Next Wednesday, the 13th of December, the Lakota Nation Invitational basketball tournament kicks off for the 19th time. I was an assistant basketball coach for Little Wound High School during the 2000-2001 season and experienced the LNI from courtside. It's one of the great sporting events that exists, a single elimination basketball tournament during the Christmas season that gathers all of the Lakota high schools in the state of South Dakota to the Rapid City Civic Center to do battle for the honor and pride of their home communities. It's something between the NCAA tournament and an old tribal summer gathering, when the kids used to compete at riding, shooting, getting girls...