SPOKANE, Wash. — Hundreds of tribal basketball players across the country made the trip to Spokane for the Battle of the Nations basketball tournament.
Sixty-three teams across the nation gathered in Spokane to earn prizes and, most importantly, earn some bragging rights for their tribe.
"The tournament is the biggest native basketball tournament in the country," said tournament director Jerry Ford Redbone.
Ford Redbone says there are almost 900 players in the 2024 tournament. This is the tournament's fifth year, which has also seen former Division 1 and professional basketball players participate. But Ford Redbone's organized tribal basketball tournaments for the last three decades.
Players came from all across the country, including Olin Tsingine from the Navajo Nation in Arizona. He's seen the tournament grow year after year.
"We fundraise all year long just so we can come up to this tournament and represent our tribe," Tsingine said. "It keeps getting bigger. We started with 18 teams, then went to 24, to 38. Then it doubled to the size of 63."
Other players like Tony Louie from the Colville Tribe have played in Ford Redbone's tribal basketball tournaments since 2008.
While the winning team will also take home $10,000, winning the tournament is more than just money.
"It's all about pride, we get to come as native people together and kind of in the old ways we get to go to war against other tribes and prove what we got," Louie said.
The tournament goes through Sunday at the Hub Sports Center. Tickets are $15.
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