Josephine Langley (Blackfeet), Organizer, Fort Shaw Ten Basketball Team
Josephine Langley, Blackfeet, coached the Fort Shaw Ten Women's Basketball Team that went on to become World Champions in 1904 and were known as the "World's Greatest Women's Basketball Team". Next time you are driving near Great Falls, Montana, take time to visit the monument built to commemorate this victorious time lead by Coach Langley.
When William Winslow, M.D., arrived at abandoned Fort Shaw (Montana) in April 1892 to start an Indian School, he immediately instituted physical culture classes for boys as part of their overall curriculum. Although he dreamed of the same for girls, he had no one to teach them. That is, until December 1895 when Josephine "Josie" Langley returned to Fort Shaw after an illness and resumed her position as Indian assistant.
Herself an aspiring teacher, Josie's accomplishments would become part of "an idea whose time has come", for during the time she had spent at the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Indian School, she had been exposed to an exciting new sport: "basket ball" (as it was then spelled) which was invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891.
Seeing an opportunity to incorporate the girls' physical culture class within this new sport, Winslow asked Langley to teach the class. She seized the opportunity to introduce basketball into the curriculum while gaining teaching experience at the same time.
But the school had no funds for a pair of baskets and a regulation ball. So while awaiting her equipment, ever resourceful, Langley borrowed a soccer ball from the boys' classes and utilized it to teach the basic skills of passes, bouncing-or dribbling, deflecting or intercepting opponents' passes.
Even though Dr. Winslow demonstrated interest in the physical culture classes for both boys and girls, he did not communicate the requisite enthusiasm the girls needed to fully develop their skills in the sport. Six years later, Dr. Winslow moved on and was replaced by Fred C. Campbell as new superintendent.
During his tenure, Campbell was determined to see all of his Fort Shaw Indian School students grow and flourish to the best of their abilities within the curriculum of the day. While under Josephine Langley's teaching and coaching, the girls from the small Montana boarding school evolved into the most powerful girls' team of the era.
Undefeated, they would play before thousands at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair for the World Championship. But Langley's girls' unlikely advance to the finals, of itself, was not the stuff of legends; in an era long before "political correctness" they were Native American Indians from the off-reservation Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School.
Their Anglo-American opponents, the tough and also undefeated St. Louis All-Stars, would face-off with them in a best-of-three highly touted competitions before the World's Fair international audience.
It was Josie Langley's Fort Shaw Ten that would play with the skill, determination, and toughness that would win them the silver World Championship trophy, and for a special moment in history, they were known as the World's Greatest Girls Basketball Team of 1904.
In time, however, the team's accomplishments would fade into history. Fred Campbell would resign as superintendent at the end of the 1907-1908 school year. One-by-one, the girls would marry and assume their own lives. Langley would also marry, resign her position on the Fort Shaw staff, and move away with her husband.
Josie Langley's girls' triumph in St. Louis would not be forgotten forever. And neither would she.
After three years of fund-raising and planning, on Saturday, May 1, 2004, some 400 people, including the descendants of the Fort Shaw Ten and others, gathered on the grounds on the centennial of the team's greatest triumph to honor them on the site where the Fort Shaw School once stood.
They also dedicated a memorial to them, a steel arch that rises sixteen feet. Atop the monument, a bronze basketball bears images of the team and the names of the ten teammates as the declaration at the top of the arch proclaims to a new generation: 1904 World Champions.
The monument to the World's Greatest Girls Basketball Team of 1904 is located approximately 20 miles west of Great Falls via Montana Highway 200, a half-mile northwest of town on the grounds of old Fort Shaw School.
Source: Peavy, Linda, and Smith, Ursula, Full-Court Quest; RoadsideAmerica.com.
A version of this article appears in 100+ Native American Women Who Changed the World, Winner, 2014 International Book Award, Women's Issues Category, by KB Schaller, and also as a blog, They Stood Before Kings, christianpost.com/bindings, January 13, 2012.
References: Oklahoma Press, 2008, Winslow, William, M.D.(Fort Shaw Indian School); Hoopedia, Fort Shaw Indian School; Peavy, Linda, and Smith, Ursula, Full-Court Quest, University of Oklahoma Press, 2008; Cabe, Delia, World Beaters, Humanities, November/December 2010, Volume 31, Number 6 (Fort Shaw Girls Basketball team); Wikipedia
Cherokee/Seminole heritage author KB Schaller's books are available through Amazon.com and most major booksellers. She lives in South Florida. Contact: soaring-eagles@msn.com; http://www.KBSchaller.com.
