By Rich Winter

605 Sports

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Following a Parents Night game against Kansas Christian College, Mahpiya Irving’s basketball world came undone. 

Coming off an 87-18 win Haskell Indian Nations University basketball coach Adam Strom dropped a bomb on the team.

“Right after the game he told us that he was on the list for termination,” said Irving, a former Mahpiya Luta girls basketball player. “Everyone in the locker room was crying but the coach told us that no matter what he would still be here with us.” 

Strom was on a list of probationary employees deemed nonessential by the Trump administration’s new federal workforce standards. He, along with nearly 40 Haskell employees, were fired in the cuts. Strom has been a contractual employee for Haskell for his first three years. This past year Strom became a full-time federal employee. That meant him having less than a year of official tenure put him on the top of the list for cuts from the new administration. 

For Irving, and the rest of the basketball team, February was an uncertain time not knowing what was happening with their coach and with their college. 

“It was scary honestly and we had a lot of uncertainty,” Irving said. “I lost my coach and lost two instructors. It seemed like Haskell was on the verge of shutting down. We lost our strength and conditioning coach and we still had to focus on the conference tournament.” 

Irving, a senior, had been to the NAIA national tournament twice but had never been on a team that won the conference tournament. 

The Haskell women entered the Continental Athletic Conference tournament with a promise from their coach that he would not abandon the team despite not being paid.

“He told us they would have to physically kick him off of the sidelines,” Irving said. 

The women reached the finals of the tournament and played Northern New Mexico College in the championship game. Hakell trailed by eight points with three minutes left in the third quarter before going on a 15-0 fourth-quarter run.

Haskell won the game 57-52 and clinched a spot in the 2025 NAIA national tournament behind a 20-point, nine rebound effort from Irving. 

“I felt like everyone after the firing had a chip on our shoulder and wanted to prove ourselves,” Irving said. 

With coaches and instructors having been laid off the Haskell Indian Nations University campus has been filled with protests and demonstrations regarding the cuts. On Friday, March 7, multiple media outlets reported that teachers would be reinstated on Monday, March 10, and allowed to finish the semester.

Haskell President, Dr. Francis (Frank Arpan) confirmed the reinstatement stating that the university has arranged for affected instructors to finish the semester under adjunct contracts.

Those reinstatements apply only to instructors, however, and other employees who were terminated are not included in the decision. 

Haskell is set to play No. 1 seed Dordt on March 14, in a game that will be played in Sioux Center, Iowa and Irving is anxious to go into battle with a coach that never left her side.

“I think it says a lot about the kind of person that he is,” Irving said. “He’s passionate about the game like Matt (Rama, the Mahpiya Luta coach), the best two coaches I’ve ever had. We wanted to show him how much we cared by getting that conference championship.” 

Irving, who is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe started her basketball journey in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, before coming to Mahpiya Luta High School before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

Mahpiya Irving played for a year for Mahpiya Luta and was coached by Matt Rama - Photo courtesy of Kernit Grimshaw

“I just remember it was fun and a different pace of basketball that we played,” she said. “Before I went there I didn’t know that much Lakota but I learned from coach Rama who would coach us in both languages.” 

After playing in South Dakota, Irving and her twin sister Wakinyan both played in Mayetta, Kansas, where they won a state championship during their sophomore season. That state championship fueled Irving’s career at Haskell. 

“I had high expectations for myself when I was young,” she said. “Winning state my sophomore year helped me decide I wanted to play basketball in college.”

Irving has been a four-year starter, gone over 1,000 career points and was named to the Colonial Athletic Conference all-tournament team this season. Irving is studying American Indian Studies and Social Work and said she is looking forward to the game against Dordt. 

“This is actually our third time playing in the national tournament since I’ve been here,” she said. “It’s really fun because a lot of people weren’t expecting us to go and we’ve been proving our point and making our mark.”