13
MIXED MEDIUM
THE ARTS AROUND
EASTERN OREGON
APRIL 27�MAY 4, 2022
‘Native Sport’ celebrates Native Americans in athletics
The Josephy Center
exhibit is open
through May 12
By Katy Nesbitt
Go! Magazine
J
OSEPH — Native American excellence
in athletics is celebrated through art at
the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in
a special exhibit open through May 12.
Rich Wandschneider, library director at
Josephy, said the Northwest tribes were
introduced to horses in the 1600s and
raised large herds. By the late 1800s tribal
members were showing off their trick
roping and riding at Wild West shows and
entering rodeos.
The fabled saddle bronc rider Jackson
Sundown is a household name in North-
eastern Oregon. After a few attempts, he
was the saddle bronc 1916 Pendleton
Roundup champion at 53 years old — one
of the oldest cowboys to ever win the prize.
Jackson was a 14-year-old refugee of
Josephy Center/Contributed image
The “Native Sport” exhibit at the Josephy
Center celebrates Native American athletics,
such as Phillip Malatare from the Flathead
Indian Reservation in Montana, where he
played high school ball for the Arlee Warriors.
The Warriors won the state small school
championship in 2017.
the Nez Perce War in 1877.
“Sundown escaped to Canada at the
end of the war and fi rst competed in saddle
bronc while living on the Flathead Reserva-
tion,” Wandschneider said.
Levi McCormack was a three-sport
star at Washington State University. After
college he chose to play baseball profes-
sionally in Lewiston, Spokane and Seattle.
His career was interrupted while he served
in the Navy during World War II, but he re-
turned to the Northwest to play baseball.
“When they rebuilt the baseball stadium
in Spokane, Levi was recognized in the ‘Rim
of Honor,’” Wandschneider said.
McCormack is one of four permanent
members of the Spokane Indians’ “Rim of
Honor,” according to the team’s website.
Wandschneider said about half of the
exhibit is from Tamastslikt Cultural Insti-
tute and the other half is new. Wanting
to highlight a sport with which Wallowa
County residents and visitors are familiar,
he added powwow competitive dancing, a
highlight of the annual Tamkaliks Celebra-
tion in Wallowa.
Another sport with a local audience in
the exhibit is wild horse racing, which was
included the last several years in the Moun-
tain High Broncs and Bulls Rodeo.
The exhibit’s opening panel is dedicat-
ed to arguably the Inland Northwest tribes’
favorite sport — basketball. Wandschnei-
der said the Lapwai High School boys and
girls are state champions several times
over and Nixya’awii Community School
from Mission is considered a fi erce com-
petitor with Wallowa County schools.
“Basketball is the reservation game,”
Wandschneider said.
Sports like baseball, football and
basketball were taught to Native Ameri-
cans living in U.S. government boarding
schools. Jim Thorpe, featured in the ex-
hibit, is one of the most famous athletes
to come out of the boarding schools.
A member of the Sac and Fox Nation
in Oklahoma, as a youth Thorpe attended
Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, where he was a two-time
All-American for the school’s football team
under coach Pop Warner. He also won two
Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer
Olympics in classic pentathlon and the
decathlon, and played American football
in college and professionally, as well as
professional baseball and basketball.
The Josephy Center, 403 N. Main
St., is open Monday through Saturday,
9 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information, visit
josephy.org.
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