Collegiate Basketball Player Kamryn Gentry (Choctaw) Sets the Standard

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28-27 reads like the score of a really competitive football game occurring on any given Saturday or Sunday in this country.  But this number doesn’t represent such a game.  These were some of the numbers put up by Kamryn Gentry (28 points; 27 rebounds) during a recent collegiate game in Missouri.

During her first three years of high school in her hometown of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, 5’10 Choctaw Nation citizen Kamryn Gentry played behind another Choctaw Nation citizen and eventual University of Oklahoma women’s basketball signee, 6’4 Aspen Williston.  After two years of playing in the Big 12, Aspen recently transferred to play at the University of South Dakota where she is now a junior.   Those three years were a great learning experience for Kamryn, who in her sophomore collegiate year at Ozark Christian College is averaging 15.3 points, 16.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game to go along with 10 steals and 10 blocks during the season’s first 13 games.  Her team is currently 7-6 overall with a 3-1 conference record.

Ozark Christian Women’s Basketball Assistant Coach Sarah Rhodes had this to say about Kamryn,

“Kamryn is a joy to have in our program. She is an excellent student and she has been a force for us inside the paint.  We look forward to seeing all that she accomplishes throughout the rest of the season and are thankful to have her on our team!”

With only two scholarship offers coming out of high school, Gentry accepted one to NAIA affiliated Bacone College for her freshman year.  During this first year she was honored as Tribal College Freshman of the Year among the 30 tribal colleges/universities spread throughout the nation.  She was also a finalist for Tribal College Defensive Player of the Year.  During the course of that first-season, she had already been named a National Tribal Athlete of the Week honoree.  Kamryn made the transfer to Ozark Christian after the conclusion of her first year due to the pursuit of a nursing degree which was not being offered by Bacone, but was available through a joint initiative between Ozark Christian College and nearby Missouri Southern State University.  At the end of January 2021, she was selected as the NCCAA (National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association) National Student-Athlete of the Week.

The youngest of four siblings (she has three older brothers serving in a variety of capacities such as the Marines and in an accountancy position for their tribal nation), there were always sports venues and competitions to be around and immersed in during her upbringing.  She credits her parents, Wayne and Valarie Gentry (both of whom are Choctaw), for providing her with an upbringing of complete support and opportunity to pursue her love for the game and other interests.   Despite her school’s location in Missouri, her mom and dad have been there for many of her games this year, continuing the years of encouragement she has been blessed to receive.  This encouragement extends to the comfort she finds in prayer and her faith; a pathway begun in her early days attending a small Indian church and which continues on today in church community she engages as a university student.

With statistics placing her in the top tier of university basketball players nationally, it is another statistic which places Kamryn in even more elite company.  For the first time in her academic career, Kamryn saw a single “B” find its way to her transcript, where A’s had always existed in exclusivity.  Not bad for  someone balancing a challenging degree program spanning two college campuses, while also maintaining a full university athletic schedule in the midst of a pandemic.

Going forward, we should all be on the lookout for many more “football scores” being posted in the games and seasons to come by this remarkable young Indigenous woman.