He didn't need to.

The realities of these players' lives come through simply and elegantly on their own. They are very aware of themselves as Indians, but they also have to learn trigonometry like any other high school students, also play video games... Marijuana use is a big issue, as is the deceptive easiness of life when every tribe member gets a "cap check" representing his or her equal share of the tribe's mineral royalties, removing a lot of the urgency behind the need to plan for the future or find lasting employment after the glory days of high school basketball are gone and the player has joined the many who went before him, playing "independent" basketball in year-long intramural reservation basketball leagues.

It's almost as if these players' lives are shortened and intensified when they are Chiefs; at age 16 they may not even be six feet tall yet, but their vertical leaps of 20 inches or more and their stunning prowess at slam dunks, steals and flying alley oops that no other Wyoming high school players ever seem to reach, combined with the closeness of small town school life and the even greater closeness of tribal life make these boys living gods at their schools, with small fry clamoring for their autographs after games and everyone noting their every moves in practice, in school, and on the boards. Then they graduate.

A few each year go off to college, after a fashion. As the film progresses, we see Brian Sounding Sides boarding a plane to fly off to attend a united tribal college in North Dakota. It will be his first time flying, but more importantly, it will be his first time living a life removed from his own people, what's left of their ways, and the equally insular world of high school basketball, which brings these boys out amongst the predominantly white populace of Wyoming but tightly restricts and controls their interactions there. Play basketball. Brief visit to Target (to buy eyedrops to hide the pot-smoking). Sit in motel room. Ride bus.

Within three weeks, Sounding Sides decides he "doesn't like" college and is back on the rez. As the film's epilog shares, he now lives at home, and plays independent basketball.

A question "Chiefs" inspires but does not address is, is it possible to keep all of the qualities that make Indian basketball great but ditch the insularity, the lack of preparedness for the rest of the world that sends all but a rare few of these hoop gods back to the reservation before they've even finished a year outside? There are always a few glimmers of hope; one of the C'Bearings is a student now at Chadron State in Nebraska, we are told in the epilog, and Tom Robinson won a rodeo scholarship to a community college in Wyoming. There's two... out of how many?