Put up the interview of Lawrence and Lamoni Yazzie on the site. You can see it Here.

Well, I finally got something on these two brothers out of Arizona. Lawrence sent in some info on where I could find some stories on them. This story comes from the "Rocky Mountain News."

I also found a page that Lawrence submitted to another site called American Indian Network Information Center and you can look at his page Here.

There is also a page with 8 pics of Lamoni and Lawrence (+1 of their coach) on Navajo2000.com. You can find that page at: http://www.navajo2000.com/tp/rickspics/llyazzie/pix08.htm.

Before every Air Force Academy basketball game, Lawrence and Lamoni Yazzie perform an unusual ritual.

With one eye on the game, and the other on the past, they sprinkle white corn pollen on the ground, then over their bodies. After sharing a prayer, they embrace like warriors.

Which they are, by blood.

An uncle of the Yazzie brothers fought the Viet Cong. A grandfather fought in World War II. A great-great grandfather fought the United States.

The Yazzies are 100 percent American Indian: 50 percent Navajo and 50 percent Comanche.

They spend part of their lives in a cloistered world of medicine men, peyote ceremonies, sweat lodges and other native rites in Tuba City, Ariz.

But a gate on that life clangs shut at the academy, which initially seemed as alien and barren to them as reservations had to their ancestors.

To survive in a new world, the Yazzies turned to their father, Larry Chee Yazzie, a Tuba City lawyer who taught them to shoot -- for three-pointers and prominence. They turned to their mother, Sunny Kerchee, a counselor in Oklahoma who earned a college degree and worked while helping raise four children. They turned to their coach, Reggie Minton, who made the hot-shot guards the first American Indians to play basketball at the academy. They turned to their religion, which allows them to patch the past onto the present in spite of institutional barriers.

Mainly, the Yazzies turned to one another, as well as basketball, to deal with the desert of time that stretches out before them each fall.

It's rare for one American Indian to play for a Division I team; rarer still for two, particularly brothers. How they got to the AFA -- and stayed there -- is the rarest story of all.

"It's been one of the toughest experiences of my life," said Lawrence, 22, a senior who is the Falcons' sixth man and No. 3 scorer. "It's hard to relate to people who can't relate to you.

"Usually, you rely on your prayers and beliefs to help carry you through difficult times. But we're limited in the traditions we can practice. It's not like I can set up a teepee outside the chapel. It's not like I can set up a sweat lodge. You lose heart some times."

Only a handful of American Indians preceded the Yazzie brothers in Division I basketball. Most saw their careers buckle and collapse.

"Most come back and work at gas stations," said Lamoni, 21, a sophomore who hopes to resume play this week after being sidelined with a knee injury since November.

The Yazzies never considered a future without college degrees. Basketball was a ticket to college, college a ticket to high achievement. That was their mantra, drilled into them by their parents, who met at Brigham Young, where Larry Chee was a law school student and Sunny a freshman.

But their future started cracking when Sunny suffered severe injuries in a car accident not long after Lamoni's birth. A turn-signal lever lodged in her nose and brain. The doctor's verdict: Sunny might never walk or talk again.

"But I knew I could do whatever I needed to do, " she said by phone from Lawton, Okla. "That attitude probably comes from being a Native American; from drawing within."

Within a couple of years, the Yazzies divorced. Lawrence and Lamoni remained with their mother, who needed government aid to make ends meet while earning a college degree and working part time.

"We struggled," Lamoni said. "But we knew we had each other -- and basketball."

The Yazzie brothers are in constant contact with Sunny, who is battling cancer.

"Lawrence has written some poems for me. I keep one in my purse. If I get depressed I can put it out and say, 'This is from my son,"' she said.

Larry introduced his sons to basketball during American Indian tournaments. While he made perimeter shots on the court, Lawrence and Lamoni made imaginary ones in the lobby.

Basketball soon consumed their lives, as it would for little brother Shawn, who might follow Lawrence and Lamoni to the academy next fall.

