Terraceena Green limped to the stage. It was "open mic" time during the final night of the 2008 FCA Black Mountain Girls Camp, and she had a story to tell.

The room — filled with hundreds of other campers, Huddle Leaders and adults — fell silent. Some had gotten to know 17-year-old Terraceena, or "TT," earlier that week. Many had not. But almost all of them had noticed something different about her.

Throughout the Native American reservations scattered around the Black Hills of western South Dakota, the locals' love of basketball borders on obsession, offering a nightly escape from days flush with hopelessness and indescribable poverty.

No matter how brightly the community's young hardwood stars shine on the court, though, many seem destined to follow the paths of those who support them from the stands. Unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse have tightened their grip on the Lakota people, and the reservation has become a place where suicides quadruple the national average and funerals fail to discriminate between young and old.

A bicycle kick in itself is pretty mystifying, considering the player begins the kick with his back facing the intended target. He then hurls his head and upper body backward toward the ground while his feet and legs whip up into the place his upper body was. All of these acrobatics are an attempt to accurately strike a flying soccer ball.

Imagine executing that kind of kick while your team is trailing 1-0 in the waning seconds of a highly competitive Superliga final match.

Welcome back to the real world, kid. It’s a far cry from the experience you just had, feeling so close to God and all. But now, you need to start thinking about — check that — start worrying about “more important” things.