Two Nome teams compete at NYO

By Laura Robertson

This year, two Nome teams competed at the Native Youth Olympic Games in Anchorage during the state event held last weekend in April.
As usual, Nome-Beltz sent a team to compete, but this year, for the first time, Nome also sent a tribal team to the Games: Ugiuvaŋmiut Anaktautit, or King Island NYO Team.
Mary Ulroan, a history teacher at Nome-Beltz, coached the Nanooks while Vanessa Tahbone and Hank Irelan coached Ugiuvaŋmiut Anaktautit.
“It was really cool that we were able to represent a tribe,” said Tahbone. “If we come together as a community, you know, anything’s possible.”
Tahbone started coaching NYO when she was in high school and had been the Nome-Beltz coach for eight years. This year, NBHS decided to put the coaching contract through in-house recruitment. They chose Ulroan as the new NBHS coach.
Ulroan has been coaching since 1997, primarily in her hometown of Chevak, AK.
A couple of seniors who Tahbone had coached since middle school wanted to stay with her. They reached out to King Island, and the tribe said they’d be happy to have the young athletes represent them.
Irelan, who has also coached NYO and WEIO in Nome for well over a decade, said that there are strategic benefits to having two teams represent Nome at the state competition. In NYO, only one boy and one girl from each team can enter an event. Some of the bigger schools have two teams, an A team and a B team. If Nome has a tribal team and an NBHS team, multiple Nomeites could compete in the same events.
Several years ago, Nome had had “three of the best seal hoppers in the state,” Irelan said, but only one could compete in each event. “If we had a tribal team, we could have had two people from Nome. And with the number of tribes here, we could have had a third tribal team,” said Irelan. He explained that if Nome could take the top three spots in an event, it would be hard for other teams to catch up in their points.
Both teams had a short season this year, with the Nome-Beltz team only getting around six weeks of practice and the King Island team getting around four.
In Anchorage this year, two BSSD students medaled as did one Nome student. Kylierose Paniptchuk took home second in the One-hand Reach. Micah Ivanoff was second in the seal hop.
Nome’s Wyatt Ahmasuk took third in the stick pull.
Carter Snowball won a Fair Play Pin.
“I just feel very privileged to be part of this team, because the kids represented themselves so well,” said Ulroan.
Tahbone said she would like to continue to coach a tribal team in the future and also hopes to coach an elementary team this fall. “The hope is to try to start another cohort of young athletes to emerge younger, and get them interested younger, and hopefully continue out through their high school career,” she said.
Ulroan also hopes to have kids practice year round, although she said it wouldn’t be mandatory for kids who wanted to be on the team. “I always tell the kids, this is not just one event. It’s not just when season starts. It’s a yearlong thing.”