Abe Streep
The author begins to introduce himself into the narrative as an active character in the fifth chapter. Streep is a journalist who calls New York City home and has been published in the New Yorker and several other high-profile periodicals. He was on assignment from the New York Times Magazine to write about the high school basketball story taking place on the Flat Head Indian Reservation and the story originally appear in a much shorter version in that publication.
Zanen Pitts
Pitts is the coach of the Arlee Warriors basketball team. Just barely turned thirty-years-old, Pitts had already taken the team to the championship game a year earlier only to lose. The book is partly about the difficulty of overcoming the emotional distress of that disappointment in order to go all the way and partly about what is perhaps even more difficult: guiding a championship team to a repeat.
Philip Malatare
Phil is the point guard for the Warriors and is considered one of the most electrifying players in the state. He’s known since elementary school he wanted to become a professional athlete, the only question was in what since sport since he also excelled in baseball and soccer. That he would be a high school star was a foregone conclusion. The big question was whether he would able to overcome the prejudice against Native American players and make it to the college level, much less the NBA.
Will Mesteth
As is more often the case in high schools featuring a heavily segregated population than the typical school, it just so happens that the two standout players on the team are related. Will Mesteth is Phil’s cousin and it is his seemingly overnight rise to playing at a level he had no played at before that transforms the Warriors into a powerhouse inspiring fears across the gyms of Montana.
Roberta Roullier Haynes
If the story were merely another rags to riches tale of a sports team from an underfunded school suddenly becoming a force to be reckoned with, Streep’s account would be inspiring. That it is also about the privation under which Native American schools must operate endows the story with that all-important beating heart of the underdog fable. But the suicide of Will’s aunt, Roberta Haynes, during basketball season is the defining event which gives the story something most other inspiring underdog tales lack. The book also becomes a revelation (for most readers) of the criminally higher than average prevalence of suicide that occurs on Native American reservations as the team rallies around the issue to bring more public attention to the issue.
