Book Review: Counting Coup

Counting Coup by Larry Colton was a book brought to me by one of my 14-year-old player's mom. She asked me at one of the tournaments if I liked reading and what type of books I read, because she felt she had a book I may enjoy. So at the next practice she plopped a book in front of me.

Larry Colton is a freelance journalist from Portland, Oregon. He ventured to Hardin, Montana in the 1990s to observe how basketball and life work in a heavily populated Native American culture, a Crow reservation in this instance.

His intention was discover why good Native American athletes never make it in college. He headed to Hardin, a town known to have done well in boys high school basketball, but his story ended up being about the girls' team which made a run at the state tournament.

Basketball in the Native American culture was popular and many of the athletes were very talented and did it to bring honor to their clans. However, despite their talent they were often overlooked by colleges and many had no desire to go to college. Colton hoped Sharon LaForge, the very talented leader of the girls team would break that stereotypical behavior and go somewhere with her talent. He learned a lot following the team and getting to know the area and families in the year he spent in Hardin.

Throughout the book, Colton expresses the culture as he saw it; the tensions between whites and Indians, the poverty and laziness of the culture and the poor coaching strategies. I found it to be an interesting book, definitely interesting to learn about a culture I knew very little about. Even more interesting for the fact that Hardin, Montana was one of the places we stopped on the drive out here.