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Ernie Stevens Jr., chairman of National Indian Gaming Association, is photographed with Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O'Neal during a post-game autograph session.Photo courtesy of National Indian Gaming Association

In Suns-Heat Game, Arizona Natives Star

By Andi Murphy

The Miami Heat won last Friday's NBA game on the Phoenix Suns' home court, but the Arizona Natives stole the show at halftime as the Suns recognized Native American Heritage Night.

"The Phoenix Suns were the first to do this," said GinaMarie Scarpa, Native American Basketball Invitational (NABI) co-founder.

NABI is the largest basketball invitational tournament in the U.S. and hosts as many as 80 teams, said Scarpa. NABI along with Nike, the Phoenix Suns and others sponsored Native American Heritage Night on Nov. 28. Mark West, former NBA player, works with young Native athletes in these tournaments and is also a NABI co-founder. "It's a part of the mission of NABI," Scarpa said.

Discounted tickets, basketballs and T-shirts were available for Natives from 22 of Arizona's tribes — and 250 members of them attended Friday's game. Kenneth Poocha, executive director of the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs, was on the Suns' court at halftime to be recognized on national ESPN television. So was Ernie Stevens Jr., chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association.

"They (the sponsors) want to do it next year," Scarpa said.

Event focused on teaching traditions to the young

The young people are the main focus of NABI and one of the prized audiences for the halftime representation, said Scarpa. They are the future and the individuals who will carry on their heritage. Getting Native American heritage out there for thousands to see was the whole point of Native American Heritage Night at the Suns game.

The T-shirts that Native fans received, among other giveaways, were designed by Karl Jim, owner and designer of 21 Native, a small-business design company. It took him a solid day's work to blend in some symbol or feeling of Arizona's 22 different tribes, which don't share a common aesthetic or culture.

"I just kind of wanted everybody to realize that the Native American spirit is well and it's alive," Jim said.

Message delivered in clothing, card, caring

The crowd in one section of the U.S. Airways Center donning the T-shirts made a very symbolic message. The design, in bold colors and shapes, represents the Native American lifestyle's clash with the modern United States. It symbolizes how Native Americans have adapted to a new life and continued to live in peace and harmony — though history may have been violent when North America was changing for the Natives. Cards describing the design accompanied the shirts given to fans.

"They (the youth) can learn something from it and keep going," Jim said.

The peaceful, well-balanced lifestyle represented on the T-shirts was also there to teach or remind youngsters and non-Natives about the heritage, said Jim. "We want to make an impact with our Native American youth," Jim said.

Murphy reported from Las Cruces, N.M.

Andi Murphy, Navajo, is a student at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. A graduate of the Freedom Forum's 2007 American Indian Journalism Institute, Murphy interned as a reporter at The Daily Times in Farmington, N.M., and, last summer, at the Great Falls Tribune in Montana.