Lady Chieftains

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1 Lady Chieftains

[edit] Lady Chieftains

The Lady Chieftains are a girls basketball team from Shiprock, New Mexico. They are the subject of the documentary Rocks with Wings. The documentary charts the transformation of the team from a lackluster team to a championship team led by coach Jerry Richardson ^[1].

[edit] History of Lady Chieftains

Before the hiring of Jerry Richardson, the Lady Chieftains were a losing basketball team at Shiprock High School. Interest was low in the girls basketball program and rival school Kirtland Central had been the state champions for 8 consecutive years. Richardson set out to change this attitude among the Navajo community of Shiprock. To quote him ""But I had never been associated with anything that lost. We had to change some attitudes." ^[2].

The year was 1987 and the Lady Chieftains did well enough to reach the state championships versus Kirtland Central. After a close game, the Lady Chieftains lost during overtime. The next year however, the Lady Chieftains came back to the state championships and in another close game, were able to defeat their rivals to become the new state champions ^[3]

The Lady Chieftains, according to the director of Rocks with Wingsessentially become one of the first events that help unite the Navajo community of Shiprock^[4].

[edit] Jerry Richardson

Jerry Richardson was high school star basketball player from Texas. Due to a bad relation with his high school coach and athletic director, he was prevented from being recruited by college athletic scouts ^[5]. Unable to attend college, Richardson was hired by Shiprock to coach the girls basketball team in 1982. In five years, he successfully led the Lady Chieftains to the state championships ^[6].