Lexus Redthunder and LeRoy Staples Fairbanks IV play college basketball on the site of a former Indian boarding school. Their story is the heart of Medicine Ball, a new documentary premiering on PBS during Native American Heritage Month. It airs Monday, Nov. 9, at 8 p.m. Central.
Directed by Leya Hale, the film follows the two University of Minnesota Morris athletes and asks why basketball means so much to Native people. Their stories show how the game became a symbol of resilience, hope, and pride – a way to carry culture forward, build community, and find joy even in hard times.
“Medicine Ball is about more than basketball. It’s about identity, belonging, and the ways Native young people carry history while creating their own paths forward,” Hale said.
For Redthunder, the history is personal. Her great-grandmother attended the Morris Industrial School for Indians, which once stood where Redthunder later starred for the Cougars women’s team. She’s from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and graduated with degrees in Native American and Indigenous Studies and Political Science. Today, she advocates for Native youth.
The school ran from 1887 to 1909. Students there were banned from speaking their languages or practicing their traditions. When Congress handed the land to Minnesota, it required that Native students attend tuition-free, a promise UMN Morris still keeps.
Staples Fairbanks pulls double duty. A senior from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, he plays basketball and golf while studying Sport Management. Proud of his Ojibwe heritage, he encourages kids from reservation communities to chase college and college sports.
The film opens with the players at practice, mixed with clips of former President Joe Biden’s 2024 apology for federal Indian boarding school policy. Dakota historian Syd Beane, the film’s executive producer, helps them dig into how Native basketball and boarding school history overlap.
Behind the camera, Hale has her own tie to the story. Like Redthunder, she’s Sisseton Wahpeton, and she’s also Diné. A multiple regional Emmy-winning producer at Minnesota PBS, she’s made The People’s Protectors, Bring Her Home and The Electric Indian. Earlier this year, she won the Minnesota Filmmaker Award at the Zeitgeist Minnesota Film Festival.
Hale won’t let the pain have the last word. “I hope audiences see the strength, joy, and cultural pride that live alongside the harder parts of this story,” she said.
Boarding schools like Morris were built to make Native kids forget who they were. More than a century later, Native students are on that campus hooping, studying, and telling their own stories on public TV. Looks like the plan didn’t work.
Learn more at MinnesotaPBS.org/medicine-ball-film.
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