Michael DOrso - Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska

Praise for Eagle Blue

"D'Orso ultimately weaves a mostly beautiful Arctic tapestry as he shadows the team from its first day of practice through all 28 regular and post-season games, offering a play-by-play not only on the Eagles' season but also on locally relevant political, social and community issues: Arctic drilling, alcoholism, generational conflicts and, certainly relevant to the Eagles, financial struggles."San Francisco Chronicle

"Riveting and thrilling."Portland Tribune

"D'Orso is brilliant in detailing their fight both on and off the court." Denver Post

"By the end... you'll be rooting for the team to advance to state, for the next shot to fall, for the ball to bounce right for Eagle Blue." Seattle Times

"D'Orso's chronicle of a season spent following a high-school basketball team in Fort Yukon, Alaska, prompts the realization that, in terms of hoops mania, the Alaskan bush could be the new Indiana."Booklist(Top Ten Sports Books of 2006)

"In a harsh place where rivers freeze routinely and daytime disappears for months on end, you expect wolverines and ancient spirits and caribou and permafrost, but what you don't expect are the high hopes Michael D'Orso documents in his gripping and memorable account of a group of native Alaskan kids who love basketball and who would neither take no for an answer nor accept obscurity as a fate."Madeleine Blais,author of the national bestsellerIn These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle

"Michael D'Orso paints a memorable portrait of each player and many of the townspeople. D'Orso also brings to life the team's coach, Dave Bridges... And without resorting to hackneyed language or playing on emotions, D'Orso demonstrates the truth of the sports cliche that you don't always have to win to be a winner. Eagle Blue is a compelling, well-told story by someone who sees beyond immediate events to the fundamental truths they illustrate."Virginian-Pilot

"A pleasure from start to finish."Arizona Republic

"Michael D'Orso... pens a powerful account of the 2004 basketball season in Alaska experienced by the Fort Yukon Eagles, a successful high school team of tribal youth that is the pride of the remote community."Statesman Journal(Salem, Oregon)

"With honesty and affection, D'Orso describes a season that lasts four months, covers 4,000 miles and ends at the state championship tournament. We won't tell you the outcome, but it doesn't matter. The Fort Yukon boys were winners from the start."Wichita Eagle

"A vivid, compassionate portrait of modern Native life combined with an edge-of-your-seat sports thriller. In Eagle Blue, Michael D'Orso delivers championship stuff."Daniel Coyle, author ofHardballandtheNew York TimesbestsellerLance Armstrong's War

"Eagle Blue is full of heroes and heart. Michael D'Orso tells the story of a basketball team that holds together a town, and the town that holds together a team. These are modern-day Arctic warriors fighting for far more than points on a scoreboard."Tom Bodett, author, radiocommentator, and longtime Alaskan

EAGLE BLUE

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Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the
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EAGLE BLUE

A TEAM, A TRIBE,
AND A HIGH SCHOOL
BASKETBALL SEASON
IN ARCTIC ALASKA

Michael D'Orso

BLOOMSBURY

Copyright 2006 by Michael D'Orso

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Lyrics from "Anthem of the American Indian," by Tom Bee, copyright 1973 by Jobete Music Co. Inc., reprinted by permission (the SOAR Corporation).
Excerpt from "Northwest Passage," 1942 TIME Inc., reprinted by permission.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers

All papers used by Bloomsbury USA are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

D'Orso, Michael.
Eagle blue : a team, a tribe, and a high school basketball season in Arctic Alaska / Michael D'Orso.1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN: 978-1-59691-772-9

1. Fort Yukon School (Fort Yukon, Alaska)BasketballHistory. 2. Fort Yukon Eagles (Basketball team)History. 3. BasketballAlaskaFort YukonHistory. 4. BasketballTournamentsAlaskaHistory. 5. Basketball playersAlaskaBiography. 6. Fort Yukon (Alaska )History. I. Title.

GV885.72. A4D67 2006
796.323'62097986 DC22
2005025430

First published in the United States by Bloomsbury in 2006
This paperback edition published in 2007

5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, Scotland
Printed in the United States of America by Quebecor World Fairfield

CONTENTS

FORT YUKON BOYS BASKETBALL TEAM

PEOPLE OF FORT YUKON

Adlai Alexander (Village Chief)

Dacho Alexander (Vocational Education instructor)

Dave Bridges (Boys basketball coach)

Diane Bridges (Dave's wife)

Cheryl Cadzow (Girls basketball coach)

Earl Cadzow (Cheryl's husband)

Clifton Cadzow (Josh's father)

Jay Cadzow (Earl's and Clifton's brother)

Mandy Cadzow (Girls basketball team star, Cheryl's daughter)

Jerry Carroll (Zach's and Derek's father)

Georgie Engler (School secretary, Chris's mother)

Willie Fields (Tim's father)

Delbert "Doc" Lantz (School principal)

Deb McCarty (Clinic director, Aaron Carroll's aunt)

Brian Rozell (Teacher)

Paul Shewfelt (Matt's uncle)

Jack Shewfelt (Matt's father)

Ryan Shewfelt (Matt's brother)

John Shewfelt (Matt's brother)

Gina Shewfelt (Matt's sister)

Anthony Shewfelt (Paul's son)

"Trader Dan" Teague (Storekeeper)

T HE BOY STANDS alone by the door of the cabin, in the radiant warmth of the bright Arctic sun. Strewn in the mud at his feet are the heads of a half-dozen mallards, their eyes gazing skyward, their scalps slick with blood, their necks hacked clean through.

He's been at it an hour now, at a small makeshift table, plucking and gutting and wielding his blade in the sharp April light. His cousins, the young ones, are heaving a ball at the hoop by the road. The backboard is battered, the rim bent and twisted. The torn netting flaps in the afternoon breeze.