Moved to words
The Wildcat Den in Chinle, Ariz., rivals many small college venues. It certainly doesn't fit the typical stereotype of American Indian reservation facilities.
Basketball creates promise and somewhere among the countless children there is the next Great Red Hope, kids playing on baskets made from milk crates, bicycle rims, rebar, rims purposely made so small the ball barely fits through. It is played in the snow, in the rain, in blowing dust so thick you can't see the basket.
It is played to pass the lonely hours, after the sheep have been herded and slaughtered, after the livestock has been fed, after the uranium-laced water has been hauled in from a well.
— Richard Obert, "Rez Ball"
Obert has been writing about high school sports for the Arizona Republic for almost three decades now. He writes with a different flair than most sports writers, digging deeper than numbers and recruiting rankings.
Personalities and the human condition appeal more to him than box scores. That's why the connection between basketball and the Navajo Nation resonated so deeply with him.
Richard Obert of the Arizona Republic has coveredprep sports for nearly 30 years in the state, butmostly around Phoenix. Something about Rez Ballgrabbed him, and he has authored a book about it.
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In 1999, he took a trip to White River to do a story on Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was doing a community project with Alchesay and eventually became an assistant coach for a season with the Falcons.
"This whole community embraced this giant," Obert said. "All these little guys under 6-foot being coached by this giant who had to duck under the hallways was amazing to see. He was like a God."
Though Abdul-Jabbar was the obvious hook and subject, Obert was drawn to the fervent fan base and love affair the locals had for the game.
"It just turned me on to watch the people pack the gyms," he said. "I felt an adrenaline rush for a story I had never experienced before."
He continued to do stories about Rez Ball over the years, but in 2008 he committed himself to write a book, and between his regular 60-hour week writing about preps throughout the state — centered largely on the Phoenix-area teams where he lives — he would regularly make a five-hour drive to Navajo and Apache counties.
"I spent a season around Holbrook and Winslow and that brought me up to Chinle and Window Rock," Obert said. "I got to spend a lot of time around some really good people."
He gained a great appreciation for the Navajo traditions, especially their most fundamental premise that Mother Earth and staying planted and rooted on reservation ground is the most sacred thing in life. Basketball, however, is a close second.
Battling those beliefs and ancestry, however, is the modern world.
"It's definitely a pull," Obert said. "Some of the elders try to battle the kids with their iPhones and satellite dishes. They want to teach them still where they came from. It's been like a forgotten land for people."
Not for Quincy Natay, the Assistant Superintendent for Business at Chinle Unified School District, who remembered fondly his upbringing and has given back abundantly.
