#cišaaʔatḥ #tseshaht Elder Tom Watts turns 90 this month.

Chris Alemany

#cišaaʔatḥ #tseshaht Elder Tom Watts turns 90 this month. He's a basketball star. He was the only Indigenous player on the 1965 ADSS team that won the Canadian Men's Basketball Championship.

If you want a great story about basketball, family, hard work, love, racism, indian residential schools, perseverance, kindness, and respect, here it is:

Basketball is a family affair for the great Tseshaht athlete Tom Watts and his grandkids | Ha-Shilth-Sa Newspaper

Navigating a sea of red Totem 69 fans, an unassuming Tom Watts slipped into the Alberni District Secondary School (ADSS) gymnasium and posted up in the ‘Lifetime members’ seating area to watch the finals of B.C.’s longest running high school basketball tournament. The whiff of fresh popcorn and Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ filled the air as the Alberni Storm senior girls team ran onto the court, sinking warm-up shots before a closely fought championship game against Pacific Christian School.

(www.hashilthsa.com)

#PortAlberni #Basketball #Canada #BC #Indigenous #Reconciliation #TotemTournament