Rich Crow Eagle – Some of them dudes could HOOP - Rivalry WEEK remembers some of the great basketbal
When the Todd County boys hit the Warrior Dome Saturday in St. Francis, Warrior coach Rich Crow Eagle will help lead his team into battle against his old team, his high school team, the Todd County Falcons.
Crow Eagle might have one of the most unique perspectives on the Todd County vs. St. Francis rivalry.
He’s the current coach at St. Francis
He played for Todd County in the late 90’s with a career that propelled him to college where he played both basketball and golf.
When he was younger, pre high-school, he used to go to practices and games at St. Francis while his dad, Roger Crow Eagle, was the boys coach at St. Francis Indian.
As part of the rivalry week productions from the Rosebud Media Department, we will be taking a look at the rivalry with some unique perspectives on the rivalry that is St. Francis vs. Todd County.
Asked Rich about his memories of the rivalry.
At the end of his comments he thanked us for the questions as he said, “Your questioning brought back some old, old memories as some of them dudes could hoop.”
Rich Crow Eagle’s thoughts on the rivalry - It's tough to put into words as being on both sides of this deal. I can remember going to practices and games with teams of the past as my dad was a coach for St Francis. So I spent quite some time with the teams. It was cool to be accepted by them, whether it be participating in drills or just being allowed to hang out with, to and from games. Shoot, I can remember a lot of players from early 90's - Elton Menard, Tony Bordeaux, Dave Reddest, John Two Strike, Ross Bordeaux, Rich McKinney, Lee Bad Hand, Merv Hairy Shirt, LT Bad Hand, Keith Sun Bear, James Eagleman, Ben Black Bear, Alvin (Pizza) Bear Heels, Cornell Douville, Donavan Fool Bull, and Kevin Kelly.
Of course some of the guys that I looked up to, or was able to watch play, came from both sides of this deal. From the Todd County side, I can remember watching Cliff Larson shooting deep three's, Sonny Farmer, George Long, that group of players from 91 and 92 state teams, Nick Grimshaw, Brandon Wilson, Mel Staples, and Ken Wike just to name a few.
During my time as a player in '97’, St Francis had a pretty good team, that I believe made it to a championship game vs Burke. If memory serves me right, they had Cornell Menard, Owen Marshall, Jerrell Eagleman, Damien Little Elk, and a host of juniors on that team. They were a pretty good team, coached by Red Prue. They had some big dudes that could score down low and Menard was a scoring machine.
As far as coaching in this thing, the ultimate goal is to win, we have been successful for sometime in this game now and the coaching staff will come up with a solid game plan to try and have us successful at the end. As far as the extra juice, during the jamboree we had a few weeks ago, the falcons are pretty confident that they can come out on top in this one, as they let our kids know about it. It should be a good game for the fans in attendance.
