Team Kansas Successful at 2006 Indigenous Games

by Gary E. Mitchell

Over 130 Indians from Kansas, which included approximately 40 members from the Prairie Band Nation, formed Team Kansas and participated in the 2006 Indigenous Games in Denver, CO, on July 2-7, 2006. Sports events included adult and teenage categories in basketball, softball, wrestling, volleyball, boxing and golf. Overall, 16 sports were available in which to participate.

The sports events were held at athletic fields in Denver and suburbs such as Aurora, Parker, Littleton and the city of Colorado Springs. The variety of geographical locations was confusing until the participants became familiar with the area.

Funding was provided by the Indian Nations of the Potawatomi, Sac and Fox and Kickapoo. In addition, many of the team members had fundraisers of their own to help defray expenses, but many came up short before the week ended. Since this was a first-time experience for most of the participants, they will have an idea of the costs for the next event in two years and can plan accordingly. Regardless of costs, however, the experience was priceless.

The opening ceremonies were held at Ivesco Field or Mile High Stadium, home of the Denver Broncos. The opening parade on Sunday included tribal elders, tribal leaders and military veterans leading in the athletes, estimated to be in the thousands. The parade lasted over two hours, which included a three-hour wait prior to the actual parade. Tribal Leaders such as Tex Hall, who led in the North Dakota delegation and Joe Shirley, Jr., who led in Team Arizona, were active participants. Many of the elders wore their tribal shirts and dress, some even had full-headdress. Maynard Potts, 90, of the Potawatomi, originally chosen to lead in the Kansas delegation had last minute health complications, which prevented his participation. The parade was an impressive event. Most of the teams had matching walking suits with their names on the back. Indian pride was evident throughout the long parade and was a joy to witness.

Teams carried the name of their state instead of tribal designations. For example, Team Kansas had members from the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Sac and Fox and many assorted tribes whose members live in Lawrence and Topeka. The sporting venture was the first time for Kansas tribes to participate in the games. Steve McDonald, who served as Team Kansas’ contingent golf coach and the commissioner of golf for the games said of the games: "I would like to thank all the athletes, coaches, chaperons, parents, grand-parents and sponsors who participated in the Games for their dedication and effort, but most of all would like to applaud, recognize, salute and especially thank Raphael Wahwassuck for his hard work, determination, hours of effort, tireless dedication and inspiration to the youth of our communities and the overall success of Team Kansas at the 2006 North American Indigenous Games.

"Also, I would like to recognize and thank our honorary athlete Maynard Potts and honorary coach Jerry Tuckwin—m'gwitch! From an organizational standpoint, we undertook this task with little time to prepare (as did the Colorado Indigenous Games Society) and did the best we could do with the limited resources we had to work with. We assembled the best coaches we could, who then assembled the best athletes they could, and we all worked together with a short-sided budget. It's a challenging task given the fact that all of the organizers (coaches, chaperones, and chefs) have full time jobs, plus the fact that this was our first effort as Team Kansas, and we didn't have any experience or a track record to fall back on. It was difficult to 100 percent organize, especially not knowing if we were going to have enough money to go to the Games right up until the very last minute; we did not receive a check from the PB Potawatomi until June 26th. The Games started on July 2nd.

We did the best we could and for the right reasons...our youth. It's our hope that we laid a solid foundation for the future of Team Kansas and that our youth and adult athletes will be the benefactors of our efforts in years to come. The next NAIG are scheduled for 2008 in British Columbia! From a personal standpoint, it was an awesome experience that helped me grow as a human being as I experienced highs and lows throughout the entire process. Besides watching the wide eyed expressions on our young athletes’ faces and seeing our athletes compete, my greatest joy was during opening ceremonies when the Team Kansas delegation marched into Mile High Stadium during the parade of athletes and the rain briefly stopped for a moment and paid its respects to our athletes and team!"

The games started on Monday at 8:00 a.m. Team Kansas (Boys 15-16), which included local boys, Nyeh Waskeh LittleAxe, Evan Evans, Jaimie Farias, and Pam Johnson , lost to Team Wisconsin 41-36, but recovered to win three games in the tournament. Unfortunately, the team didn’t qualify for the play-offs.

Team Kansas (Women’s team), which included local girls, Tara Mitchell , Ramona Nozhackum, Tarissa Danielson, and Melissa Haag, won their first game 60-30 over Team Iowa. Mitchell and Nozhackum play for the Royal Valley High School basketball team. Mitchell, All-League first team in the 2005-6 school year, averaged close to 10 points a game during the tournament, and Nozhackum helped the team with shooting and ball-handling. The games were a good learning experience for this young group and will serve them well in the future.

