In Anchorage for a basketball tournament, rural Alaska students savor 'city life'

Dozens of Alaska teenage athletes from small, remote high schools converged on Anchorage this week to play in a basketball tournament over four days while also enjoying "city life," as some put it, including visits to shopping malls, movie theaters and chain restaurants — notably, Olive Garden.

"I think I speak for most of the team when I say we look forward to eating at Olive Garden," said Austin King, an 18-year-old senior from Bristol Bay Borough School District in the small community of Naknek in Southwestern Alaska. "Or eating anything other than our mothers' cooking."

King sat in the stands Wednesday evening at Begich Middle School in East Anchorage, awaiting his next game against the boys basketball team from the Unalaska City School District, which like Bristol Bay flew hundreds of miles to get to the four-day Rally the Regions Hardwood Classic. The tournament, which ended Friday, attracted eight boys teams and eight girls teams from as far north as Unalakleet and as far south as Metlakatla in Southeast.

While it's not unusual for high school basketball teams from Alaska's remote communities to board an airplane to get to a game, just like city kids board a school bus, what sets the Rally the Regions tournament apart was its focus on Class 2A high schools, which have enrollments ranging from 61 to 150 students.

The Alaska Fellowship of Christian Athletes, sponsored the tournament for the second year running and calls it "a village basketball tournament in Alaska's biggest village." Heath Day, the organization's state director, said it seemed that 2A schools didn't have a regular-season tournament of their own, and often couldn't play in the tournaments for larger schools or the really tiny ones.

"2A is kind of a niche in the middle that gets left out of larger tournaments, and then a lot of smaller tournaments," May said.

Day said that for the Alaska Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the tournament is about forming connections with Alaska communities and building relationships. Day said the nonprofit organization trains athletes and coaches in "life, leadership and faith," though the players in the tournament participate regardless of their religious affiliation, including having none.

In Anchorage, Day said, FCA connected the participating basketball teams with local churches, which served as the students' sleeping quarters as well as their "rally captains" — providing food and crowds in the stands.

A majority of the teams elected to stay at the churches, while a few slept in hotels or other locations, Day said.

Carter Price, an 18-year-old player from Unalaska in the Aleutians, said his team stayed at St. John Methodist Church in Anchorage because of school "budget cuts" and received homemade dinners and snacks.

He said what he liked most about the tournament was it allowed his team to face off against far-away teams like Petersburg that it typically wouldn't play unless both made it to the end-of-the-season state tournament.

Price, like many of the high school athletes this week, said he has played basketball for as long as he can remember. In their communities, basketball often reigns supreme — drawing large crowds to home games and, for their populations, a large number of students who want to play.

One coach this week likened high school basketball in Alaska to high school football in Texas.

"It's a basketball community," Price, a senior, said of Unalaska, the winner of last season's Class 2A state championship. "It kind of brings the whole community together."

Unalakleet boys basketball coach Steve Ivanoff said the sport has a "long tradition" in the Norton Sound community. The school brought eight girls and eight boys to Anchorage — the typical number for away games. The teams usually fly and use a district-owned plane, Ivanoff said.

"So much of our life is spent on an airplane because we're so isolated," Ivanoff said. "That's our only means to interact with other schools, to compete."

Ivanoff said basketball brings residents immense pride when the teams do well, especially when up against larger schools.

Ivanoff said the Rally the Regions tournament not only gives the team the opportunity to gauge its abilities against teams from similarly sized schools, it brings additional opportunities as well, like the chance to network with other players and coaches and get out of their hometowns.

"It gives our children the chance to go the big city and do shopping and get a haircut and go to the movies," said Ivanoff, who has coached the boys basketball team on and off since 1986. The team is currently made up of four of his siblings' grandchildren, he said, as well as five sons of former players.

Emma Chase, an 18-year-old senior from Petersburg, said she's so used to boarding a plane or a ferry for games that at this point it's just "going through the motions."

She said the tournament allowed her team to size up potential competition for the Class 2A title, which the Petersburg girls won last season.

Apart from basketball, she said, her team also looked forward to Olive Garden while staying in the city.

"Unlimited breadsticks is what everyone looks forward to," she said.

Besides four full days of basketball, the tournament offered three nights with Native dance performances — Tlingit and Haida on Tuesday, Yup'ik on Wednesday and Inupiaq on Friday. On Thursday, there was a potlatch.

Day, the Alaska Fellowship of Christian Athletes state director, said the dances celebrated the communities' cultures and the potlatch gave teams a chance to interact and get to know one another.

Players also elected an all-tournament team based on which players helped their teammates improve. That put others before themselves and encouraged a positive attitude, Day said.

Bristol Bay girls coach Heath Lyon said the all-tournament criteria and sleeping in churches separated the tournament from any other.

"This is really the only time we get to see each other, without being at state," he said.

Lyon said the way he sees it, basketball helps keep some students in school and provides an opportunity to travel. He said players are expected to keep up their grades and attendance.

In the Bristol Bay region, he said, "it's all about basketball."

His daughter, Rylie Lyon, a 17-year-old co-captain of the girls team, put it more bluntly. In her hometown, she said, everyone is expected to at least try two things: fishing and basketball.

Correction: The original caption for the top photo in this article incorrectly identified Denali Moorcroft as Jacy Johnson.