Pourier makes mark at RC Stevens
Senior shooting guard only going to get better
By James Giago Davies
Native Sun News Today Correspondent
nativesunnews.today
RAPID CITY— Much has changed for Box Elder’s
Dylan Pourier since he was a sophomore at Douglas High School. He had his coming out party last year in Sioux Falls at State AA, as the Douglas Patriots finished fifth, and fans were wondering who this high flying scoring machine from out west was, and where had he been hiding. Since then, he has transferred to Rapid City Stevens to play his senior year under Head Coach Chris Stoebner, hoping to get the kind of experience and exposure needed to contribute to a good college program.
“The biggest thing for me right now is getting consistent on the outside and knocking down shots,” Pourier said. “You know, last year (at Douglas) we kind of had our roles, drive and kick, and that’s how we got shooters open, and if you were catching the ball, it was off a good pass inside out. The biggest adjustment, is AA basketball is a lot more physical, and the help defense comes over a lot faster, and there’s a lot more guys in the paint when you’re in there. So, you have to knock down outside shots and midrange jumpers, just gotta keep working on it.”
Pourier is pleasant and even tempered, on and off the court, and he has no problem processing frustrations. Only his basketball is sudden and explosive. He is not a big talker, but he expresses himself well, and from the things that he shares when he does open up, it is obvious he spends time planning and reasoning his options out sensibly. More than anything else, he is remarkably free of attitude or ego given the level of his talent and athletic accomplishments.
He also wants to make clear why he transferred from Douglas to Stevens for his senior year: “Transferring, there’s been a lot of talk why I did it, but honestly, it was 100% selfish; I wanted to do the best for me, I wanted to make sure I was put in the right position to play college basketball, and get better as a person, and see what it was like playing these big schools night in and night out.”
But having spent his life in Box Elder, Pourier appreciates where he was raised and the things that were done for him: “Coach Miller, (Travis Miller, head coach at Douglas) ever since Seventh Grade, was raising me to be a basketball player for him. I could talk to him about anything, whether I had off court stuff or about school, or whatever, he was always there for me. On the basketball side of things, he kind of let us become our own players, in everybody’s respective style. That’s what I really appreciate about him the most, he let us find out who we really were as a basketball player. I owe a lot to him.”
The man, Pourier said he owes the most, is Mike Clark at Douglas: “He unlocks the gym and just rebounds for me. He lets me decide what drills I am gonna do. He’s all about helping people to get better, and he’ll unlock the gym for anybody, you just have to ask, and he’ll make time and he’ll go in, so I owe everything I have in basketball to those nights in the gym with me and him.”
Pourier was born at the Pine Ridge hospital in October of 2000. His mother, Angela, was living in Oelrichs at the time, but relocated to Box Elder just before her boy turned four. A surprising number of Lakota ballplayers were coming through Miller’s program as Pourier developed in the system, and Miller did not coach out their rez ball instincts.
“Rez ball, that’s like my favorite basketball,” Pourier said. “Coming (to Stevens), everything is more half court, and they get back on defense. These guys are just bigger and stronger and more athletic, so you can’t just push the ball, you have to run that half court stuff. When rez ball is not working, you have to deal with that half court, and that’s hard for me. If last year, rez ball wasn’t working, we just continued to play, it didn’t matter.”
Even though he has been raised off reservation, Pourier has the mind and heart of a Lakota rez ball player, but when you see the other Lakota athletes he connects with, it is not surprising that they are athletes similar to himself: well-schooled, but flexible and capable of playing any style, more than that, the type of kids that are already focused on the world outside of basketball, and Pourier much admires that quality in them: “I love
Ale (Rama) and Corey (Brown), anytime I get to hang out with him, we’re hangin’ out. Obviously, I don’t get a chance to see them a lot. Kids on the rez, seeing those two, what they’re doing…Corey (who plays for Pine Ridge), there’s no way in high school you’re getting triple doubles as a sophomore and not picking up offers, same thing with Ale. He’s a great basketball player, plays for a great team (Red Cloud), plays for a great coach (Christian McGhee), and those kids see that, and oh, those two can do that, and being from the rez, you’re competitive, and you think, oh, I can do it better.”
Angela wasn’t sure her boy Dylan should transfer to Stevens. And had he known what he knows now, Pourier would have broached the subject with her differently: “I texted after state basketball, because I didn’t want to talk to her, face-to-face, so I texted her and I was like do you think it’s a possibility of me transferring to Stevens, and I got a text back probably like 2 1/2 hours later that said, we’ll talk about it. And that talk didn’t happen for like two or three weeks, and I was like, it’s not gonna happen, whatever. Decided to make a deal with her, I promise to get a part time job, I promise to pay for my own gas, and that was like the deal breaker, you could see it in her face, and she was like, okay, and that was pretty much it. It took a while, but I didn’t think of that, I should have thought about it earlier, of the gas money thing.”
With the gas money solution in place, Dylan started a busy, three-part schedule that still ties up most of his day and leaves very little time for a social life.
James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com
Copyright permission Native Sun News Today
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