Danielson and Haag will join Team Kansas teammates, Amber Tecumseh; Margaret & Maria Stevens; and Honey Roundface at Haskell this fall. These last four players mentioned added stability, and experience besides speed, rebounding and scoring to Team Kansas.

The Women’s team went on to win four games over Team Iowa, two versus Team North Dakota, and Team New York. The Women’s team sustained three losses including a loss in the championship game 56-50 to Team New Mexico. They had lost earlier in the pool competition to the same team but by a score of 54-53.

Teams in this field included Team Iowa, Team Arizona, Team North Dakota, Team New York, and Team New Mexico. Some of these players had college experience, and one player from Team Arizona played for awhile on the woman’s basketball pro circuit. Their skill and experience showed throughout this tournament. Several of these women have made all-tournament in nationwide competition.

Besides gaining valuable experience, Team Kansas Women won silver medals for their effort—an outstanding accomplishment considering they were not listed as pre-tournament favorites.

Team Kansas Men were one of the early favorites and won their first game 103-93 over Team South Dakota. The Men’s Team went on to win five more games beating a tough Canadian team to get into the Championship game. In the game against Team Washington, a heavy favorite led by Oklahoman Gary Parker, Team Kansas was not as prepared and had to settle for second place, but winning silver medals in the process. The silver medal represented another outstanding accomplishment considering the competition.

The Denver Post had an interesting article about the game, lacrosse. The article states how the game has been with and by Indians for generations and is the sport that most accurately reflects the heritage of the indigenous people: “Lacrosse was used by American Indians long ago to get the men of the tribe ready for war. They would play on huge swaths of land, sometimes with goals that were miles apart, to condition for battle. Games could feature hundreds of players at a time, with trees or rocks marked for the goals and deerskin used for the ball. In those long ago days, Indians also might use lacrosse to settle disputes between tribes in matches that could last for days.”

“In our belief system, our people played before there was even a world here,” New York coach Vince Schiffert said, “It was played by the people in the sky world, the people that created our Earth. That was one of the things that the people from sky world sent down here. It is a sacred game. It is also a medicinal game to help people help people. It is to help communities, to help them stay in a good frame of mind.” Although Team Kansas did not participate in lacrosse, the Indian ballgame also is still part of the Potawatomi and Kickapoo way of life and this article represents an interesting example of what other tribes believe.

Back to the actual competition for Team Kansas: William Evans has lived on the reservation all his life and has played sports most of his life, starting with baseball, and football, but decided to concentrate on wrestling for the Indigenous Games. Sometimes confusion occurs in a competition of this magnitude, where there were over 7,000 athletes, and this happened to the wrestling competition where it was common to wait up to 11 hours between matches. But the wait paid off for William Evans, who won a gold medal in the 17-19 Men’s Jr. Heavy-weight Division.

During his matches, he defeated Shane Silentnoon of New Mexico, Joe Rickard of New York, and James Ford of British Columbia. William will be a senior at Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah, OK. His coach for the games was Jason Ogden.

William Evans’ gold medal was one of five won by Team Kansas, as reported in the Topeka Capital Journal, June 9th edition. The others were Justice Valdivia in the boy’s 13-14 golf event, Jaco Sanchez in the boy’s discus, Kyle Johnson won the 17-19 130-pound wrestling title, and the girls 17-19 won the girl’s softball tournament with a 6-0 record.

Other medal winners were for third place or bronze medals: Joe Sam Ross of the Kickapoo Tribe took a bronze medal for adult heavy-weight boxing. Many fans from Kansas watched Ross lose on a technicality, but before that he had the match under control. He was disappointed in the result but said he will win next time.

Emily McDonald also won a bronze medal for girl’s 17-19 golf. Emily is the daughter of Steve McDonald and has had a successful golf career at Topeka High School and will attend Arkansas State University on a golf scholarship in the fall.

The women’s adult softball team, coached by Don Don LeClere, won bronze medals. Team members included Josie Pahmahmie, Virginia and Dawn LeClere, Nichole McDonald, Allison Catron, Olivia Pewamo, and Adele Thomas.

The adult women’s volleyball team also won bronze medals. They were coached by Carla Feathers and included mostly players from Haskell Indian University in Lawrence, Kansas.

Although the competition was tough, the entire effort from Team Kansas showed the Indian world that there are top Indian athletes in Kansas, too.