Bards to Basketball

University of Idaho English professors, professional basketball players and published authors faced off on the Memorial Gym basketball court Nov. 15 as a diverse community gathered in support of the new American Indian Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing at UI to have “serious fun for a serious cause.”
The Spokane Dirty Realists included Seattle author Sherman Alexie, Spokane poet Shann Ray Ferch, former Gonzaga basketball player David Pendergraft and Washington State University journalism professor Ben Shors. The visiting team played a tight game against the Moscow SuperSonnets. The home team featured English professors David Thacker and David Sigler, basketball player Jonathan Takes Enemy and Moscow High School basketball player Hunter Levy.
“I can’t believe how many people donated their time and effort to be a part of this event,” said Kim Barnes, professor of English at the University of Idaho and event organizer.
Barnes said her novel writing class in the MFA program gave her the idea to bring writers and basketball players together.
“I work really hard to get established, published authors to talk to these students, not just about craft, but about the process of writing a 300-page novel,” Barnes said.
Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist from Spokane, brought up the idea of playing basketball with other writers who had traveled to Moscow to talk at the MFA class.
Barnes said Walter had brought up the idea of Sherman Alexie coming and playing basketball with them.
“I knew Sherman Alexie since he was a student at Washington State University,” Barnes said. “But Alexie doesn’t just go anywhere, he’s in demand like crazy. But Walter said he would come for basketball.”
Barnes said she wondered what she could do with this many famous writers at the University of Idaho playing basketball.
“We’d been looking for ways to extend our opportunities to diverse communities,” Barnes sad. “Tribal communities are so rich with story telling tradition and Alexie is always saying we need more native writers in creative writing programs because their stories are so important.”
Barnes said Alexie has been quoted saying he belongs to tribe of bookworms and basketball players. When she proposed the idea of having a basketball game to support the new American Indian Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho to Alexie, everyone was onboard.
“We knew that with Sherman’s support and his positive energy and desire to bring Native American forces together, that it would generate a great deal of excitement and help us,” Barnes said.
David Sigler, University of Idaho assistant professor in English, played for the SuperSonnets. Sigler said Barnes asked him to play because he played basketball in college.
“I had a great time playing,” Sigler said. “It was thrilling to be playing basketball against writers such as Sherman Alexie and Shann Ray.”
The Spokane Dirty Realists won 107-77. At the end of the game Chief Allan, chairman of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, donated $1,000 to the fellowship. Pendergraft was named most valuable player and Barnes was given a basketball signed by all the players.
“It was an event that did exactly what we wanted it to do,” Barnes said. “It brought communities together from both inside and outside the academy, bringing them together in a spirit of celebration of goodwill and generosity.”

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