BCS National Championship: OU quarterback Sam Bradford inspiration to American Indians

NORMAN — In a packed gym at Carnegie High School near the Kiowa tribal headquarters in the middle of Oklahoma, school officials were forced to delay the tipoff of the boys’ basketball game for 10 minutes.

Howls and hugs spread through the gym before the home team even put up a shot. News that Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford had just won the Heisman Trophy jolted the place.

Bradford’s Cherokee Indian heritage is a source of inspiration in a state that is home to 250,000 American Indians.

"Carnegie is in the heart of Kiowa country,” said Anthony Whitebird, a Hopi Indian and sophomore forward for Carnegie. "It’s probably 90 percent Native American, and I think everyone in town was in the gym that night.”

Bradford’s success is stirring something profound among American Indians as he prepares to lead the No. 1 Sooners against No. 2 Florida in the BCS National Championship Game on Thursday at Dolphin Stadium.

"I was speaking in New Town, North Dakota, recently, and I met this Native American family of five,” said Chance Rush, an Oklahoma-based activist who speaks on a Voice of Virtue tour.

"They were all wearing Sam Bradford jerseys with his No. 14 on them. I travel a lot, and I’m getting requests from people all over the country wanting me to bring them Sam Bradford jerseys.”

American Indian youth leaders see almost a messianic quality in Bradford’s emergence these past two years. They see in him the power to change lives through his own example.

That came through to Rush on his trip to North Dakota when tribal leaders there wondered if he had enough influence to woo Bradford north to address the substance-abuse problems plaguing their region.

Bradford’s reputation as an outstanding student with reports of a 3.95 GPA as a finance major meant almost as much to tribal leaders as Bradford’s record-breaking statistics as a passer.

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