"At night before bed we set out the clothes perfectly -- tennis shoes, socks, shirts -- and then right when the sun came up we'd get up and start playing basketball," Lamoni said. "And we'd play all day. The only time we took a break was when the soles of our shoes were burning our feet."

Added Lawrence: "We always had our basketball. We'd dribble it everywhere. Dribble it to school, in recess, on roads."

Lawrence and Lamoni eventually shuttled between their parents' homes in Oklahoma and Arizona. They rarely separated.

"When they weren't together, they felt alone and lost. They just wept," Sunny said.

Education always was a priority. Sunny required book reports, even during summer break. When Lawrence's and Lamoni's report cards showed marked indifference, their mother showed her indignant side.

"I just said: 'OK, no basketball.' That cut to the quick. They were always on the honor roll after that," said Sunny, whose daughter, Dawn, earned an accounting degree in accounting from Cameron University in Lawton, Okla.

As the Yazzies entered their teens, they enrolled in special programs, including one at New England's Phillips Exeter Academy.

But typically they remained near the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona and their extended family, or Sunny's Oklahoma home. Nearly every summer Larry dropped the kids -- including Shawn and Dawn -- off with their grandparents. The boys tended livestock near Tuba City, and listened to their grandfather's yarns.

Eddie Chee Yazzie was a small boy on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona when the family saw "a smoking box" on the horizon. As it got closer, the smoking box got larger and louder. A man emerged from the box -- a car -- and announced that the children must accompany him to boarding school. Eddie's father exempted his daughter; he pointed to Eddie.

"Take him."

As the heartache and horrors of contemporary American Indian life became increasingly evident to the Yazzie boys, so did their urge to retain and refashion ancient ceremonies.

Early on, Lawrence and Lamoni rose at dawn and ran toward the East, where they rushed into the past.

"You wake up with the holy people," Lawrence said. "That's when all your ancestors are out. A lot of times we ran ourselves into complete exhaustion.

"One morning I was awakened by the smell of burning wood. It was 4:30," Lawrence added. "My father was praying and singing. I got closer to hear him. He was asking that his sons would be strong for the upcoming season."

During his senior season, Lawrence averaged 25.5 points a game and, with Lamoni at his side, led Window Rock to the state championship. He earned national honorable mention All-America honors in basketball and national recognition in theater. Texas and North Carolina recruited him for drama, Air Force for basketball.

"I thought I was being recruited by the enlisted corps. It took a week or so for me to realize it was the Air Force Academy," he said.

At 5-foot-10, 165 pounds, Lawrence lacked the size for shooting guard. But not the shot, particularly for the height-challenged Falcons, whose pool of potential players is limited by lofty academic and military standards.

"We didn't think it was a gamble because of his shooting talent," said Minton, Air Force's head coach for 16 years. "It may have been a gamble because of his size and strength. But shooters are at a premium. If there's a good shooter out there, everyone's chasing him."

Not everyone in their community supported Lawrence's decision.

"Some say: 'Why have pride in this country? What country? They put us on a reservation,"' Lawrence said.

But the warrior spirit runs deep in Lawrence and Lamoni's blood.

"What you read in the history book is what my family has lived." Lawrence said.

Added Sunny: "We're strong supporters of the country."

Both brothers spent a year at the Air Force Prep School on the academy campus to improve their academic backgrounds and college entrance exam scores. But nothing prepared them for their freshman year.

Freshmen represent the lowest form of academy life. Lawrence awoke daily at 5:30 a.m., worked on a cleanup crew, reported to breakfast, attended class, went to lunch, attended more classes, practiced basketball and then returned to campus.

Tradition also required him to answer upperclassmen's trivial questions: How many games left in the football season? What's for dinner? When's graduation?

At the end of each week, Lawrence could phone his family. He made one off-campus trip per semester.

Lawrence's goal: Make it through breakfast. Then lunch. Then practice.

