Sports

One of their own: Tanana kids learn basketball, life lessons from Bell-Holter

The Interior village of Tanana is about a thousand miles from Hydaburg, the Southeast Alaska village where Damen Bell-Holter grew up and became a high school basketball star. It's about 3,000 miles from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Bell-Holter was a Division I all-conference player for Oral Roberts University. It's about 5,000 miles from Istanbul, where Bell-Holter earned a six-figure salary this year in the Turkish Basketball League.

Yet kids in Tanana this week are learning that Bell-Holter, a 6-foot-9 center/forward, is very much one of them. The places where Bell-Holter has lived may be far, far away from Tanana, but his experiences are not.

"He starts telling them his story and they say, 'That's our life,' '' said Cynthia Erickson, who helped bring Bell-Holter to Tanana for a three-day basketball clinic.

"He's inspiring. He's our home-boy, you know?"

Bell-Holter, 25, is spending his offseason traveling from clinic to clinic, hitting mostly small, mostly Native communities in places like North Dakota, South Dakota, Canada, Alaska. Before Tanana, he put on Alaska clinics in Hydaburg, Craig and Metlakatla, and next week he'll be in Kalskag.

He teaches basketball and preaches healthy choices. And he relates. He shares tales of growing up around suicide, alcoholism and dysfunction, and he tells kids there is something more, something better.

"A lot of these communities, people don't understand unless they're from there," Bell-Holter said Thursday before heading to a picnic being held in his honor. "Once kids see I've made it out, that I play basketball at a high level, they understand it doesn't matter where you come from.

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"Every reservation, every small community I've been to, all the issues are the same. … You get stuck in these small communities -- and even if they do end up living here there's nothing wrong with that -- but I tell them, why not get an education and then come back and use it?''

Bell-Holter's clinics are part of Blessed 2 Blessed Basketball, a group he helped form to reach out to kids through basketball.

He contacted Erickson after watching video from the Alaska Federation of Natives convention of girls from Erickson's 4-H club speaking about the suffering and heartache they have endured. Erickson learned more about Bell-Holter and was determined to bring him to Tanana.

"I started looking into these camps," she said, "and I said, 'I don't care if I have to put it on a credit card,' '' which she did.

Erickson runs a nonprofit youth group called My Grandma's House, where no subject is off-limits -- domestic violence, sexual abuse, suicide. Bell-Holter's familiarity with some of those same issues makes him a potent mentor.

"When they find out I'm from a small town, it just changes their perspective," he said. "They think, 'Hey, you don't know what we go through, you don't understand all our issues.' I understand 100 percent. I share a lot of the same issues."

Bell-Holter has also worked as an ambassador in Nike's N7 program, which aims to bring sports to Native and Aboriginal communities in North America (and sell some sneakers in the process).

He likes working with kids and serving as a mentor, and if he can do that while playing basketball too, all the better.

"It's perfect, because I love to travel," he said. "I teach basketball all day and then I grab a couple kids to rebound and help me work out. I love being in the villages -- it's how I grew up -- and it just shocks these kids when this 6-9 guy comes to town."

Erickson said Tanana is excited to have Bell-Holter in town.

"Cripes, it's just like a superstar," she said. "We're bedazzled and frazzled."

Fundraisers, T-shirt sales and donations are helping to cover the cost of bringing the clinic to Tanana. Warbelow's Air donated a plane ticket. Some are donating food, some are donating gas.

"$100 here, $100 there," Erickson said. "It's a real Alaska effort by a lot of friends and families excited for this to happen."

Though Bell-Holter will be busy with clinics all of this month, he said he didn't schedule many in July in case he gets a chance to play in the NBA summer league, like he did last year.

Undrafted out of college, Bell-Holter was invited to the Boston Celtics training camp and although he didn't make the team, he did well enough to land a spot with the Maine Red Claw of the NBA D League.

Instead of returning to the D League this season he went overseas, where his NBA experience made him a valuable commodity. A versatile player with a good perimeter shot plus strength and size, Bell-Holter averaged 14 points and nine rebounds a game for Istanbul, where he was one of four Americans on the roster.

On Thursday, after the clinic and before the picnic, Bell-Holter spoke with his agent; he said he has gotten offers for next season from a team in Belgium and two in Italy in addition to one in Turkey.

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He said he won't decide what to do next season until after exploring his NBA options. He's lukewarm about the summer league but hopes to get invited to another training camp.

"I'll chase the NBA dream and if it doesn't work out, I'll go overseas and set up a career," he said. He noted two other Alaskans – Trajan Langdon of Anchorage and Brad Oleson of North Pole – who forged hugely successful careers in Europe.

All the while, he'll keep working with kids through Blessed 2 Blessed Basketball.

"I want to turn it into something huge," he said.

Reach Beth Bragg at 257-4335 or bbragg@alaskadispatch.com

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