All-star game coming to Haskell

Haskell Stadium will be the site of the first Native American All-Star football game on June 22.

Approximately 70 graduated high school seniors, all of Native American heritage, from 13 states will participate in the all-star contest, according to Jeff Bigger, the game’s organizer.

“The people will get to see top-notch talent,” Bigger said. “Forty percent of them have already signed and the other 60 percent are weighing their options.”

Bigger runs Okscouting, a recruiting service located in Tulsa, Okla.

Players will report a week from today, then practice for four days prior to the 7:30 p.m. kickoff. They’ll be boarded in Haskell dorms. Bigger said he had several sponsors, including Nike and the National Football League Players Assn.

Tickets will cost $5.

“That’s less than you have to pay for some high school games,” Bigger said.

Herman Boone of Alexandria, La., who was featured in the movie “Remember the Titans,” will coach one of the squads. Carl Madison, the winningest high school coach in Florida, will be in charge of the other team.

Bigger said he picked Haskell Indian Nations University as the site for the first all-star game involving Native Americans primarily because it was an Indian school and because of its location.

“We were trying to find a central location because of travel costs,” Bigger said.

Phil Homeratha, HINU’s interim athletic director, admitted his first reaction to Bigger’s request was skepticism.

“At first I was a little tentative,” Homeratha said, “but we’re not hosting the game. We’re just the site of it. But I think it will be good for Haskell because the game will bring in kids who couldn’t afford to come and see the campus otherwise.”

Eric Brock, the Fightin’ Indians first-year coach, seconds the motion.

“It is so hard with our budget to get kids to visit the campus so it’s a great recruiting tool,” Brock said. “We’ve contacted all those kids and told them we’ll be holding some spots with the admissions office if they want to come after they’ve been here.”

Brock, HINU’s third football coach in the last three years, was hired in April. A former wide receiver at Haskell when the school was a junior college, the 28-year-old Brock had been defensive coordinator at Fort Lewis State College in Durango, Colo.

Four of the players selected for the all-star game have already told Brock they’ll be enrolling at HINU in the fall  Jeremy Pulse, a defensive lineman from Porum, Okla.; Aaron Henry, an offensive lineman from Chinle, Ariz.; Rick Shaddon, a lineman from Sherman, Texas; and Eli Garcia, a tackle from Acoma, N.M.

“A lot of the other kids want to check it out,” Brock said, “and they’ll say one way or the other while they’re here.”

On the morning of the game, Bigger will conduct a combine in which the players can showcase their skills and be evaluated by college scouts. That session will also be open to the public, Bigger said.