years ago to invest in live-streaming NABI games. Broadcasted games negated the need for NABI to monitor the complicated interactions between college scouts, coaches, and high school prospects. The move came full circle this year when, as noted above, Jaci Gonnie was seen on a televised broadcast and recruited to play at Rome City Institute.

There are other post-season high school basketball tournaments out there. NABI, however, is the gold standard of Indian Country. It’s the largest all-Native/Indigenous invitational in the world. Each year, the previous year’s championship bracket teams are accepted automatically. When registration opened for this year’s tournament, 225 teams applied.

Lynette Lewis said, “We’ve grown to host approximately 2,000 youth from more than 180 communities throughout the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Samoa.”

As small as the sporting event may seem, the $3.1M economic impact on the city of Phoenix during seven 110-degree summer days and nights is worth noting. At great expense and sacrifice of time, mothers and fathers of players take days off from work and travel considerable distances to see their student-athletes play. Many teams and families drive. In some cases, that’s meant a cross-country trek. Siblings, grandparents, and other extended family are often in tow producing an additional 7,000 visitors in a city that otherwise experiences a mass exodus to cooler climes among its residents.

NABI teams, their families, and Rez ball aficionados stay with relatives, in hotels, and Airbnbs; they eat out, shop, sightsee; and capitalize on their visit to the big city.

The Arizona Diamondbacks this year will sponsor more than 2,000 NABI athletes to attend a game at Chase Field. Last year, NABI sponsored Phoenix Mercury Native American night at Footprint Center, and NABI teams received tickets to watch the Mercury take out the Chicago Sun (80-60). Between tournament attendees and other WNBA fans, the Footprint Center saw 11,300 people stream through its doors that night.

A New Zealand team calling themselves the Aotearoa Māori traveled nearly 6,000 miles with nine players and two coaches to play last year. Aotearoa Māori is the Indigenous name for the island country and the Māori People are its Indigenous population. Different tribes represented among the travel team, the Māori boys team did the haka on opening night at the Footprint Center’s Pavilion and before each of their games. In sports, the haka is a ceremonial challenge dance and meaning-filled chant that announces strength and physical prowess. Other far-flung teams included those from Florida, Alaska, and New York.

To be eligible to play in the Native American Basketball Invitational, with emphasis on the word “native,” each player must verify his or her tribal affiliation with the presentation of a Certificate of Indian Blood or a tribal enrollment card. It should be noted that each tribe treats enrollment differently and blood quantum does not necessarily mean a person of Native ancestry is enrolled in a tribe. Enrollment is an intricate web of eligibility factors that differ from one tribe to the next.

Read Part II in the July 25, edition of the Navajo Times.

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