The annual BC Junior All Native Basketball Tournament has developed into a major showcase for young First Nations athletes, but if you’re hoping to attract the attention of college scouts, playing for a big-city high school is still the best option.
Heiltsuk Nation coach Gordon Gladstone, who also coaches the single-A Bella Bella Community School high school squad, said the recruiters are hard to miss when they show up at tournaments.
“You might see 10 guys in suits. That’s at the high school tournaments. I’ve never seen them at First Nations tournaments,” Gladstone said.
Tournament Photos at: http://www.hashilthsa.com/photos
For that reason, many players and their families living in remote communities make the difficult choice to pack up and move to a large urban centre to play at the AAA level. Helitsuk Nation well illustrates the two-way traffic in athletes from First Nations communities.
On Thursday morning at Athletic Hall, Nation powered their way to an 80-54 win over Ahousaht Wolfpack, one of the tournament favourites. Playing a major role in the victory were Graylon Martin, Howard Duncan and the Gladstone brothers, Jordan, 13, and Gary, 14.
“If we had Graylon on our high school team, we’d win the provincial championships,” coach Gladstone said.
But last fall, Martin and his mother moved to Victoria so he could play AAA basketball with maximum exposure to the recruiters. Martin said he didn’t specifically select Mt. Douglas High School, but it proved to be a lucky choice.
“I moved to Victoria with my mom and I stumbled onto Mt. Doug. I didn’t even know it was a big basketball school,” Martin said. “I live a little way from the school, but I make the commute every morning.”
Martin said his mother is well-employed and the two are not living a precarious big-city existence. Most importantly, he is keeping up his grade levels, because scholarship students are expected to succeed academically.
“But it sure is different, especially coming from such a small town. It’s culture shock for sure,” Martin said. “Where I’m from, there are barely any opportunities for basketball. I want to be able to take it as far as I can take it.”
Martin said the coaching and the play at the AAA level is much more structured and intense than he experienced in his home community. And he has brought some of that game back to his Nation teammates.
“I haven’t played with these guys all year, and we’re getting more chemistry as we go along. Each game, we get a little better,” he said.
“We’ve been coaching these boys for six, almost seven months, including the high school season–except for Graylon. He brings that discipline from AAA ball to the dressing room and our guys feed on it,” coach Gladstone said.
Howie Duncan said he has seen the big city and he chose to come home to Bella Bella.
“I lived with my mom in Vancouver for two years, but in my case, it was just family circumstances,” Duncan said.
While in Vancouver, Duncan played at AAA Britannia Secondary and with the VanCity First Nations team out of the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. Duncan said he learned quickly that the old East End high school has a tremendous sports tradition, but it wasn’t enough to keep him in Vancouver, even when he was moved up to the senior team while he was still in Grade 10.
“In basketball, they went to the provincials five years in a row, but when it was my year, they just missed,” he said, adding that the VanCity game was much different.
“High school basketball, especially at that level, is so structured, but in [First Nations ball], it’s run-and-gun all the way. I love it,” he said. “My mom is a hard worker and I admire her, but I just wanted to come back. I’m living with my girlfriend’s family while I finish high school.”
While most of the athletes learned their ball in their home communities, the process was reversed for Justin Derickson, who helped power his Sylix boys team to a convincing 59-49 win over the Friendship House Beavers of Prince Rupert on Thursday afternoon.
For the 16-year-old member of West Bank First Nation, this is his first experience at a First Nations tournament.
“My dad, Chris, was attending UBC Okanagan when he was accepted to UBC law school four years ago, when I was 12,” Derickson said.
The family moved into housing on the UBC campus in Vancouver, and Derickson moved up to Kitsilano Secondary, which also happens to be a AAA basketball powerhouse. But basketball wasn’t even his game, he said.
“In West Bank, I played football and soccer. I never played basketball until I moved to Kits,” Derickson said. “In Grade 8, I never even considered basketball, but I missed the tryouts for soccer, so I gave it a shot.”
After a shaky start, Derickson found his game, and his Kits junior squad has won the city title two years in a row. This year, they placed sixth in the provincials. Now, Derickson said, he has won the honour of donning the blue and yellow uniform of Sylix.
“When you are representing a school, it’s different,” Derickson said. “When you put on this uniform, you’re representing a whole nation–all the families, all the supporters.”
But despite his successful high school basketball career so far, Dericskon said he plans to focus on the fine arts, not sports, when he makes the jump to university.
Some First Nations players, like Darian Van Der Merwe of the host Homiss Wolves, have never lived in their home community. Van Der Merwe, who is currently in Grade 11, plays for AAA Spectrum in Victoria.
“I had my first chance to play at a native tournament in Grade 9 when I went to a U-15 tournament in Nanaimo with Hesquiaht. We won that one,” Van Der Merwe said.
The run-and-gun style of First Nations ball is more fun than the more structured high school game, he said, and he likes to keep a foot on both courts while he pursues a college scholarship.
For Heiltsuk Nation manager Charles Gladstone, father of Jordan and Gary, developing his sons’ athletic and academic careers has become a priority, and he and his wife Angeline have come to a tough decision.
“We’re going to be moving in the next year or so–to Vancouver,” Charles said. “We’ll do one more year of Bella Bella ball for provincials.”
Partly, it’s a career move for Angeline, who is an accountant, but mainly, it’s for basketball, Charles said.
“Their goal is to win college scholarships. Both boys work hard on their grades,” he said. “Jordan almost skipped a year to go directly into Grade 8 last fall, after he underwent an assessment.”
Their uncle Gordon admits he is hoping his brother holds off on moving the family to the city.
“If he could give us two years, we could win the provincial championship,” he said.
