Bouncing into the US
Taupō’s Lake City Squad try on their new uniforms ahead of a trip to the United States. Photo: Dan Hutchinson
Taupō’s Lake City Squad is keeping its feet up ahead of a cultural korero between Māori and America’s Pechanga and Kumeyaay tribes.
By Dan Hutchinson
City Squad is competing in the Native American Junior Nationals and heads off next week on a journey of discovery.
It will be the first time an international team has been permitted to enter the competition, and the Kiwi squad is all in, says coach Daryl Karipa or Daz as he’s known.
The competition takes place in Phoenix Arizona, with 580 teams playing in an indoor stadium with 29 basketball courts.
The Lake City squad — eight players ranging from Year 9 to Year 12 — departs on Sunday for a 13-night, 14-day trip that takes in California and Phoenix.
Daz has spent the past 12 months organising the trip, after hosting a group of native Americans who were visiting New Zealand as part of an intertribal sports tour.
He decided to do the same thing for the boys he developed into Lake City.
The Lake City team will travel alongside the Intertribal Sports (ITS) team from California.
Before heading to Arizona, the team stays at the extravagant Pechanga Resort Casino — a property owned by the Pechanga tribe.
The tribe has strong links with the LA Lakers, and their venue was formerly the Lakers' training facility.
The trip is not purely about basketball. Two cultural exchanges are planned — one with the Pechanga tribe and another with the Kumeyaay tribe further south.
"We're actually going to go and immerse ourselves within their tribe and do some traditional stuff that they do and just be a part of it," Daz says.
Daz played his final year of high school basketball in Louisville, Kentucky, so he has some familiarity with the American system.
But this trip is new territory for him too, and he sees it as laying the groundwork for something bigger.
"This group is a pioneering group for Taupō and small towns — to really show that you don't need to live in Auckland or Hamilton or Christchurch in order to do this kind of stuff.”
The players are all students from Taupō, and most of them made Daz’ representative team at the Under-16 Nationals last year.
They have played together for several years and know each other well, which Daz sees as an asset for the trip.
"These guys have all played together for the last couple of years. They're all mates, they know each other — so they can experience it with their mates and have really good memories when they're our age."
The Lake City club also runs a girls' team and an Under-12 squad, and Karipa is already thinking about what this trip means for the younger players coming through.
One of the longer-term goals is to create pathways for Taupō athletes that do not require them to relocate to larger centres.
"I'll have these boys again next year, and then obviously another part of the trip is for me to build pathways for our athletes outside of Taupō so that they don't have to go to different schools in order to get these pathways," Daz says.
For now, the focus is on next Sunday's departure and what lies ahead.
"Trip of a lifetime, man. I'm excited to take this group of boys over."