FINDING HIS VOICE
Badgers star Koenig embracing heritage as Native American
Wisconsin point guard Bronson Koenig doesn’t shy away from being a role model — he embraces the job. He has become the leader of a Badgers team that plays Florida in Friday’s Sweet 16 in the Garden, and a leader in the Native American community that all too often hasn’t had a voice of its own.
“I hear from a lot of Native Americans through social media, Twitter, Facebook, everything. And yes, it definitely makes me proud because that’s who I am, a part of my identity,” said Koenig, whose mother, Ethel Funmaker, is full-blood Ho-Chunk tribe and said he never had Native American role models growing up. “No, not at all.”
Now Koenig, averaging a team-high 14.5 points and hitting 39.5 percent from 3point land, is happy to provide that role model he didn’t have.
“Yeah, for sure, because there’s not that many Native American role models, so I just try to do my part,’’ Koenig said. “I realize that I have a voice, especially in the Native American community. My mother has always pushed me to be that role model and to use my voice, so I’m just doing what I think is right.”
The aptly named Klutch Koenig has done a lot right at crunch time the past two years. He’s has a 50.7 shooting percent from deep in the last five minutes and/or overtime, and his 22.5 points per game in this NCAA Tournament is fourth-best in the Sweet 16. Frankly, the Garden seems to be the only place he hasn’t shot well, 33.3 percent in three previous games.
“It was just not being mentally prepared, I’d say,’’ Koenig said with a shrug. “I’m glad we get another chance to play in this historic arena. … Obviously this is the most historic arena in basketball, all the legends that’ve played here.”
Koenig is building his Big Dance rep himself. He’s 13-3 all-time after last year’s buzzer-beater edged Xavier and last weekend’s 17 points led a come-from-behind upset of defending-champ Villanova.
“[It] just let us know we could play with anybody,’’ Koenig said.
Though he drove that upset win, it was another drive that was more vital — a 1,500-mile round-trip September trek with his older brother Miles from La Crosse, Wis., to Fort Yates, N.D., to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and others, are fighting construction of the pipeline because it would run right through sacred burial sites and could con- taminate the area’s water supply. (The Army Corps of Engineers had withheld a permit to stop completion, but four days after taking office President Donald Trump signed an executive order that reversed the decision.)
Keonig and his brother coordinated with charities to pack an 18-foot trailer with food, water, shoes, coats and a pair of generators. They even held a basketball clinic for kids.
“Once-in-a-lifetime experience,’’ Koenig said. “I learned a lot and I’ll remember it forever, just being there out in North Dakota in a field basically, cold as hell, with thousands of Native Americans, not only from that area but this whole continent, indigenous people, and just feeling like one.”
More and more, Koenig, whose father is white — the point guard struggled with his identity as a youth — is feeling at one with his heritage. He has a Ho-Chunk tattoo in traditional headdress and war paint on his right pectoral, and a dreamcatcher tattoo on his left rib cage. Friday, he will be dreaming about getting Wisconsin into the Elite Eight.