Frozen Basketball

I looked at the Frozen Basketball Interactive by Vincent Laforet of the New York Times. The piece follows Nikki Dill, 16, and her life in Unalakleek, AK as a basketball player. The piece wasn’t extremely powerful and did not evoke a very strong emotional response, as say a piece on those injured in Iraq, but it was thought provoking and interesting.

The first picture I felt was a great way to start the piece. It shows the narrator of the interactive, Dill, at head height with the rim of a ten foot basketball goal due to the snow being piled so high. You could see the dedication and desire by Laforet to capture the feel of the community with the aerial picture of Unalakleek. A subtle, but I think definitely intentional message from the piece was the strong bonds and feelings of community that are present in the Inopia people. These are ancient people that have lived together for hundreds of years, and have been forming communal bonds through many different mediums and it is amazing to me how it has transitioned to basketball as the medium through which the community comes together. Dill mentions in the piece that that is was ‘everyone’ does at night, is hang out in the basketball gym. I applaud Laforet for finding an interesting and unique story idea, and sharing it in a way that reaches people who may have never known what goes on in Unalakleek, Alaska.