A Poem by Missoula poet Norman Wicklund Macleod – 1941
A poem by Norman Wicklund Macleod – 1941*
We Played the Flatheads at Arlee
From miles around the Indians came to see us
Play basketball against the Flatheads at Arlee.
The stakes were high and the floor narrow –
The Indians wore their black hair parted,
Drawn back sharp as the split edge of a tomahawk
From both sides of the copper forehead.
The game was angry –
Never until the dead end were we
Sure of winning.
But if they lost,
We knew it had not always been their habit
To be losing.
Never had basketball on a Jesuit court
Been a game of their own choosing.
Macleod discussed this basketball game and other aspects of his youth in Missoula in a Pembroke Magazine article in 1973. Macleod founded this little college magazine in 1969 at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke, and it still survives after 43 yearly issues. Excerpts from his story appear in the article “The Traveling Sataspians.”