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Jermaine Chee, a Haskell Indian Nations basketball player, competed against Northern Arizona University in December during a rare game in which a tribal college basketball team played a Division I school.

Chee wants to continue his hoops career when he graduates from Haskell, preferably scoring points for Arizona State University in Tempe.

“Hopefully, I make the team,” said the hoopster from Pinon, Ariz.

The opportunities for Natives to play for a Division I school, however, are almost as rare as the chance to play against one. Only 51 Native male and female athletes made top-tier college basketball teams in 2004-05, compared with 3,709 white players and 4,968 blacks, according to an NCAA race and ethnicity report.

But Native American Basketball Invitational co-founders aim to change those figures by bringing NCAA recruiters to the fifth annual NABI high school basketball tournament. This year's tournament is July 8-14 in Phoenix. The NABI office will begin accepting registration applications on Jan. 2.

“The NCAA certification would blow the glass ceiling off rez ball,” said Gina Marie Mabry, director and co-founder of NABI. “The kids are going to be getting exposure to Division I and II scouts and coaches. There's no excuse now. We have all this talent.”

If the NCAA grants certification, it will make the Phoenix games the first all-Native American tournament with such status. The barrier so far has been an NCAA demographic rule that says teams competing in any summer NCAA event must be from the state in which they compete. Also, the NCAA currently doesn't allow more than three players on a team from another state.

“That rule alone was hindering our ability to ever become an NCAA tournament,” Mabry said.

The NCAA is working with NABI to change the rules before the July tournament.

The tournament will enable students to compete for athletic scholarships. In the past two years, the NABI Foundation has given out $25,000 to assist students in college. And 30 NABI players have been recruited and received scholarships to play basketball at schools throughout the United States.

“We are using basketball as a tool to encourage Native youth to pursue higher education,” said Mark West, a player program vice president for the Phoenix Suns and NABI co-founder. “Their exceptional talent and passion for the game makes them prime candidates for scholarship opportunities, but due to the demographics of most reservations, they do not always get to show off their talents to college recruiters.”

Each year, the tournament invites Native high school basketball players from across the United States to compete during nearly one week of scheduled games. The 2007 championship games will be at the US Airways Center on July 14. Sixty-four teams competed in 2006. Eighty teams will be competing in 2007.

“We need more players at the NCAA Division I,” said Chee, who played in his first NABI tournament at age 19. “It will be great to see all these Division I coaches going to NABI and looking at the Native American players.”

Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net.

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