That "Indian" Basketball

Funny where predjudice and discrimination pops up.

I helped coach a kids basketball team and had even coached my daughter’s team. During try-outs some kids were cut, this is basketball and it happens, nothing personal or so you would think. Most of the kids were upset with it but were on to other things, life goes on. But it was one parent that went way overboard with her kid being cut.

You'd of thought she was from the Middle East and we just made a disparaging comment about the prophet Mohammed. This mother pulled out the proverbial knives and started slashing with them ignoring the fact that daughter never had the skills or attitude to make the team.

It's funny but she acted more immature than even the girls who were cut- and she's almost three times their age. Up to then I used to see her volunteering at the high school- a lot. I thought she was just civic minded but after awhile she struck me as being part of the schools scene, both in and out of the school, and more another one of the kids at school.

"Grow thick skin," was the advice I got about this situation. It's simple but good advice actually and it would have been relevant if mommy-dearest's comments were restricted to basketball but they weren't; she crossed the line by getting racial. She's non First Nation's while the head coach and I are First Nation's. Why should that matter? It's doesn't play a factor in anything. We were the only two guys who cared enough to coach this team.

She didn't just say things about the other coach and I being First Nations , she also had disparraging remarks to make about First Nations kids on the team. Worse still, her daughters also made disparraging remarks about the First Nations players. "They only want Indians on that team," was one comment. There were only two First Nations players on the team so this doesn't exactly constitute a blockade. I had to wonder how many First Nations kids were discouraged of trying out for a team in the past because of something like this.

"They're teaching them to play that Indian basketball," was another remark. Indian basketball. This is Indian basketball: it's played on a wooden floor with a rubber orb called a basketaball; two team play against each other; when one team has possession of the ball they try to put it in the other teams net, the other team trys to stop them and vice-versa; the game is played in quarters or halves with a half time; at the end of the game the team with the highest score wins. Who'd want their kid to learn the game this way?

This was a classic example of an over-zealous sports parent, every coach's worst nightmare. But this was a racist over-zealous sports parent-- a pathological nightmare. Eventually she ran out of steam (causes with no substance or basis tend to do this) but the damage was done. We'll never hear an "I'm sorry" from her and if we did it would be stilted and void of sincerity.

I doubt she'd have been as hard on a non First Nations coach. She would have still caused grief but the kind of grief a coach is used to dealing with. It was the racial stuff that was outside of what a coach, or anyone else for that matter, should be subjected to and expected to deal with. In short, she was out of line.

I learned a few things as a result of this experience. One, we've got a long way to go where racial tolerance is concerned. I have to be fair here, the vast majority of non First Nation's people I have had dealings with in the kids basketball world are good folks who don't have a racist bone in their bodies. Also, I learned that it's hard for non First Nation's peoples to see and interpret the world through our eyes and experiences. They don't know and can't understand racial intolerance. Had this been the case we would have had more recourse than being told to grow thick skin. Had I and the other coach been women for instance and were verbally abused by this parent, there would have been swift recourse. But we weren't. Should it have mattered?

Most importantly I learned I love this game. I'm not involved in coaching anymore but I'm still around the game and will always support it. I have a better appreciation for what coaches go through too. I understand why some coaches won't have anything to do with parents other than with matters of discipline or injury. I imagine this kind of distance stems from incidents similar to mine.

The overzealous mother? I don't know. Maybe a life-altering event will change her but I doubt it. It shouldn't take that to begin with.