Southside Red Bears basketball helps Native youth find community, but its future is uncertain

Halfway through the Southside Red Bears’ first basketball game of the season, coach Muck-Wa Roberts called the kids over for a huddle. The team missed some shots and key defensive plays, and they were down in the first half of the game. 

Assistant coach James Purcell pulled out a clipboard and started telling the players what their blind spots were and how to improve. After shouting the team’s name in a motivational chant, the Red Bears ran onto the court.

“One, two, three – Red Bears!” shouted the team. 

Staying engaged with sports

Roberts is more than a coach to the Red Bears basketball team — he’s like family. Roberts helped recruit all 14 players on the coed team to play in the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board league. He takes time out of his own busy schedule of raising a household full of children and other duties to get kids registered to play. 

He wants to make sure Native students, whose graduation rate in Minneapolis Public Schools is one of the lowest, stay engaged. Roberts says being involved in sports as a young person helped him.

“I played basketball, baseball, football growing up, and it kept me out of the streets, kept me out of trouble, kept me away from gangs and drugs,” Roberts said.

But, the team’s future within the larger Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board league is uncertain due to a new registration system the park board is implementing. According to Jack Bartsh, the interim director of athletics at the agency, the system will become more centralized.

“What’s changing is pre-formed teams, where MPRB doesn’t have oversight over those teams, that’s changing. That will no longer be allowed,” Bartsh said. 

Roberts says that the new system will create barriers for Native players. He says the relationships built by having an all-Native basketball team won’t exist if they go through this new registration system. His team-building model is about creating a relationship between the Native players and himself, which will help the youth achieve better success in school and in life.

“So we get out in the community and go there and find some of these kids, and, you know, hopefully they come out of their shell,” Roberts said. “They see people that look like them… that want to help them, to be able to, you know, get out the house, or get out of whatever situation they may be in.”

He says he is positioned to understand the players’ lives and some of the challenges they face. 

Keeping the Red Bears together

Roberts holds taco fundraisers for the team’s uniforms, shoes and travel. He holds events to make sure the players register so they can be part of the team. He even helped design the Red Bears’ uniforms. 

Bartsh and the park board staff disagree that the new system will create a barrier. 

“We dispute that an immensely streamlined, more organized system creates a barrier,” the park board said in an email to MPR News. They said they have offered additional help to get Native kids out to register, including coming out to a site of Roberts’ choosing.

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The park board estimates there are about 81 pre-formed teams out of the more than 800 teams that compete within the park board system. And they have told Roberts they are willing to make additional efforts to get those teens registered and onto a team.

“We’re committed to working with him and any other volunteer coaches and youth-serving organizations to make this a successful transition,” the park board email stated.  

Even if the Red Bears players register, that doesn’t mean they can be on the Red Bears team with him as a coach.

“The kids don’t have to stop playing,” Roberts said. “I encourage them to keep on. I encourage the parents to sign them up. If the Red Bears ain’t gonna be around… keep them doing something positive and healthy with their life.” 

Remembering Red Bear Standing

The team wasn’t always called Southside Red Bears. It was the Little Earth Express, named for the Little Earth housing development in South Minneapolis. Their manager was a young man named Trinidad Flores, who passed away after receiving a heart transplant in 2013. Roberts recalled his funeral, choking up with tears because Flores was such a beloved community member.

“All the kids took their jerseys and put them on his casket,” Roberts recalled. 

Flores was buried with all the jerseys. Roberts says that the team would use Flores’ Native name, Red Bear Standing, as the new team's name. The anecdote speaks to the tight bond that players have with one another and the relationships Robert’s built over the years. 

According to a social media post from Roberts, after this current basketball season, the Southside Red Bears in their current form will no longer be competing in the park and recreation board leagues with him as the coach. He’s encouraging youth to get involved and participate, though. He said he will continue to coach in Amateur Athletic Union basketball and travel to various out-of-state tournaments. 

Roberts is not sure if he’s going to be coaching for the park board teams but still wants to make sure Native youth stay active.

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