To Honor His Indigenous Ancestors, He Became a Champion

Inspired by his great-grandfather’s repeated escapes from an Indigenous boarding school, Ku Stevens, 18, retraced the route. Then he set his sights on winning a Nevada state title.

RENO, Nev. — Ku Stevens ran toward the rising sun. His feet dug into the gravel trail, his legs burned with pain, and he fought doubt. He ran on. A pair of straggling spectators crossed his path, and he swerved to avoid them, nearly losing his balance, and he ran on.

The five-kilometer race’s trail climbed into the foothills. He had no teammates and his competitors had fallen far back. There was no one to push him toward the time he needed to be the best. But Stevens ran on.

A senior at Yerington High School in western Nevada, Ku — short for Kutoven — raced in the Nevada state interscholastic championships in early November. Though he lived on a struggling Native American reservation and participated in a sport where few competitors shared his background, he dreamed for years of being the state’s fastest high school distance runner. He wanted to show that Native Americans could be champions.