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 : Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.32362097986
EAN: 9781582346236
ISBN: 1582346232
Label: Bloomsbury USA
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: March 07, 2006
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Release Date: March 07, 2006
Studio: Bloomsbury USA




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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
n the tradition of Friday Night Lights, an extraordinary journey into the basketball-crazed culture of remote Arctic Alaska.

The village of Fort Yukon sits eight miles above the Arctic Circle, deep in Alaska’s “bush” country. The six hundred men, women and children who live there—almost all of them Athabascan Gwich’in Natives—have little to cheer for. Their traditional Indian ways of life are rapidly vanishing in the face of a modern culture that is closing in on all sides, threatening to destroy their community and their identity. The one source of pride they can count on is their boys’ high school basketball team—the Fort Yukon Eagles.

Eagle Blue follows the Eagles, winners of six regional championships in a row, through the course of an entire 28-game season, from their first day of practice in late November to the Alaska State Championship Tournament in March. With insight, frankness, and compassion, Michael D’Orso climbs into the lives of these fourteen boys, their families, and their coach, shadowing them through an Arctic winter of fifty-below-zero temperatures and near-round-the-clock darkness as the Eagles criss-cross Alaska by air, van, and snow machine in pursuit of their—and their village’s—dream.




Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - One of the best basketball books I've read...and then some
Any sports fan who picks up "Eagle Blue" will not be disappointed, although you should like this one even if you could care less about hoops....Basketball is the stage for the story, but not the story itself. This isn't your typical book depicting some world-weary NBA star or jaded coach. D'Orso makes you care about the players and coaches at a tiny school literally in the middle of nowhere, thus their wins (and losses) somehow become your own. If that were as far as this book took you, it would ... Read More



Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Boldly honest perspective of Native life in modern Arctic Alaska
Boldly honest, "insiders" perspective from an outsider. Interesting insight into modern Native life in Arctic Alaska.

D'Orso's honest, unembellished presentation of everyday life for the characters - team members and townspeople of Fort Yukon - allows the reader to gain an open true look at what everyday life entails in this part of Alaska. It brings out the difficulties of living in the outposts of Arctic Alaska, Native vs. modern culture, politics vs. the land/natural resources/hunting/etc., ... Read More



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Alaskan Basketball
This review of a basketball team's season is about an entire culture and about life. You'll be rooting on the Eagle Blue as you read this true story.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Splendid effort
I've read many books about a sports season that, in a boring way, review game highlights. D'Orso reviews the entire culture, what basketball means in bush country, Alaska, in prose that is wonderful and intelligent.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Well worth the read!
Excellent book on life and sports. I'd recommend this to everyone, especially players and coaches at all levels.







 






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