Welp, I learned about Montana donkey basketball this weekend and it's a real, actual thing. Did you play donkey basketball at your school?

I found myself on an unexpected road trip to Conrad over the weekend, with a pit stop in Choteau to pick up one of my teenager's friends. The other friend is from Sun River, so there they are in the backseat talking about how much it sucked to stay home during the pandemic school year, and about all of the fun things they missed out on. One of them was saying they really missed donkey basketball in 2020, and the other started recollecting about how much fun the game was at their school. By this point, I'm looking at my kid in the review mirror like 'wtf are they talking about!?'

Then we decided they were jerking our chain and were just trying to get us to believe that this was some weird thing that goes on at rural schools around the state. Except they weren't kidding, and they really DID miss playing donkey basketball. So we told the Sun River kid that we would need proof and kinda forgot about it. Until the next morning when the Mom texted me pics of a past round of donkey bball in action in the school gym. I nearly fell out of my hotel room bed with joy! She told me that the animals wear rubber shoes to prevent damaging the floor, I was absolutely fascinated by the entire thing. They explained that the game is played with players on donkeys, that the animals aren't always cooperative, which makes it hilarious, and that it's typically a fundraiser. Please, if this happens at your school in the future, I kindly request that you invite me so I can see it IRL.

Photo courtesy of the Hart family
Photo courtesy of the Hart family
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