El Monte Player to Compete in Europe Tourney

Watching the Olympics on television this week, Valerie Roybal thinks she’s seen the shape of things to come.

“It’s like, man, that’s probably me in the future,” she says.

That’s no idle expectation for 15-year-old Valerie, who spoke from her El Monte home as she prepared to hop on a plane from Los Angeles to Brussels, Belgium, where she will compete in the European Community Basketball Tournament.

The weeklong tournament brings together 48 U.S. high school teams and pits them against high school players from Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland and Croatia.

A guard on the Arroyo High School squad as well as an avid softball and volleyball player, Valerie was selected by a scout in February to join the 12-member Southern California team.

The opportunity caught her by surprise, she said. “I’m just happy.”

She has been playing basketball since she was 6, when she saw her older brother dribbling and wanted to join in the fun.

“It’s my life to play,” Valerie said. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, whenever I have the time.’ ”

Valerie’s mother, Dolores Roybal, said her daughter soon left her two brothers, 18 and 11, in the dust.

“It’s hard to keep up,” she said. “The two boys, sometimes they’re like, ‘Jeez, we never have a chance.’ ”

The tournament will be Valerie’s first trip to Europe, and although she’ll start playing immediately after her 17-hour flight (she says she’s not worried about jet lag), she plans to do some sightseeing at the end of the tournament.

On Wednesday night, as her mother worried about the dangers of flying--now more than ever following the explosion of TWA Flight 800 last month--Valerie prepared herself for the trek and spoke of how she would promote her Native American ancestry in Europe.

Valerie is a Gabrieleno Indian who participates in dances and parades and wants to be a tribal lawyer if she decides against playing or coaching basketball.

“More people will know about it,” she said of discussing her heritage overseas. “Right now nobody knows who we are. I’ll tell them who we are and then people will know we’re still alive and not conquered.”