Native American Heritage Month Spotlight

The Calm Before the Storm

Just days before the first regular season game of the 2025 season, University of Houston’s Men’s College Basketball Head Coach Kelvin Sampson sat in his office, studying notes on small cards. Surrounding him are dozens of awards: championship rings, trophies, even the pair of celebratory scissors he used to cut down a basketball net after winning the 2021 Final Four game.

And yet, those achievements don’t hold a candle to his ultimate mission.

“I always preach to be part of something bigger than yourselves. My job, at the end of the day, is to get the best out of that individual [player].” He said.

This coaching philosophy didn’t appear out of nowhere. Much of it, he noted, is influenced by his upbringing and heritage.

Robeson Roots

Sampson was born as a member of the Native American Lumbee tribe in Robeson County, North Carolina. He recalls his early life being highly segregated, “I remember the bathrooms. It said ‘white’, ‘colored’, and ‘other’. They had three water fountains. One for white people, one for Indian people, and one for Black people.”

As a result, most social settings in his young life were racially segregated, including basketball and schooling. Black, White, and Native communities kept to themselves. Sampson recalls feeling othered because of his Lumbee heritage, recalling a time when a shop owner scolded his father in an embarrassing manner in public.

But that didn’t deter the Lumbee community from nurturing young Sampson’s ambitions.

“You realize you’re not welcome here and I’ve felt that a lot about certain places. But we didn’t go there. We didn’t need to. We had our own places. I was happy in Pembroke.”

Despite a childhood rife with segregation, his Lumbee teachers and parents insisted that the sky was the limit for Sampson, that he could pursue any field he wanted. One teacher encouraged him to become a better writer, while his father (a history teacher and Sampson’s high school basketball coach) empowered his passion for history.

This inspired him to enroll at Pembroke State – a university specifically founded to preserve Lumbee culture – during the 1970s, a period where Native American college student enrollment rates began to skyrocket. Pembroke State is now known as the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He received degrees in physical/health education and political science before kickstarting his basketball career.

"...These awards, NCAA tournaments, and Final Fours. Those things will be forgotten over time. This stuff is just temporary.

The things that'll last are relationships you have with your players, the pushing them, challenging them, [and] demanding they do better. That becomes your legacy."

Kelvin Sampson
^{Head Coach, UH Men's Basketball}

Coaching Beyond the Game

Even decades after moving away from his hometown, Sampson credits his Lumbee schoolteachers for inspiring how he approaches coaching, “That’s what a teacher should do – inspire you to challenge yourself and find out how good you can be at something.”

Now on his eleventh year at the University of Houston, he continuously pushes players to be at their best as both an athlete and student. To him, being the head coach is far more than polishing transition defense and racking up tournament wins. It oversees the full development of every student athlete that joins his roster. Like social workers, his team works with a chosen community (in this case, student athletes) to navigate challenges: from overcoming losses, encouraging character growth, and motivating them to do well in class. To accomplish this, Sampson takes on a more active role be aware of all player’s expectations and needs. Part of that awareness comes from how the team is managed on-court. As someone who prides himself on his heritage, he pushes for that same pride on his athletes for the school and team they play for.

“The name on our jersey says Houston. You have to learn to play for something bigger than yourself. The most awesome thing about team sports is it teaches you to how to be a member of a team.”

At the same time, part of that awareness is also learning the needs of and nurturing each student athlete. Especially if it means they respond better to constructive feedback. Sampson recalls one player he recently coached, “I used to fuss at him. Then I realized, you know what? He responds better to a softer touch, a lighter touch. Learning how each kid reacts to certain things, it takes time to do that.”

His awards and honors may be in glass display cases, but that doesn’t mean they’re his bottom line.

“I want to be a person that can have an effect on other people’s lives. It’s not all these awards, NCAA tournaments, and Final Fours. Those things will be forgotten over time…This stuff is just temporary. The things that'll last are relationships you have with your players, the pushing them, challenging them, [and] demanding they do better. That becomes your legacy.”

Indeed, Sampson is not the only tribe member with a legacy footprint in the world of sports. Other notable Lumbee former athletes include Major League Baseball player Gene Locklear, professional wrestler Chris Chavis, and National Football League player Kenwin Cummings. The Lumbee community is also represented in politics, entertainment, and education.

Sampson believes that one of the reasons behind the success of his community lies in the mindset that he was similarly raised on. When comparing his experience of working with other Native American tribes, he noticed something powerful that he continues to take with him.

“A lot of the reservation tribes were defined by their limitations. Whereas I always felt like the Lumbee people were defined by our ambition. You could be whatever you wanted to be.”

"I always felt like the Lumbee people were defined by our ambition. You could be whatever you wanted to be."

Kelvin Sampson
Head Coach, UH Men's Basketball