Brave New World

The pale desert stretches for miles around the gleaming gymnasium, tumbleweeds blowing past hardwood, sagebrush tickling glass.

Yet on this weekday afternoon, the contrasting neighbors share a certain silence.

Outside, it is the beginnings of winter. Inside, it is the start of basketball season.

The Noli Indian High Braves of San Jacinto take the floor against the Fort Mojave (Ariz.) Warriors in a scrimmage that sounds like a study hall.

There are no cheers, because they have no cheerleaders. There is no music, because they have no pep band.

There is no munching of popcorn, because there is no concession stand. There is no shouting of players’ names, because the two rows of bleachers contain only three parents and a handful of students.

Noli plays behind a curtain of silence wrapped in a cloak of hopelessness, because also absent here is any sort of basketball experience.

None of the nine Braves has ever played a full season of organized basketball.

There are guards who recently didn’t understand the concept of traveling, forwards who thought it was legal to bounce the ball off opponents’ heads, like in video games, and two centers who must play together for reasons that do not involve strategy.

“The one big guy understands the three-second rule, the other big guy is just learning it,” says Edwin Guadamuz, an assistant coach. “So it is the one guy’s job to push the other guy out of the lane every three seconds to remind him.”

The players are all new, and so are the coaches. Guadamuz calls all the plays because the head coach, Jon Ruiz, has never played before, either.

“I bought the complete guide to basketball, or something like that,” Ruiz says. “It’s out in the truck.”

The school is 16 years old, but the team is starting from scratch, again, its past members either graduating or unable to endure seasons filled with double-digit defeats.

There being only 65 boys in the coed high school, the pool is small. With daily four-hour round-trip bus rides awaiting those students who come to the Soboba Reservation from distant reservations, the commitment must be strong.

With few watching because the long commute means there can be no night games, the love must be real.

“We don’t have size, we don’t have speed, we don’t have much,” says the school principal, Donovan Post. “But what we do have is heart.”

Three hundred and eighty-four years after the first Thanksgiving, they truly have that.

The Native American spirit blows strong here in a group of kids thankful for a sport they barely play, thankful for games they cannot win, thankful to represent a heritage that will not be forgotten.

“Despite all the problems, the kids keep coming out because it’s about more than basketball, it’s about being an ambassador for their culture,” Guadamuz says. “They like being the little Indian school trying to knock down the giants.”

On this day, the giant wins, 51-17, sending the Braves into another chilly night and endless bus ride with sweat-stained shirts and long faces.

“It doesn’t matter that we lost,” says Drew Marcus, a senior guard, his face still glistening as he awaits his bus in the dark. “It just matters that we played.”

*

Joseph Kupsch walks over to the bleachers with a heavy sigh. The game has not yet begun, yet already he looks worn. He is your typical Noli Brave.

“I had never even seen a game in person before this year,” says the sophomore guard. “But I thought it would be fun.”

Every morning at 5:15, Kupsch rolls his 5-foot-3 frame out of bed on the Los Coyotes Reservation, two hours from San Jacinto. The bus will arrive at 6 a.m. He will ride it until it reaches school at 8.

He will attend classes, then join the team for an afternoon practice that must end by 4 because the buses won’t stay later. He rides two hours home for studying and chores before the cycle begins again the following morning.

It is a routine that will be interrupted only by the occasional defeat and embarrassment by some small school whose fans might ridicule the Noli ponytails or mock their ancestry.

“I don’t care about winning or losing, I’m doing this for fun,” Kupsch says. “I want to be part of something.”

Last season, as usual, it was something ugly. The Braves were 2-8, including going winless in the Arrowhead League, losing by such scores as 69-21, 66-25 and 77-29.

Because of a shortage of bus drivers, not once were they allowed to practice after school. When the season ended, the coach was promoted to vice principal and the team disappeared.

Six weeks ago, as they always do here, officials decided to field another team. They summoned Ruiz, a teacher and former football player, to lead it. He called his buddy Guadamuz to help.

“I looked around and figured there was no place to go but up,” Guadamuz says.

They held the first practice, 14 new kids showed up, they ran their first suicide sprint.

“Then two of our most promising kids just walked off the court, just like that,” Guadamuz says. “They quit after one sprint. We’re like, uh-oh.”

The new coaches quickly realized that this was not just another team. This was a team where kids didn’t need basketball for the reasons most kids need basketball. They didn’t need it for the future, because, in many cases, their future was already set.

When most of the team turns 18 or receives high school diplomas, they will receive per capita payments from their tribes’ casino revenue, often in excess of $10,000 a month.

“That changes the way everything is viewed among our young people,” principal Post says. “When they think their lives are already set, it’s tough to convince them to take the next step.”

Or, steps.

The coaches struggled with endurance drills because weary players would just quit.

The coaches muted their scoldings, because angry players would just walk away.

“It is so hard for these kids to be here, in so many ways, we have to make it easy for them to stay,” Ruiz says. “If we run them off, we won’t have a team.”

So an uneasy truce was formed, the coaches making the best of an untenable situation, the remaining players trying to understand.

Their practice can’t include many important repetitions because there isn’t enough time. Their teaching can’t be too complicated because some of these kids are so tired, they feign illness and sleep for an hour in the nurse’s office.

“We start from scratch, from basics, and we slowly work our way up,” Guadamuz says.

And, somehow, some way, it has worked.

There are enough guys Monday to play in the first scrimmage, a triumph in itself.

In an era of selfishness, they all pass the ball, another triumph, even though they make so many bad passes, they rarely shoot.

“There was a time in this school’s history where members of different tribes didn’t like each other; it was very hard,” Post says. “Sports here helped change that.”

Losing or not, on this afternoon they coexist as one Native American nation, cheering for each other during the game, sharing deodorant in the locker room afterward.

“I’ve got my money waiting for me when I’m done, I know that,” Escalante says. “But I know that some day, that money could be taken away, and I need something else.”

For these few kids, that something is clearly this.

After Monday’s 34-point loss, trying to console them in their tiny locker room that they will leave without showering, Ruiz says, “Hey, fellas, this is not that big of a deal, it is not ...”

He is interrupted by his captain.

“Yes, it is,” Escalante says.

“What?” Ruiz says.

“I said, yes, it is a big deal,” Escalante says again, and his teammates murmur, and the coaches smile, and, at least for now, the silence is lifted.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.