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When Rebecca Sampson and Shayla Brown were approached by their basketball coach to design a new logo for their team, they knew they wanted to create something that would represent them all.
“While we come from different villages, we’re like a family on this team,” said Sampson. “We wanted to design something that would include everyone.”
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The girl’s coach, Anna Ashley, found out the two athletes were artists and asked them to make something the team could wear during warm-ups before games.
She said it was important they capture the spirit of the team with the logo.
“I told the girls that I really wanted to do a basketball design that included all four crests because our entire team is Indigenous,” Ashley said.
Sampson and Brown said they spent approximately five weeks drawing sketches and developing different designs until they arrived at the finished product, a circular logo incorporating the eagle, raven, wolf and killer whale. Underneath the crest, they wrote the word, łoomsk meaning respect in Sm’algyax, Nisga’a and Haida.
Sampson said the logo highlights each of the different communities represented on the team. The artists also included a butterfly in the logo to represent Ashley who is Shuswap, Chilcotin and is like family.
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“Miss Ashley always has our back, so we had to include something in there for her,” Sampson said.
The basketball team wore their new shirts in Terrace during a play day in January. Both Sampson and Brown said they were proud to see their design on display and their teammates wearing them. Ashley said she is proud of the finished product.
“I think they did an awesome job,” she said.
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Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Ashley was not indigenous. She is in fact Shuswap and Chilcotin.A previous version of this article stated that the word respect was only printed in Sm’algyax. It is printed in Sm’algyax, Nisga’a and Haida.
