Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn

Larry Colton travels into Montana's Crow country in pursuit of a story of how young men on the reservation (the rez) are using basketball as a way to regain hope and honor. A chance sighting of a graceful and instinctive female player in a pickup game changes all that. After seeing Sharon LaForge, Colton switches the focus of his quest and becomes a shadow of the Hardin High Lady Bulldogs, in their quest to make it to the... Read Full Review

No political correctness here, no trumpeting idealism, no hard-breathing expose of the flaws of the reservation Indians or the whites who live around and among them. Larry Colton gives us only reality, a reality that condemns racism on both sides but shows the hurdles that the residents of Hardin put in front of themselves. His real-life characters don't do what any of his readers might expect them to do or want them to do;... Read Full Review

Larry Colton tries hard to remain objective and detached in writing his account of life on the rez, and of Sharon LaForge's attempts to transcend it by excelling at basketball. He fails miserably in his attempt--getting caught up in Sharon's struggle, telling us about his own life, injecting his opinions about how the coach should be coaching--and the book is infinitely better for it. An objective, detached account would... Read Full Review

In the tradition of Madeleine Blais (IN THESE GIRLS, HOPE IS A MUSCLE) and H.G. Bissinger (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS), Larry Colton spends a season living in Hardin, Montana, studying the lives of the girls' basketball team and the members of the Crow Indian tribe who are members. In particular, he focuses on the team's leading player, senior Sharon Laforge, whose talent seems to insure that she will escape the generational poverty... Read Full Review

This book is a multi-layered tale that will take you on a roller coaster of an emotional ride. If anyone is looking for evidence that racism continues to have a profound impact on the way that we relate to one another as human beings, look no further than this tremendous book. Larry Colton spent 15 months with members of the Crow Indian tribe in Montana. He followed the fortunes of the Hardin High School girls' basketball... Read Full Review