Nov. 4—CASS LAKE — With basketball season right around the corner, roughly 40 teams congregated at Cass Lake schools over the weekend for a preseason tournament.
The games were rather arbitrary, though.
While players from third grade through high school played in 32-minute, 5-on-5 contests on Saturday and Sunday, the games took a back seat to a larger message.
LeRoy Fairbanks III has been around basketball for a long time. He’s also worked in government, serving as the District III Tribal Council representative for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe since July 2012.
In merging the passions of basketball and improving the well-being of his community, Fairbanks helped organize the inaugural Pathways to Wellness Basketball Tournament, a youth event where people from across the region come together to promote healthy, positive living.
“Wellness is a term that’s being promoted more now, but we need to live it, promote it and engage it in our communities,” Fairbanks said. “What does it mean to be well? What does thinking about it and incorporating it into your life look like? Those are the conversations we want to have and normalize. Being well isn’t a destination; it’s a journey.”
In conjunction with the Leech Lake Area Boys and Girls Club, the Pathways to Wellness Basketball tournament featured seven different divisions. Boys and girls brackets for fifth and sixth-graders, seventh and eighth-graders and high schoolers commenced at 10 a.m. on Nov. 1. Championships concluded on Nov. 2. There was also a co-ed bracket for third and fourth-graders.
While the affordable tournament with an entry fee of $150 per team featured several local teams, others traveled from North Dakota and Wisconsin to participate.
“We’re trying to promote this in a regional sense,” Fairbanks said. “The work I do is mostly out of Leech Lake, but I try to promote wellness across the region. Indian country is so broad and all over Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin. … We wanted to bring multiple communities together and bring them in to interact with our local communities. It boils down to wellness not being a specific thing for a specific demographic. Wellness is for everybody.”
Before the games tipped off in the high school, middle school and elementary school gyms, the opening ceremony began at 9 a.m. with a welcoming prayer and a drum song from the Cedar Island Singers. Michael Smith Jr. led a pipe ceremony before Leon Staples Jr. gave a welcoming message.
“The culmination of all of this planning and getting to the point where you hear the ball dribble in the spirit of what we’re promoting, it’s pretty cool and engaging,” Fairbanks said. “I know basketball people from around the state — in the cities, locally, northern Minnesota. Bringing people in from different parts of the state to know we’re all in this together, it’s bridging gaps between different communities.”
On Saturday afternoon, tournament play paused for an intermission. Tournament organizers held the Hot Shot Contest, where players competed individually to earn prizes. Food vendors from Redbears Frybread, Tamarac Grill and Stack n’ Drizzle also served food at the tournament.
“There’s a lot of community members who work with and around the youth who want to invest more, see more, organize more,” Fairbanks said. “We had some flexibility in our budget, so we just said, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s make something and promote wellness.’
“We were very intentional about calling this the inaugural Pathways to Wellness Tournament. People in and outside of our community have said to me how excited they are. It’s stuff like, ‘Man, I hope you guys keep doing this and bringing more of this in.’ It’s tribal and non-tribal.”
For Fairbanks, promoting a healthy mental and physical lifestyle is more than a new initiative.
In recent months, an organization called Leech Lake Happy, Healthy, Safe Youth has been organizing events to normalize conversations about improving wellness, healthier living and finding safety at home in the community for kids.
It’s a program that was spurred in the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s something our whole society has to figure out, life after COVID,” Fairbanks said. “There were youth who went through periods of isolation and dark times, and they’re struggling today and haven’t been acknowledged in what they’re dealing with. We need to recognize what they’re going through and help them find ways to move forward.”
Fairbanks continued, saying conversations around the well-being of kids are often impacted by tribal and non-tribal political lines. He hopes events like the Pathways to Wellness Basketball Tournament and organizations such as Leech Lake Happy, Healthy, Safe Youth are a step toward building a thriving, youthful community, wherever it may be.
“Everybody just wants to be happy, right?” Fairbanks said. “Some people try to find it through money or through power. Some people buy things for gratification. Some people try to find happiness by surrounding themselves with people who make them feel happy. The pursuit of happiness is paramount.
“I had an elder tell me once that once you find happiness, you have to sustain it. If you’re not healthy, you’re not going to be happy. There’s so many elements to our community that worry about safety in and out of the household. There’s a sense of safety in having meals each day or making sure there’s a roof over your head. It’s feeling safe and secure that you have electricity and water.”
Following the tournament, awards for Most Valuable Player and Mr. and Ms. Defense were given out for each division. Sportsmanship honors, sponsored by Leech Lake Area Boys and Girls Club executive director David Northbird, were also awarded to players.
Fairbanks said it’s just the beginning.
“This is just the launch of things we’re going to do around the community,” Fairbanks said. “We’ve created a lifestyle wellness curriculum around the community, and this is just the starting point. It’s not just for youth; it’s for everybody to find a way to be well.”
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