Photo by Jaida Grey Eagle
“Medicine Ball,” a feature-length documentary about two Native American collegiate basketball players in Minnesota, premieres on Minnesota and National PBS on November 9.
The film, produced by Minnesota PBS and partially funded by Vision Maker Media, focuses on Lexus Redthunder and LeRoy Staples-Fairbanks IV as they navigate a season of NCAA basketball at the University of Minnesota Morris.
This is the fourth feature documentary from director and producer Leya Hale, who comes from the Dakota and Dine tribes. The concept of the feature came from Hale’s friend and fellow filmmaker, Syd Hale, who was quoted in the book “Native Hoops.”
Hale says “Native Hoops” is about how basketball was introduced to Native American students at boarding schools; at the time, it functioned as a tool of assimilation, but Native American students made the game their own. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was influenced by the popular Native American sport of lacrosse while developing the sport, Hale says.
“There were many students who found ways to still hold on to culture, still hold on to the idea of creating a community away from home,” Hale says. “Different stories that provided strength for them to get through this terrible experience in American history.”
Those boarding schools from the late 19th and early 20th century, Hale says, are often remembered for the traumatic experiences of the students who attended them, and for good reason. Abuse and mistreatment ran rampant at these schools, and nearly 1000 students died at boarding schools across the country. In fact, the University of Minnesota Morris was a Native American boarding school from 1887 to 1909. Hale says audiences watching the film will learn about the school’s history alongside the students.
Despite this, Hale says she wanted to tell a story that empowered its audience.
“I felt like it was necessary, especially for Native storytellers like myself, to start creating spaces for some of these stories to exist to help us heal from the past and to help motivate and inspire young people to carry this history with strength rather than with burden or shame,” Hale says.
