Off the Press
Journal of Sport Management, 2012, 26, 271-272
© 2012 Human Kinetics, Inc.
Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High
School Basketball Season in Arctic
Alaska
By Michael D’Orso. Published in 2006 by Bloomsbury
Publishing. (323 pages).
By Cody T. Havard, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, The
University of Memphis.
Life in arctic Alaska means surviving sub-zero winters,
hard summers, and living within strict financial con-
straints. The temperature during the winter months in the
small village of Fort Yukon, Alaska consistently drops to
thirty below zero, requiring citizens to take precautions
to avoid death. Additionally, finding a job with decent
pay is difficult, and many villagers depend on fishing
and moose hunting during the summer months to make
financial ends meet. Due to these onerous conditions,
many citizens fall into a life of drug and alcohol abuse,
and frequently get into trouble with local and state law
enforcement for domestic-related crime.
It can be even more grueling for teenagers growing
up in this environment, as they are trying to attend school
and help their families and community members with
village responsibilities. One of the only activities that
keep Fort Yukon high school students away from drugs
and alcohol is playing basketball. For the boys and girls
playing on the Fort Yukon high school basketball teams,
the joy of the sport is a distraction from the everyday
demands of life in interior Alaska.
Eagle Blue follows a boy’s high school basketball
team from the bush village of Fort Yukon, Alaska during
the 2005 season. Michael D’Orso spends the season
traveling with the team and telling the stories of the
players, administrators, and community members to help
the reader understand the importance of basketball to the
village. Further, the Fort Yukon Eagles are a perennial
powerhouse in boys’ basketball. Despite having one of
the smallest student enrollments in the state of Alaska,
the Eagles often compete against and defeat teams from
larger classifications. For the last six seasons, the boys’
basketball team has played in the state tournament,
providing a much-needed source of community pride.
Three common themes are found throughout the book:
family and community structure, coping mechanisms,
and governmental relations.
Dave Bridges, who came to Alaska from the lower 48
states, is coach of the Fort Yukon Eagles boys’ basketball
team. He plays an integral role in keeping the players
focused on school and getting an education, and does
his best to steer them away from other distractions. For
example, boys who do not meet weekly school standards
are not allowed to travel with the team to away games.
Aside from coaching, Dave Bridges serves the community
by working at the Fort Yukon airport supervising ship-
ments and packages coming into the village from Anchor-
age, Fairbanks, and other bush villages around the state.
The majority of community members support the
Eagles, and villagers look forward to the basketball
season year-round. The Fort Yukon principle is also an
ardent supporter of the boys and girls basketball teams,
which is very important because it is financially taxing
on the school to field the two basketball programs. It
costs over $20,000 to fill a boys and girls’ basketball
team in Fort Yukon because both teams must travel by air
to games and tournaments. However, not every villager
believes the basketball team is a positive addition to the
community. One group of local villagers in particular
argues that too much money is spent on the basketball
programs, and should be utilized on general school fund-
ing instead.
Stories throughout the book illustrate various coping
mechanisms the villagers and players use to survive life
in Arctic Alaska. Coach Bridges himself has coached in
Fort Yukon long enough that he has seen many former
players fall into the trap of alcohol, drugs, and domestic
violence. Aside from their school and home responsi-
bilities, the boys interactions with village elders can lead
to many unwanted distractions for the boys and Coach
Bridges. Many elders regularly tempt the boys with drugs
and alcohol, as they tell stories about their playing days
and how they disagree with decisions made regarding the
team. Basketball acts as one way for the players to cope
with the long winters, and keeps most away from drugs
and alcohol, at least during the season.
The boys on the Fort Yukon Eagles team are mostly
native Alaskans who often have not traveled outside of
their village. For this reason, Coach Bridges makes it
a priority to have the players travel to at least one long-
distance destination to play. Additionally, their trips
to play basketball allow them to see many parts of the
state they typically would not, such as Anchorage and
Fairbanks for post-season tournaments. Most road trips
however are to other small villages, where the boys on
the team endure long flights, seven or eight hour rides in
a van, and housing arrangements that include sleeping
bags on classroom floors in the school where they are
playing. Additionally, the boys often play two or three
games in a span of one to three days. Throughout the
book, Coach Bridges praises his boys for their willing-
ness to endure such arrangements and says they handle
the conditions much better than typical teenagers would
in similar situations. It is apparent that basketball plays
a positive role in keeping the boys out of trouble in the
community.
271
 272  Off the Press
Adding to the troubles of Fort Yukon teenagers and
villagers is the level of suspicion and outright distrust
many feel toward the state and federal government.
The federal government is in negotiations with the bush
villages and native tribes to begin drilling for oil in the
Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Further,
individuals with any native connection are entitled to vote
on the measure, and many Fort Yukon residents resent
these individuals because they do not live in interior
Alaska, and therefore feel these people are giving away
land to which they are not entitled. However, many villag-
ers, and native Alaskans in general, depend on the money
negotiated on behalf of the natives for the oil pipeline that
was drilled through the state decades earlier, which only
adds to the reliance on the federal government.
Another storyline discussed in the book is the rela-
tionship between sport and public education. During the
2005 season, the school council that oversees many bush
schools in Alaska, including Fort Yukon, made a decision
to redistribute the available funds to schools regardless
of their size. With funds being redistributed, there is fear
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within the community that the basketball team may have to
be cut due to lack of funding. The local opponents to the
high school basketball program only add to this problem.
Following the 2005 season, the state of Alaska awarded
Fort Yukon a grant to ensure their basketball programs
would survive, and both boys’ and girls’ teams are still
playing today.
Eagle Blue is a book that can be used in classes such
as sport sociology, policy, or governance at the graduate
or undergraduate level. Even though it was published in
2006, many of the issues in Eagle Blue are still relevant
today. For example, the in-depth stories told by D’Orso
provide context for understanding how the sport of bas-
ketball affects the entire community of Fort Yukon. From
December to March, villagers are able to read about the
successes of their high school basketball team rather than
the intermittent crime reports coming out of Fort Yukon.
Basketball not only provides the teenage boys and girls
of Fort Yukon with an outlet from the harsh life in interior
Alaska, but also is the connection many villagers have to
mainstream America. Villagers who can afford television
watch ESPN on a regular basis, and many of the boys
on the basketball team try to emulate their favorite stars
much like adolescents today.
Courses discussing policy or governance in sport
would find Eagle Blue useful, as it is filled with stories
of the Fort Yukon villagers debating and protesting the
oil drilling set to take place in the ANWR. With the
dependence on federal funding from drilling playing
a role, the villagers have a difficult time protesting the
proposed ANWR project, and find themselves struggling
with monetary and community value issues. Additionally,
the debate over school spending is a topic very relevant
in the current budget and economic climate.
In the face of cuts to the school budget, and the
possible end of the basketball program, it is clear to see
that without basketball, many of the boys, girls, and
community members of the village would suffer in the
extreme conditions of interior Alaska. Eagle Blue tells
the story of a small Alaskan village that revolves around
the high school basketball teams, and would provide
interesting and timely discussion in various sport man-
agement classes.