Heather Lende
Bottling up that Gold Medal feeling
|
I listened to the Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal Basketball Tournament all week in Haines on a fuzzy radio signal from the capital. The Haines mens' team came up through the loser's bracket, winning close game after close game.
While they did everything right, closer to home, youngsters seemed to be doing everything wrong. A pack of teenage boys shot out more than a dozen car and store windows in the biggest vandalism rampage in our town's history. The school paper devoted much of it's recent issue to rising drug use among students. At a parent's meeting at the high school, I learned that in some classes one-third of the students are failing.
I'm raising five children here, and need some positive role models. Which is why I decided to fly to Juneau for the Gold Medal championship game, bringing my oldest daughter with me. The Haines Merchants (named for their multiple business sponsors) are former Haines High players, all in their 20s. Most of them flew in for the tournament from college or jobs in the Lower 48.
I am not a basketball aficionado. I can't tell the difference between a guard and a forward, and am never sure when a push becomes a foul. I go to high school games more for the socializing than the competition. But I do know all the Haines players and their families. Turns out I'm the perfect Gold Medal fan. The tournament is as much about relationships as it is about basketball.
When we got there the gym was so full that the fire marshal was at the door, ready to close the gate behind us. The ground floor was crowded with Alaska Native elders in walkers and wheel chairs, children ran around the lobby and babies were passed down the bleachers from young mothers to old aunties. Everyone, it seemed, knew each other. The cheerleaders were Tlingit men, who waved flags rhythmically, chanting like Indian dancers. Three - quarters of the gym was full of fans rooting for the opposing team, from the town of Hoonah, Alaska, all dressed in red. It looked like the entire village made the pilgrimage to Juneau.
Hoonah took an early lead, 32 to 16. But Haines came back by half - time, and with just minutes left, it was a tw o- point game. The big Hoonah forward shoved Haines' red haired star, Jesse McGraw. The lady ref blasted her whistle, calling the foul. The little old Tlingit woman next to me said "real physical" and looked straight ahead. Her heart - shaped gold nugget earrings bobbed when she spoke. It was the first thing she'd said all night, even though we were wedged together at the hip.
Behind us three more elders listened to the NCAA mens semi-finals on Walkmans. We were, after all, in the Juneau Douglas High School Gym. Hanging high above us on the wall, in a big plexiglass frame, was Duke University starter Carlos Boozer's retired Juneau Douglas #4 Crimson Bear jersey.
I stood up to cheer, and the man wearing a hat that said "Not Only Am I Perfect, I'm Tlingit Too" asked me not to block his view. I apologized and he said he was pulling for Haines also, but couldn't show it. "My cousin, from Hoonah, will see and get mad." But everyone was on their feet when Haines won their third consecutive Gold Medal title. Even the disappointed Hoonah fans had to admit it was a great game. Besides, they know the Haines team almost as well as their own.
The players at Gold Medal have been have been competing against each other since junior high. Many are on the same teams their fathers were. The Gold Medal Hall of Fame reads like a Who's Who of southeast Alaska.
Like State Representative Albert Kookesh. Who, with a dozen or so other Hall of Famers, shook hands with the winners and presented the trophies.
Albert was raised in the Admiralty Island village of Angoon and still lives there. Besides being a lawyer, owning a lodge and representing the region in the legislature, he plays on the Angoon Oldtimers. Albert credits basketball with much of his success. "I have no question that if you are going to succeed in basketball, you are going to succeed in life."
It's true for our team. The two Haines all tourney players, Andrew Friske and Stuart DeWitt, both went to college. Andrew graduated with a teaching certificate. Stuart has one more semester to go before completing a degree in geology. They both are fishermen and guides here in the summer.
Jesse McGraw, the red - haired forward, hasn't had much outward success since high school. However, the strength, grace and confidence gained on the basketball court helped him get through the toughest night of his life, emerging a reluctant hero. He survived the sinking of a fishing boat and kept two of his fellow crew members alive by holding onto them in frigid water and 50-foot seas for three hours until the Coast Guard arrived.
For 55 years the Gold Medal Tournament has been about more than the universal lessons of sport and life any fan can recognize. Community leaders credit it with lowering the suicide rate of young men, teaching respect for Alaska's native peoples and building relationships between natives and non-natives. This year a Romanian and an African-American were given Tlingit names and adopted by the community whose team they played on, the Tenakee Tribe.
Albert Kookesh says the tournament, that now includes a womens' division, has gone a step beyond race. Basketball teams are a source of community pride. "I wish we could bottle up the feeling at Gold Medal" he says "and open up it up throughout the year."