Missoula, MT (CSTV U-WIRE) -- When Mike Chavez started school at the University of Montana in the fall of 2002, he wasn't just another freshman leaving behind his friends and family. Chavez was leaving his culture and heritage behind as well. Chavez is an American Indian raised from the sixth-grade through high school near Heart Butte on the Blackfeet Reservation. He grew up in a close-knit family with a large support group.

Once on the UM campus Chavez felt the pressures of life off of the reservation. He said it is difficult for most American Indians to make the transition from the reservation to college.

"Socially, you are out of your element being on a reservation your whole life," said Chavez, a junior forward on the UM basketball team. "Thrown in with a group of guys from a whole other culture - that along with always being surrounded by family and a huge support system on the reservation - all that together makes it tough."

Chavez came to UM on a basketball scholarship after an outstanding high school career at Heart Butte and Browning, where he won three state championships and became the first American Indian in Montana prep history to score more than 2,000 points.

As a kid Chavez played basketball for hours each day.

"Even if it was raining or snowing, he'd be out there shooting," said Chavez's mother, Mary Ann Stillsmoking. "Just shooting, shooting, shooting constantly."

"Me and my friends, that's all we ever did," Chavez said. "There really isn't a whole lot of recreational things to do other than play basketball."

On the reservation, basketball holds a special importance. It allows kids to gain status among their peers because "on the reservation today you don't have the traditional buffalo hunting or way of the warrior," Chavez said.

"Basketball on the reservation is more of a religion," he said. "It's all there is. We play other sports, but basketball is it."

And not just for kids, either.

"It helps the city, the community identify with something that includes their kids," said Patrick Weasel Head, director of UM's American Indian Student Services Program.

Chavez' success in high school made him a celebrity in the American Indian community and in arenas around the state.

The universities of Oregon, New Mexico and Southern California courted Chavez, but he chose to go to UM in large part because he wanted to stay close to home.

Unfortunately, Missoula wasn't close enough.

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Not long after arriving on campus Chavez began to feel overwhelmed with the rigors of college and the cultural shock of life off of the reservation.

"The people on the reservation laugh at different things, talk about different things," he said. "They just see a lot of things from a different point of view."

And like many freshmen, with Chavez's newfound independence he also started drinking. In high school he focused on basketball mostly, but once on campus he began to get pulled into the party life.

Chavez' struggles to adjust affected him in the classroom, too. His education on the reservation hadn't prepared him for college, he said.

"The reservations are just the bottom of the barrel academically," he said.

Rather than talk to somebody about his problems, Chavez hid his frustrations and fears.

"I didn't want to be different so I bottled it up, not knowing that a lot of other kids in school struggle with the same things," he said.

Even when basketball started, Chavez still had troubles.

He had to learn new offensive plays and sets that he never had to know in high school, where his teams were well-known for their high-scoring games and up-tempo style of play.

"Back in high school I was used to Indian basketball where you fly up and down the court, one pass," Chavez said.

Stillsmoking could tell her son was having some issues but she didn't know how serious they were, she said. She was also struggling with his being away.

"There were times I wished I could just take him home because I knew he was hurting emotionally," she said. "I couldn't do that. I would be sabotaging him. It took everything in me to keep from doing that."

During his freshman year with the team, Chavez played in 23 games - starting six - but on Feb. 4 of 2003 he was arrested for driving under the influence and later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. He was suspended for five games and things only got worse from there.

"It was a tough time because after that you read about yourself in the paper and a lot of it is negative," Chavez said. "You struggle with trying to keep your head up. You just want to lock yourself up in your room, but you realize the world doesn't stop. You have to keep going."

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Following his tumultuous first year with the Griz, Chavez left the team and headed home to Heart Butte. He sat out the next season as well.

"I was unsure what I wanted to do," Chavez said. "I didn't know if I wanted to keep on playing basketball because of the struggles I had my freshman year."

At home Chavez wasn't doing anything with his life, he said. Again he bottled his emotions and didn't talk to anyone about his problems.

He received criticism from others on the reservation about being like Indians before him, who left for college to play basketball only to return shortly thereafter - failing to adapt to the new way of life.

"People would say, 'He's just like all the other guys before him - great Indian basketball players take a nosedive when they get to college,'" Chavez said.

Statements like that and his own feeling of guilt for letting down his family and supporters motivated Chavez to turn his life around.

"It was like I was slapping them in the face," he said. "A lot of people gave me opportunities and I wasn't stepping up to the plate."

While at home, Chavez saw some of his friends having kids and going to jail and he didn't want to end up like them. The failures of past Indian basketball stars motivated him to get it together.

"One of the biggest things that scared me was being one of those 40-year-old guys saying, 'I could have went to the NBA, I got a scholarship to Duke.' I didn't want to be one of those guys."

So after sitting out one year Chavez approached new UM basketball head coach Larry Krystkowiak about rejoining the team. He was nervous, but the worst that could happen was that the coach would say no, Chavez said.

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Krystkowiak said he wasn't overly concerned about Chavez'spast when deciding to let him back on the team. He was willing to give Chavez a fresh start.

