Schuda Revives Native American Custom on RCB Court

Debi Schuda produced a torrid summer on the Rollerchairball court and in the standings, but perhaps her most notorious and successful venture in the NLR in 2009 came from a practice not aimed at victory.

Schuda introduced the world of Rollerchairball to the ancient Native American practice of “counting coup.” In the days when Native Americans roamed freely on this continent, some warriors would engage in this unique custom during battle. When a Native American would place a hand or a special stick to the body of an enemy, he would count one coup. The maneuver was essentially a slap in the face to the opponent. The more coup you counted, the greater your bravery and cunning were revered.

Asked about the notion of bringing the tradition to Rollerchairball, Schuda responded, “Counting coup is pretty much the biggest disgrace you could bring to the enemy. Essentially you’re saying, ‘I could have killed you, but I decided to ridicule you instead.’ You can easily see how that fits into Rollerchairball. It seems to me counting coup was destined to become an integral part of our game.”

Schuda obviously employs the hand version of counting coup, as all types of sticks are illegal on the court during play.

To amass one coup-counted, Schuda places her hands near the back of an offensive player’s chair, mere inches from downing the player, but holds off and instead sounds the coup via a guttural emission. The play remains in action, which many claim to be a blatant hole in the strategy of demeaning an opponent.

Andrew Wood remarked, “Sure, I feel like a sissy when someone counts a coup on me, but they could have downed me and they let me continue playing. I even scored a touchdown on a play where Schuda could have downed me. Where’s the smarts in that?”

Schuda will have none of it, however. “The spirit of counting coup has nothing to do with scoring touchdowns or stopping teams on defense,” she explained. “Even if someone scores on me, if I got a coup on him or her, then they are mine forever. And I’ll never let them forget that.”

The practice became widespread over the summer. It was not unusual to hear several players counting coup during a game or even a play. Kyle Stout even took the whole thing one step further.

“I find the most humiliating thing in the world to be when you have the ball and, instead of attempting to score, you try to down the defensive player. Once Debi introduced counting coup, it was only a matter of time until I married that practice with my own. Now when I have the ball, I try to down the guy or gal guarding me and I let everyone know when I could have done it, but didn’t. More than once I’ve sent Doug Tatz away with his tail between his legs because I reverse-counted-coup on him.”

Will the practice endure? Schuda believes so: “I think counting coup is here to stay. It takes the embarrassment level of RCB to new heights. And that’s always a good thing.”



Posted on September 8th, 2009 by kyle and filed under Coverage |