A winning season is about more than sports in Barrow

BARROW -- Dozens of proud families filled a multipurpose room in this Arctic community Monday night to celebrate a memorable winter of high school athletics. The gathering was a final hometown high-five for the boys and girls varsity basketball teams and the basketball cheerleading squad, all of which brought home 3A state championships in March.

But for their coaches and teachers, the celebration was an opportunity to drive home a message that they hope players will carry from the court into adulthood: High achievement is habit-forming.

"The more they can see success and taste it, the more they want to re-create it," said Ronnie Stanford, the school's vice principal.

A few hundred people lined up, elders first, for chicken and salad to start the banquet. Stefanie Lozano, a class of 2003 alumna, carried her 7-month-old baby inside the back of her parka and held the hand of her 2-year-old, who wore a sweatshirt marking her as a "future Barrow Whaler," class of 2032. Cheer team member McJun Nobleza held his coach's granddaughter, and boys from the basketball team played pusoy dos, a card game with Filipino origins. The crowd might have been even bigger but for the whaling crews that were busy on the sea ice outside town this week.

Near the front of the room, as honorees crossed the stage, parents held smartphones and video cameras in the air.

Earlier that day at the high school, three coaches described circumstances that got them from the northernmost reaches of the U.S. to the top of their sports in Alaska. Each said it required trust from the students that was hard-won, and adherence to a system that's about more than just sports.

Health teacher and cheerleading coach Theresa Knapp, who is finishing her first school year here after arriving from Colorado, describes Barrow as close-knit. Gaining acceptance from students and community members, who have experienced a lot of teacher turnover, wasn't automatic. At practices, she felt she was constantly being tested.

"They just kept trying to see how much I really know," she said.

Earning respect came easier, she said, by simply returning for the second semester, something new teachers haven't always done.

"They were very hesitant, until after the Christmas holiday, to get to know the teacher and invest in me and what I have to teach, or what I have to say, or just who I am as a person," she said.

On Monday in her health class, Knapp questioned her students' assumptions about HIV and AIDS, and led a frank discussion. On the ledge behind her desk was a reminder that her cheer squad could not only be as good as anyone in the state -- they could be better.

Knapp installed a stick-to-the-basics approach to competitive cheer, refining the routine until it was tack-sharp, she said. The team competed in a "non-building" division that doesn't require gymnastic-style tumbling runs and tall pyramids. The skills had earned them an overall Grand Champion award, something Anchorage's much-larger Dimond High School had owned in previous years.

"You'll have to just trust me," she remembered telling them at practice. "If we think as champions, we will be champions."

Math teacher Chad Bunselmeier found out he'd coach the varsity girls basketball team just a week before the season began. The previous coach handed over the reins after a death in his family. At Monday's celebration, he thanked his wife for helping him with the stress of the situation.

Expectations were high for the Whalers women, a team that has won the state title a few times. In hoops-crazy Barrow, both boys and girls home games pack the gym with spectators. Bunselmeier, who grew up in Delta Junction, said he felt pressure to be seen as more than just a fill-in coach. But at first he sensed the team pulling in a different direction.

"It was definitely a struggle the first month or so (to communicate) 'This is what we're going to do. This is how it's going to be.' "

Things began to click at a regular-season tournament in Anchorage, he said. With his team down by four points with a few minutes left in a game at Anchorage Christian School, he wondered if he was connecting with his players about the game plan.

"We ended up winning that game by 10," he said.

Back in Barrow, the team led the parade during Piuraagiaqta, a festival to mark the start of spring whaling. In cold weather, they rode the float with the boys team, which had just won its second-straight and second-ever state championship 3A title.

Barrow coach Jeremy Arnhart is finishing his 10th year as coach and is a 15-year teacher at Barrow High School. They've long been a good program, often making deep runs in the state tournament. But in recent years, uncommon talent helped them reach new heights, none more so than 6-foot-9 sophomore Kamaka Hepa.

Arnhart called Hepa, a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year, a once-in-a-lifetime coaching opportunity. He expects basketball, coupled with a 4.0 GPA, has only begun to open doors for Hepa. A big-time NCAA Division I school will come calling, Arnhart said, something that has never happened for a kid from Barrow.

Arnhart said he backs the Hepa family's decision to move to Oregon and enroll Kamaka in a Portland high school in order to play in an Elite Youth Basketball League, which he is currently doing.

"I will support them in whatever they want to do, and the community will support them," Arnhart said. "We'll never hold somebody back. We let him go explore. He'll be fine and we'll be fine as well."

But even phenoms don't play the game alone, and Arnhart said he was surrounded with players who worked hard this season and held themselves accountable in the classroom. That's the sort of perspective he encourages in his players, who collectively averaged a 3.2 GPA.

"Their basketball careers are going to end, most of them at the end of high school," he said. "It's a good thing to have those high expectations. It's just sometimes I think sports play too big of a role if it's not balanced."

The school's front office staff couldn't agree more.

Inside the school's main office Monday, vice principal Stanford got to work putting his signature on a stack of honor roll certificates that principal Sherry McKenzie left for him. Forty percent of the 220 students received the academic recognition this week, she said.

Stanford said extracurricular activities including but not limited to sports were key in allowing teachers to make personal connections with kids. He spent many years guiding a high school band program that sometimes traveled the country for performances.

Events like Monday's banquet, he said, invited families to share in the positivity in a way that is much more powerful than a disciplinary discussion in his office can ever be. Those sometimes end in tears for families.

"It's just the opposite when they see success in their children (at the banquet). They're beaming in pride," he said.

McKenzie, the principal, said sports and activities can serve another purpose. Though some students have experienced difficult situations at home, the high school could be their safe haven. She takes it as a measure of success that some never seem to want to leave.

"I tell them at the beginning of the school year, 'This is your community within this building,' " she said.

McKenzie held the event inside the Ipalook Elementary School's multipurpose room, big enough to hold the crowd she expected. There, every team in the school was honored by coaches, not just the state champs. Football coach Brian Houston recognized many of his 28 football players, like senior Aitkan Faalologo, who is always asked to do an onside kickoff, in part because of the wind at Barrow home games.

The Barrow football program, an Arctic anomaly that has attracted reality TV attention, will begin its 10th season this fall, Houston said. He said he was eager for his players to be part of the Whalers' legacy of championships one day soon.

Bunselmeier, the math teacher, chose not to award an MVP to anyone on the girls basketball team. It would be a disservice to the team-first basketball they played, he said. Knapp gave out an award for most valuable parent. Maria Aguilar was endlessly upbeat and generous with help for a Barrow newcomer.

At a table in back, Arnold Brower watched with a broad smile as all the school's student athletes filed across stage, posed for pictures and received applause.

He was one of many from Barrow who traveled to Anchorage to watch the teams play in the ASAA March Madness championship event a few weeks ago. He said the coaches deserve a lot of credit.

"We instill this kind of discipline in that subsistence hunting itself," said Brower, a whaling captain. "For them to go through this is just really rewarding."

In March, Brower was part of a fan base that Arnhart said often drowns out those of the home teams when they play on the road. Brower said he never got to have that experience, seeing parents in the stands, when he was a young man attending boarding school. That pride, shared the way it was on Monday, might even bring some families closer together, he said.

"Here, all the parents are rooting for them," he said. "And they know it."

Marc Lester can be reached at mlester@alaskadispatch.com.