One of the first books the University of Montana Lady Griz basketball coach ever read was about Crazy Horse. Most recently, his bedside table held “Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School, Basketball Champions of the World.”
This connection with Montana Indian history and a promise to grow a collegiate basketball program using the sweat and dedication of local athletes are what steered Selvig to Montana's seven Indian reservations to recruit eight women to play for the Lady Griz in the past 16 years. There was no epiphany. No plan, even. Just a search for the state of Montana's most talented women athletes.
“They are good basketball players and good people,” he said. “It wasn't a special thing I've tried to do.”
Selvig, who recently captured his 700th career win, now ranks seventh nationally among all-time active Division I women's basketball coaches for most wins. On Friday, he will be joined by 15 Indian all-star athletes and coaches from across Montana who will also be inducted into the Native American Athletics Hall of Fame.
Among them is Salish Kootenai College President Joe McDonald, an accomplished coach and former athlete. McDonald played collegiate football, basketball and baseball at Western Montana College in Dillon. He was one of the few Indian educators to teach and coach off the reservation, beginning his career at a high school in Plevna, a town near the North Dakota boarder, and working his way up to head basketball coach at Northern Montana College in Havre.
“I'm finding that this Joe McDonald must have been a pretty fine coach on top of everything else,” said Don Wetzel Sr., hall of fame founder. “The guy did it at all levels. Now look at him. What he's building down there at Pablo is phenomenal. He popped in (the list of inductees) pretty fast.”
The hall of fame is still in its infancy. Last year's inaugural induction honored seven Indian athletes and coaches. The hall has no physical location, but Wetzel, a former University of Montana basketball player and enrolled Blackfeet tribal member, has big plans for its future, envisioning a museum and a book showcasing Montana's top Native athletes.
The goal, he said, is to “bring some life back to our reservations.”
This year, Wetzel and an eight-member selection committee - a representative from each of Montana's seven reservations and the landless Little Shell Tribe - sifted through 63 nominations. Wetzel added new categories as well, including rodeo, and inducted the entire 1967 St. Labre Indian Catholic Braves men's championship basketball team.
“They've stuck together” more than four decades later, Wetzel said. “They communicate with each other on a daily basis. They meet and have gatherings. I think that's what a state championship is all about.”
Last year, seven athletes were inducted into the hall of fame, including Malia Kipp-Camel, the first and only female inductee so far. She was Selvig's first on-reservation Lady Griz recruit.
At Lady Griz summer basketball camps Kipp-Camel became acquainted with the UM coaching staff. That, however, didn't lessen the surprise in 1992 when she learned Selvig had traveled to the Blackfeet Reservation to watch the Browning Lady Indians take on Havre's Blue Ponies.
“I didn't know he was there,” said Kipp-Camel, now the assistant women's basketball coach at Salish Kootenai College. Neither her high school coach at the time nor her parents told her prior to tip-off.
It wasn't Kipp-Camel's best performance, but she did sink two free throws at the end to win the game.
At 17, she couldn't begin to understand the significance of an Indian woman playing Division I basketball. Back then, only a handful of Indian female athletes had made it to that level.
For Selvig, it was just like any other scouting trip.
“We were looking for the best players in the state and Browning had a good team,” he recalls.
Though Selvig pegs his recruitment of Indian athletes as unintentional, he also believes strongly in providing opportunities for all Montana athletes.
Not so long ago, Indian women weren't given the same opportunity to play Division I basketball as were non-Indian athletes, he said.
“For whatever reason, I felt an obligation to give them an opportunity and a good look,” he said. “It comes from my interest in this state and fascination with Montana history.”
Selvig came to realize that giving an opportunity to one Indian athlete gives hope to dozens of other young people. Bus loads of Browning students would come to Lady Griz games to watch Kipp-Camel play.
“I found out what a positive influence it can have on a community,” he said. “It tells the little girl back on Rocky Boy that it's a possibility. I could do that.”
Reporter Chelsi Moy can be reached at 523-5260 or at chelsi.moy@missoulian.com
Hall roster
2008 Montana Native American Athletics Hall of Fame inductees:
- Robin Selvig
- Joe McDonald
- Martin “Bud” Connelly
- Samson Bird
- Sam Bird Jr.
- Jess Labuff
- Alpheus Bighorn
- Leonard Bighorn
- Ernie Bighorn
- Bill Brown
- Willie Weeks
- Bill Smith
- Luke Spotted Bear
- Rodney Plenty Hawk
- Tim Henry
- Elvis Old Bull
- St. Labre Indian Catholic School Braves, 1967 championship men's basketball team
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Tony Incashola wrote on Apr 6, 2009 9:40 AM:
inductees. Also more publicity in local news papers. "