Oneida Nation is celebrating UWGB's signing of Stewart Erhart II

Fans who don’t normally attend UWGB games will be there to support him the way they were when former Seymour standout Sandy Cohen III, a member of Oneida Nation, played for the Phoenix from 2017 to 2019.

Oneida Nation ordered what was described back then as a ton of tickets for his debut game.

There was excitement again in Oneida when Erhart’s signing was announced, especially by those in the basketball community.

They now have a player from one of the villages up in Alaska, and they want him to feel like his new community is a home away from home. There will be high school kids watching him. There will be middle school and grade school kids, too.

“I feel like all Natives can connect,” Erhart said. “All Indigenous people. This is an Indigenous school at Fort Lewis, and I’ve met a lot of people for just being Native. They are all accepting.”

The percentage of Native Americans competing in NCAA Division I is low, with fewer than 700 participating in all sports during the 2024-25 season.

Native Americans make up less than 2% of the population in the United States, which makes the pool of potential players smaller to begin with, but it’s just one barrier to overcome.

There often can be a lack of support systems and structure for athletes. It can be difficult to get exposure while living in communities that no college coach has on their recruiting map.

Erhart grew up in Tanana, Alaska, where everybody knows everybody. That’s what happens when the entire community is made up of 200 people.

“Did you look up where his village is?” Gottlieb said. “There is no road out. There is an airport, and no road out.”

That’s why when a Native American player like Erhart does beat the odds, it is celebrated and recognized beyond just his village.

“You find a lot of character coming from these individuals because of what they are coming from and what they don’t forget when they leave,” said Brandon Yellowbird-Stevens, the former Oneida Nation vice chairman who is now a strategist in intergovernmental affairs. “That’s why Indian Country, communities like Oneida, when we see a Native kid coming through, there is more likely we have a lot of relatability to these individuals because, first, they look like us, but they are from the same communities that we are from.

“It really helps us rally around this individual. We want them to succeed.”

Doug Gottlieb builds a connection with Oneida Nation

Gottlieb formed a relationship with Oneida soon after he arrived in Green Bay.

Yellowbird-Stevens remembers the new coach saying he wanted to start looking for Native American talent.

When it comes to recruiting those players, Yellowbird-Stevens would remind everyone that it’s not looking down, but rather looking in their direction.

There are talented players coming out of Indian Country all the time, it’s just many don’t get the opportunity to show it on the DI stage.

Treysen Eaglestaff, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, averaged almost 10 points per game at West Virginia this season after spending his first three years at North Dakota.

As a junior guard in 2024-25, he put up 40 points against No. 6 Alabama.

West Virginia guard Treysen Eaglestaff is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

His younger brother, Teysean, is a sophomore forward at New Mexico State.

Erhart could be next in line.

“This goes back to Coach’s promise, he said he is going to start looking in that direction,” Yellowbird-Stevens said about Gottlieb. “I said he’s not going to have to look too far to find talent that would fit in in Green Bay.

“This is just that one step to show that Coach is honoring his side of the agreement that we want to create a stronger relationship between Oneida Nation and the athletic program.”

When UWGB opened the season at Kansas last November, Phoenix players wore a jersey designed by UWGB student Jossalyn Metoxen, who is part of Oneida Nation and majoring in First Nations Studies.

UWGB wore the jerseys again when it hosted Haskell Indian Nations University at the Kress Center later that month as part of Oneida Nation Celebration Day.

“I always cheer for the Phoenix,” Alexander said in a video released by the school before the game. “But, in this case, I don’t really care. I just really am so excited that we’re able to show our respect for the Oneida Nation and for all of our First Nations communities and continue to build relationships that are enduring and help us all learn about different cultures.”

The 2,744 fans in attendance against Haskell represented the largest home crowd of the season. The visiting team included a local product in junior guard Chaske Jacobs, who played at Oneida Nation.

That game meant a lot to so many, including Yellowbird-Stevens and his family.

He and his four siblings all played at Haskell. They followed in the footsteps of their father, Ernie Jr., and their mother, Cheryl, who both attended the school. One of their grandmothers, Maria, attended when it was still a boarding school.

Ernie Jr. died in September, but he knew by then that UWGB was playing his alma mater. It meant the world to him. He never had pondered it could happen, that Haskell could come here and showcase the pride he had in the school.

UWGB beat Haskell by 40 points, but Phoenix fans might have noticed there was no quit from the opponent the entire time.

“That’s what they will see out of Stewart,” said Yellowbird-Stevens, who was a defensive stopper at West De Pere and helped lead the Phantoms to a WIAA Division 2 sectional title game as a senior in 1997. “I don’t think he is going to give up. He is going to show what he wants. He is going to show Green Bay and people who come to watch him that he’s a worker and works for everything he gets.”

Gottlieb said after the Haskell game that it was just the first step. It won’t be the last time Haskell is on campus to play the Phoenix. It’s not the last time his program will honor Oneida Nation. He wants to hold basketball camps there.

“Talking to [UWGB athletic director] Josh [Moon] and Doug, we don’t have enormous plans, but we definitely want to grow this into a community,” Yellowbird-Stevens said. “Where it’s not just, we are on the other side of Green Bay and they are on the other side. It’s establishing presence. That was most important of what we talked about when we looked at establishing a relationship.

“We don’t want to just throw them money or give us signed basketballs. We want to see the team in our gym. We want them to watch our kids play. Then they will in turn watch them play and see, hey, so-and-so is doing good and I know him because I’ve talked to him. That really creates a ground-level acknowledgment that they have an impact on our kids.”

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Oneida Nation is celebrating UWGB's signing of Stewart Erhart II