"You think in terms of hours, instead of days and weeks," he said.

Being an American Indian isolated him further. Minton, who is black, understood Lawrence's predicament. He played college ball at Wofford in Spartanburg, S.C., in the early 1960s. His high school included more than 1,000 blacks; his college, eight.

"I thought I'd landed on the moon. When I first got there all I wanted to do was go home. I'm saying, 'Why am I here?"' Minton said.

Lawrence asked himself that question -- until he went home the first time.

"I was wearing my uniform," he said. "My grandfather just looked at me. He didn't say a thing. Then he rubbed his finger across my epaulets. It brought him to tears. He hugged me. I could tell he was filled with pride. I couldn't even begin to say what that meant to my grandfather."

Lawrence vowed to finish what he had started, but he needed help. The solution: Lure Lamoni to the Academy.

"It was vital," he said. "I didn't want to beg him, but I told him: 'This is really hard, I really need you.' He wavered; he wavered a lot."

In high school, Lamoni lettered four years in basketball and two in track, was junior class president and senior salutatorian.

At 6-1, he's a better ball handler and penetrator than his brother, but not quite as good a shooter. In other words, he had other options.

"But I tried to raise them to always look after one another, to always protect one another," Sunny said.

So Lamoni was academy-bound.

"All our friends get to go to church and practice their religion every day," said the younger Yazzie, who led the AFA junior varsity in scoring last season. "So I could definitely see how he'd feel lonely.

"It's hard not to. Even with both of us here we still get homesick."

The Yazzies are usually the first American Indians many of their classmates have ever encountered. They see that as an opportunity to debunk stereotypes.

"We definitely have to fight the ignorance," Lamoni said. "I talk to anyone and tell them what my tribe is like. But you get frustrated sometimes."

Added Lawrence: "It's really hard to refrain from laughing over some questions about peyote because they imply we're getting high and stuff, and that's not the case. They don't understand the context. We refer to peyote as medicine."

Lawrence heads to the court when his frustration becomes uncontainable.

"It definitely helps because you can pound on someone or put one in the hole or win a game with a three," he said.

The hard work paid off last season. Lawrence played in 21 games and averaged 6.8 points in the final five. Against Southern Methodist, he scored 12 points in 11 minutes, making four three-pointers, including a final one that was closer to midcourt than to the three-point arc.

"On the last one, I thought he was daring me to shoot. So I just pulled it and hit the bottom of the net," he said.

In the first game this season, a 78-70 loss to St. Louis, Yazzie scored 27 points, many on bombs.

"The St. Louis coaches were screaming, 'Don't let him touch the ball,"' said Lawrence, who has averaged 7.9 points, 15.9 minutes, 2.1 rebounds and made 17 of 48 three-pointers in 10 games.

Minton wants to win games, not make a social comment. Nevertheless, he has opened an important door for American Indians.

While leaving an Albuquerque restaurant during Lawrence's first season, three American Indians personally thanked Minton.

"We're rooting for you now -- after New Mexico."

In Denver, he recently bumped into an American Indian Air Force officer.

"He said, 'Coach, I'm so happy you got those Yazzie boys,"' Minton said.

The Yazzie brothers are making the grade in the classroom as well. Lamoni probably will pursue a degree in civil engineering. He's interested in becoming a pilot. Following an Air Force career, Lawrence hopes to enter school. He eventually would like to return to Tuba City and join his father's law practice and then perhaps become chairman of the Navajo Nation.

The Yazzies' extended family will gather in Albuquerque on Jan. 22 for the Air Force-New Mexico game. Shortly before tip-off, the Yazzie brothers will perform their unusual ritual.

"When we're done, we'll hug each other," Lawrence said. "That's when we think: 'Wow, this is what we always dreamed of. We've done it. We're living our dream. Together."'

Contact Clay Latimer at (303) 892-2596 or sports@RockyMountainNews.com.