Analyss Benally grew up in Shiprock on the Navajo Nation and went on to play Division I basketball at San Jose State, graduating in 2021. Since then, she has played professionally across Europe. What began as a Facebook page her father created to share updates about her basketball career evolved into AB Five Basketball, the nonprofit Benally now uses to bring free camps and clinics to Native youth throughout the Southwest.
This summer, AB Five returned to Shiprock for another free camp, drawing volunteer coaches — including former Los Angeles Lakers guard Andre Ingram — and young athletes from across the region. Since 2022, the organization has hosted more than 55 camps, with a mission of making basketball more accessible in tribal communities.
This story is sponsored by Ace Hardware of Farmington and Fitness World.
Our Sponsors
Learn More
Transcript
All right. You all ready? Yeah. All right. On two, I want everybody, what’s my number one rule? What’s the number one rule? So on two, I want to hear everybody have fun. One, two. All right, here we go. All right, you all ready to play some basketball today? You’re watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Ace Hardware Farmington and Fitness World. A little bit about myself. So I was born and raised here in Shiprock, New Mexico of the Navajo Nation. I graduated from playing D1 ball at San Jose State in 2021. Ever since then, I’ve been a pro overseas basketball player. I’ve been playing all in Europe. It, it was really simple. My dad kind of just started out on a Facebook page, really just updating my friends and family of my career after high school. Kind of just what I’ve been doing in college and then when my professional career was starting up we started to gain some traction from that. And then when I came back from my first year overseas, my dad was saying we should host a couple of camps, teaching the kids, the indigenous kids, just some drills, some things that I’ve learned from some of the highest levels high school, D1 and overseas ball. And then it’s kind of just been growing ever since. Just being able to bring basketball wherever we can and become a resource for other tribes and areas that, you know, can’t make it to the big cities or anywhere near. So that’s kind of our main mission is to become a resource for the tribes. Well really the way that I started out was I was partnered with a nonprofit that always hosted everything for free. So it was kind of just in a normal rotation for me to kind of just keep that going. And I think that it’s one of the easiest ways to bring a lot of numbers and kids. And I think anything that you do and you love, if you do it, if you do it free, then it’s all for the greater good. And it makes the experience a little bit, I think a little bit easier and better for us. The camp featured many great volunteer coaches, but most notable was former Los Angeles Laker, Andre Ingram. Oh, we recently just opened up our website, abfivebasketball.com. So we have a page on there where you can contact us. We also have our social medias. We have our emails on all of our social medias and also on the website. So that’s the best way. We’re always looking for more partners. The more resources the better. Thank you for watching this edition of the Local News Network. To learn more, visit abfivebasketball.com as well as AB Five Basketball on Facebook and Instagram. And for more stories like this, visit LNN.news.
