Lakota Nation Invitational “A High School Holiday Sports Classic” Underway in Rapid City

By Levi Rickert - December 20, 2019 at 06:15PM

Lakota Nation Invitational draws thousands annually to Rapid City each December. Native News Online photos by Levi Rickert

Published December 20, 2019

RAPID CITY, S.D. — The 43rd Annual Lakota Nation Invitational, a basketball tournament that draws American Indian 16 boys and 16 American Indian girls high school basketball teams each December, is underway at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The invitational began in 1976 in the aftermath of the American Indian Movement takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973 when tensions ran high in South Dakota.

“Back then non-Indian teams did not want to play Indian teams because they feared violence. There was a perception that coming to the reservations to play basketball could turn violent,” says Bryan Brewer, the former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who started the invitational. The first invitational was for eight boys basketball teams, according to Brewer.

This year the teams come from predominately American Indian teams from South Dakota and Nebraska.

“What we have now is grandparents who played in the early days of the invitational now watching their grandchildren play in the tournament,” says Brewer.