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were the Cinderella team my sophomore and junior years, having fallen short in hardfought state championship games in back-to-back years. But as. soon as Heather and her senior teammates graduated, the B-team finally had the opportunity to prove we bad it in us.
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    By my senior year of high school, I had been praying that God wouldn’t have in mind for my future one of the local boys I’d grown up with.
    loved those guys a lot, but I looked at them all
    like brothers. I had just about given up hope that I would ever meet a guy I could really like as more than just a buddy, Then a new kid came to town.
    In late August 1981, my dad drove
    Wasilla High to get his
    classroom ready for the start of the school year. That night at dinner, he had news to share.
    “Stopped by the gym to talk with some of the coaches today,” he said. “That new kid, Palin, was there. I watched him practice for a while. I can tell you right now, he’s the best basketball player Wasilla’s ever had.”
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    SARAH PALIN
    My ears perked up. A week later, between our pickup basketball scrimmages in the Warrior gym, I finally met rhis mystery guy. When I saw him, my world turned upside down. I actually whispered/Thank you, God.”
    Todd Palin roared into my life in a 1972 Ford Mustang. Handsome and independent, he was part Yupik Eskimo and had moved to Wasilla from Dillingham, a fishing town on the chilly, rugged shores ofBristol Bay. Todd was only sixteen and had come ro rown to play his senior year of basketball on a strong Warriors squad, a goal that coincided with career opportunities for his parents. His newly remarried father, Jim Palin, was in line to run the local electric utility. His stepmom, Faye Palin, would move up ro vice president at the telephone company.
    Todd was so different from any kid I’d ever known. He made all his own decisions, from finances to future plans. Not only was he one of the only kids in rown who owned his own ride-he owned two, the Mustang and a 1973 Ford F-150 long-bed pickup that he used to haul a pair of Polaris snowmachines. By the time I met him, he had honed an independent spirit and a sterling work ethic that drew me like a magnet, and would help define me and clarify my life’s priorities more than anything else. Todd thought nothing of doing things like driving the fifty miles into Anchorage by himself anytime he wanted to, which was a big deal to the rest of us, who had neither vehicles nor parents who would let us do such a thing. Todd had purchased his rigs himself, which blew us away because not many Valley kids had such luxuries, much less owned them outright. He didn’t come from a family but from a
    very hardworking family. He waS a commercial fisherman, drifting red salmon in the rich waters of Brisrol Bay. It was his Native family’s tradition ro make their livelihood and subsist on the water. Todd made more money as a young teen in one fishing
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    Going Rogue
    season than 1’d made with all the jobs 1’d
    held, combined
    over many years.
    Todd’s‘ grandmother Lena, who is almost ninety, is a Yupik Eskimo elder and was one of the first female commercial fishermen on the bay. His grandfather Al Andree was a boatbuilder. Togerher Al and Lena helped start the Bristol Bay fishery in the 1930s, drifting for salmon from sailboats, navigating the frigid winds and ebb and flow of the tides, figuring out even on windless days how to get fish to the tenders, where they sold for just a nickel apiece. The women braved the icy chop, the fish slime, rhe blood, and the stench, out there fishing with the men, and Lena was one of the first.
    Todd started fishing Bristol Bay at a very young age and grew up in this multigenerational industry. Lena saw the fishery as a God-given resource that provided for the family. She believed in sweat equity. Using commercial fishing as an economic bootstrap, Todd’s family owned and operated the town’s hardware store, hotel, mechanic shop, and other