Native American Players Looking for Recognition: Less than four months ago, Wayne Holmberg scored 21 points to help lift his team to a small-schools Alaska state basketball championship.
It was as good as it gets for Holmberg, who had spent most of the roller-coaster season practicing in a makeshift cafeteria gym after his small western Alaska village of Kalskag had a fire burn the entire school to the ground.
All that daily struggle was over. Holmberg was on top of the world as a state champion.
The 16-year-old’s borders were dramatically expanded this week during his first trip outside Alaska.
Holmberg is in Phoenix for the Native American Basketball Invitational (NABI), the only all Native American NCAA-affiliated basketball tournament in North America.
