Powwows are ceremonial gatherings of North America’s indigenous peoples that deliver ritual focus, solidarity, collective identity, cohesion, and cultural persistence through song, dance, and social interaction. Powwows underwent significant transformations after indigenous peoples’ contact with European colonialists. The Gathering of Nations Powwow is a large intertribal contest powwow (LICP) that attracts over 3,500 dancers who compete for prize money in front of more than 15,000 spectators. This paper examines the construction of a large intertribal contest powwow and an NCAA Division I basketball game. The purpose of this study is to determine in what ways the structure of the Gathering of Nations Powwow and a New Mexico Lobo (NCAA Division I Institution) basketball game are similar and different in promotional and staging activities. This study focused on two questions “Are both LICPs and NCAA Division I basketball games rightfully considered spectacles?” And, “If LICPs are, indeed, spectacles, to what extent do they share the structural characteristics of sports spectacles such as NCAA Division I basketball games?” The participant observation method is utilized to make comparisons between the two events. All field ethnographic observations were conducted during the 2018 Gathering of Nations Powwow and a University of New Mexico men’s basketball game held during the 2018-19 season. We determined that the Gathering of Nations Powwow is a spectacle and that it is highly similar to an NCAA Division I basketball game in terms of its structure.

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The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers' behaviors related to pupils' psychosocial development would differ when physical education teachers taught curricular physical education lessons and when they coached extracurricular school teams. Subjects were 22 physical education teachers who taught and coached basketball in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. One physical education lesson on basketball and one basketball practice were videotaped for each subject. These tapes were then coded for frequency of teachers' reactive and spontaneous behaviors with the Coaching Behavior Assessment System. A one-way analysis of variance test indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the rates teachers used all behaviors during lessons and practices. Hotelling-Lawley trace tests and subsequent repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance indicated that teachers provided significantly higher rates of punitive mistake-contingent technical instruction, general technical instruction, and general encouragement during extracurricular practices and used a significantly higher rate of behaviors aimed at keeping control during curricular lessons. Unlike previous research on skill-related behaviors, the results did not indicate that teachers' performance suffered dramatically during curricular lessons when compared with performance in extracurricular practices.

The Native American powwow has served to maintain the culture of North America’s Indigenous peoples since before the arrival of European colonialists. In traditional forms of the powwow, competition is not common whereas contest powwows are characterized by the primacy of competition. We assess similarities and differences between the contest powwow and competitive sport found within the broader American society through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 competitive contest powwow dancers. We address a number of questions through the qualitative research process, such as what does the powwow mean to you? What are your primary goals for competing? We analyzed the qualitative data via a three-step coding process (open coding, axial coding, and theme development). We demonstrate that although the participants compete with a high degree of seriousness, they maintain traditional collectivist values and attitudes. Further, we conclude that the contest powwow serves to maintain and reproduce the unique characteristics of traditional Native American culture within the competitive contest powwow environment.