"It was a pretty simple discussion with Mike," Krystkowiak said. "I just wanted to know why he wanted back in. Was it him that wanted it or everybody around him? Everybody wants him to succeed, but if he doesn't want to succeed then it's not going to happen."

Chavez was only allowed to practice with the team for the 2004-2005 season without playing in games because he was academically ineligible. He missed out on the Griz winning the Big Sky Conference championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament.

In the spring Chavez enrolled at UM and got himself eligible to play for the team again after a successful semester of school.

With the months of hard work behind him, Chavez was poised to join the team the next season, until he slipped again.

In June Chavez was arrested again for drunken driving. He pleaded no contest and was forced to pay a fine. He was now in jeopardy of losing his college basketball career.

"After working hard for the whole year it stung more than the first one because man you are so close," Chavez said. "You stick your hand in the cookie jar and you just get slammed on again."

This time would be different for Chavez. He wasn't going to let this setback pull him down and make things even worse, he said.

Chavez said to himself, "I'm not going to let it be a yearlong wound. I'm going to bust my hide."

He moved home with his mother and started working out for the upcoming season. Along with playing basketball, he began running in the morning to help keep in shape and stay out of trouble.

He also got rid of his car and got a bicycle. Toward the end of the summer he got a job cleaning septic tanks so he could help pay for his schoolbooks.

"I ran in the morning and cleaned throughout the day," he said.

Chavez rejoined the team in the fall for the 2005-2006 season. He didn't receive a suspension due in large part to his somewhat unknown status on the team at the time of his second DUI.

"I didn't just tell him it was all right," Krystkowiak said. "It was a problem. But at the same time he was in a tough predicament at that point where he didn't know if he was in or out. He didn't ever screw up with me. I wanted to make sure he understood that there weren't any left. He didn't have any more chances; that was his one mistake.

"I felt good about what's taken place in the aftermath of all that," Krystkowiak said. "I'm not going to judge him. I believe in him. When he looks me in the eye and tells me stuff, that's what I'm going on."

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Back on the team, Chavez, who is majoring in Native American studies, is enjoying success in the classroom and on the court. He said he's now starting to enjoy his classes and has his priorities in the right order.

Chavez also got to take part in an incredible season with the Griz.

He came off the bench all season to help the team to a Big Sky Conference tournament championship and a win in the first round of the NCAA tournament against the Nevada Wolf Pack.

On Feb. 27, in Montana's regular-season finale and Senior Night at Dahlberg Arena, Chavez scored a career-high 16 points in a 96-83 victory over conference champion Northern Arizona.

Chavez was seventh on the team in scoring with 4.4 points per game and was second on the team in field-goal percentage, making more than 56 percent of his shots.

He still has some of that magical talent that made him one of Montana's biggest signings in years.

"He's such a talent," said UM assistant coach Wayne Tinkle. "He's a match-up nightmare."

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More important than his success on the court, Chavez has gotten his life together off of it. He spends most of his time off the court doing homework and watching movies with his girlfriend, Savannah.

"She's pretty dedicated academically so she kind of keeps me in line, too," he said. "You need a good woman to straighten you out."

Chavez said his life is on the right track and he looks back on his mistakes as a learning experience. He has matured and grown as a person during his time at the UM, he said.

Chavez is seen by many on the reservation as a role model but he doesn't necessarily embrace that role.

"I don't see myself as a role model," Chavez said. "Anybody who really knows me wouldn't say I'm a role model, but a lot of people tell me I'm a role model."

For some American Indians, however, it is frustrating to see people like Chavez who have so much talent and run into the same problems that others before them faced.

"It's frustrating for me that he doesn't understand he could be a good role model," Weasel Head said. "But nobody wants to put that on their shoulders because you are under a magnifying glass and if you step out of bounds, somebody's going to bounce on you and say 'See, I told you.' So nobody wants to be a role model."

His coaches have also seen the changes in Chavez since he first arrived at UM.

"It's a world of difference," said Tinkle, who has coached Chavez since his freshman year. "He's kind of knocked down the walls that he's put up around himself."

His teammates are happy to see him playing again, and not just for his help out on the court.

"Mike has been through so much the past four years, it's just nice to see him out there on the court," said UM senior guard Kevin Criswell.

With things going well for Chavez and the Griz coming off their best season in years, everything seems to be headed in the right direction for him. But he is still less than a year removed from his last drunken driving arrest.

Dorothy Lescantz, the former director of the Addiction Treatment Program at St. Patrick Hospital, said that people who have had problems with alcohol sometimes get their lives back on track and then get right back in trouble after a while.

"People who have jobs and going to school and getting good grades sometimes think it is OK to start drinking again," she said.

Although the coaches are hopeful and optimistic that Chavez is on the right track, there are still some concerns.

"Any time you've got a battle with alcohol you do worry about it," Tinkle said. "I think Mike has now seen so many positives by living clean, it's getting easier to stay away from it."

Chavez said he has no worries about getting in trouble again. He has learned from his mistakes and has matured over the years.

"I can walk around now and go home and hear nothing but good feedback," he said. "Now that I look back at it I try to look at it as a positive. If I hadn't gotten in trouble, I might not have been motivated to keep working to get back on the team and prove everyone wrong."

(C) 2006 Montana Kaimin via CSTV U-WIRE