FrFan Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Native American athletes face imposing hurdles By Greg Boeck, USA TODAY TUBA CITY, Ariz. — Ryne Hemstreet's gold medal is displayed in the trophy case in his family's living room in this Navajo town of 8,225 near the northern Arizona border. The aspiring 17-year-old baseball player, named after former Chicago Cubs great Ryne Sandberg, won it in Denver as a shortstop and pitcher for Arizona's 16-and-under Native American team in July's North American Indigenous Games, an Olympic-style event that attracted 7,200 athletes from the USA and Canada. Hemstreet wants more. That's why, after his upcoming junior season at Greyhills Academy, a local tribal grant school where he carries a 3.7 grade-point average and ranks seventh in his class of 124, he will move to Phoenix. He'll live there with his older brother and play his senior year at a higher-profile high school in hope of attracting college scholarship offers. He's aware of the long odds he and other Native American athletes face, even those who leave their reservation to improve their chances of being recruited. Compared with white Hispanics and black non-Hispanics, Native American athletes among the country's 562 federally recognized tribes — 341 in the lower 48 states — are more under-represented on NCAA teams. As a Native American, nobody takes you too seriously that you can play at that level," Hemstreet says. "It's my job to go out and get noticed." For most Native Americans, that concept — standing out individually — is at odds with their culture, which promotes the principle of functioning as a group. That, says Ron Trosper, a Harvard-educated member of the Flathead tribe in Montana who is associate professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, hinders the advancement of Native American athletes, starting at the college level, where individual achievement is rewarded... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Harris Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 if a native american athlete performs at a level higher than his counterparts, i'm pretty sure he'll get his chance. maybe exposure is an issue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfitzo53 Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 if a native american athlete performs at a level higher than his counterparts, i'm pretty sure he'll get his chance. maybe exposure is an issue... I'm not so sure. Reservations can be pretty isolated - when I was in Arizona one of the Navajo I met said they don't have phone service because the telephone company didn't consider it worth the time or money to lay the lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Harris Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I'm not so sure. Reservations can be pretty isolated - when I was in Arizona one of the Navajo I met said they don't have phone service because the telephone company didn't consider it worth the time or money to lay the lines. maybe exposure is an issue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfitzo53 Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Yeah I read that Major. I was responding more to the first part where you were "pretty sure" that an athlete performing at a higher level would get his or her chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Harris Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Yeah I read that Major. I was responding more to the first part where you were "pretty sure" that an athlete performing at a higher level would get his or her chance. i was speaking more to the insinuation that scouts and talent evaluators wouldn't take him seriously because he is native american. sorry, i wasn't very clear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfitzo53 Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 i was speaking more to the insinuation that scouts and talent evaluators wouldn't take him seriously because he is native american. sorry, i wasn't very clear. No worries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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