U is for the Umatilla Thrilla

Shoni Schimmel, currently playing professional basketball in the WNBA, was known as the "Umatilla Thrilla" in her early days in eastern Oregon. She went on to do great things with a round ball at Louisville.

New Grass Growing follows River and Ranch. NGG wanders through a new life in Salmon for Cale and new found daughter, Sabé (sorry if that's a spoiler), as well as Lane and Dana and Cassidy and several more characters. Several of those new characters are Lemhi Shoshone or northern Shoshone. Agaidika. Fish eaters. Some say it is Salmon eaters.

Anyway, NGG imagines life after retirement from Special Operations for Cale and Lane. They become teachers at Salmon High School, as well as the new high school girls basketball coaches. This addition to the fictional world of Cale and Lane remains in the top three as far as my own personal fascination, learning curve, and surprise. It turns out that Indian girls do not get much attention in the world of fiction, nor does rezball, or life on the reservation for that matter. In fact Barack Obama's visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North Dakota was a historical event mainly for its rarity. Pres. Obama was just the fourth US President to visit a reservation.

I digress.

Shoni Schimmel is the inspiration for Rhett, one of the new characters in NGG and one of the natives on the SHS girls basketball team. Shoni Schimmel is just plain inspiration for Rhett. Peroid. My research found Ms. Schimmel first. She played at Louisville, as did her younger sister, and took Louisville to the NCAA women's Final Four. Curiosity led me further into the small world of Indian women that have gone on to play big time buckets off the reservation. I found two others. Ryneldi Becenti and Tahnee Robinson. Becenti is now retired, while Robinson is currently playing overseas.

Turns out there are more Native Americans that made or are making a name for themselves in hoops.

April 2015 finds me still working on this second book, New Grass Growing. Rezball is a fascinating discovery, one that I am working in to several spots in this book. Women's basketball is a great thing. My own daughters have played it, so there is lots of smiles and frustrations in my track record attributable to girls hoops. But I never expected to find such an interesting topic in my wanderings around fictional Idaho. Fiction that is based on compelling reality.