All the players in Bethel for the Lower Kuskokwim School District’s Basketball Tournament love basketball. But how much? Enough to ride 9 miles in a snowmachine sled to get to practice every day? Enough to live in a different village from your family so that you can play ball? Because some of the Newtok Lady Jaegers love basketball that much.
Every day after school in Mertarvik, Newtok Lady Jaegers Head Coach Jimmy Charles Jr. gets ready to go to basketball practice. Three girls on his team made the move to the new village with him last fall, but most of the team, and the gym they practice in, are back in Newtok. So Jimmy loads up his snowmachine. One of the girls rides shotgun, but the other two aren’t as lucky.
“I got two of ‘em on my sled. They sit in the sled,” Jimmy said.
“Worst 30 minutes of my life,” said Charlotte Charles, one of the girls who rides in the sled everyday. “It was tiring at first. You go over to Newtok, practice, you’re sore. Then you go on a bumpy ride. It was tiring.”
But there are days that journey gets even harder. Charlotte says that the weather between the coastal village sites of Mertarvik and Newtok can become severe. On one trip, she wondered if they should’ve stayed home.
“One time I got frostbite,” Charlotte said. “It was scary. My baby brother was in front of me, and we weren’t even halfway and he got cold. Along the way he started shaking.”
Charlotte said that she couldn’t see anything during that ride.
“I’m glad my coach had a GPS,” Charlotte added.
There’s another Lady Jaeger, Erin Carl, whose parents also moved to Mertarvik, but Erin didn’t want to commute between the two villages for basketball practice. She made the decision to stay behind in Newtok with her grandparents.
“It’s a busy place to stay,” Erin said.
She says that the house has 10 people in it. There are two bedrooms, neither of which are hers.
“I sleep in random places,” Erin said.
Even though Erin misses her family during the week, this allows her to play more basketball, which, for now, is the most important thing for her. Basketball aside, she’s excited to live in Mertarvik.
“It’s beautiful staying over at Mertarvik,” Erin said.
Aside from a hillside view of the river, Mertarvik has roads, a laundromat, and bigger houses than Newtok. For now, the new village doesn’t have a basketball gym, but that won’t stop the girls living there from playing the game they love.
