GROUND BALLS 20
Percentage of male lacrosse players, and 18 percent of female lacrosse players, specializing in one sport by age 12, according to an NCAA study. It’s not all bad news. Lacrosse ranked 10th among sports in both genders.
Marr said Thompson was widely recognized in the camp, both as a lacrosse star and for his grandfather’s role as an Onondaga tribal elder. “He’s a pretty powerful fi gure in the Native American community,” Marr said. “People know who he is. He has a presence to him when he walks by.” Throughout the day, the group met people from tribes as far fl ung as Washington, New Mexico, Texas and Alaska, along with others from the Iroquois nations, the people traditionally credited with creating early lacrosse. (Onondaga is one of six nations in the Iroquois Confederacy, much of which is historically centered in upstate New York.) Many recounted the previous night’s violent clashes and the symbolic importance the protest movement has taken on among Native people. One recurring theme, Marr said, was the different stance the protestors faced versus last winter’s militia holdout in Oregon. There, armed white militia members took over a building on federal property, put up military-style barricades and made armed threats against police. They described their dispute as one of land rights.
USlaxmagazine.com 75
Jesse King’s shooting percentage in catch-and- shoot situations, the best in Major League Lacrosse last year. Rochester’s acquisition of JoJo Marasco should only help King fi nd more such opportunities in 2017.
According to Thompson and
Marr, many people at Standing Rock wondered why the Oregon protesters had been handled with kid gloves while the unarmed pipeline protestors faced gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. One place the group did not visit was the direct area of contact between protesters and authorities, dubbed the “front line,” on a bridge approximately
“I FELT LIKE USING THE POWER OF MY FAN BASE IN LACROSSE TO LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.”– Lyle Thompson
a half mile from the main camp. They were told it was too dangerous after the previous night’s clashes. Witnesses described it as a warzone. “With my family, they said it might not be safe for us to spend the night, so that night we got a hotel,” said Thompson, who has three daughters.
5
Years since Virginia Tech last won an ACC game in women’s lacrosse, a streak the Hokies hope to end this spring under new coach John Sung. Top scorer Kristine Loscalzo (31 goals) returns in 2017.
The group visited two other satellite camps the next day, then returned to the primary Oceti Sakowin location to hold a medicine game, using 16 of his family’s traditional hand-carved Onondaga wooden sticks.
“I grabbed wooden sticks because I wanted to make it as close to a medicine game as possible,” Thompson said. “I grabbed all my brothers’ sticks and my dad and my father-in-law had a decent amount of sticks. They say, in this game we’re not going to play to win, we’re going to play for the Creator who gave us this game. We’re going to play as medicine.”
As a crowd gathered, Thompson talked about how the Onondaga people hold annual games as part of a spring planting ritual, with 100 or more players of all ages. “The main part of it is having the game be medicine for yourself — and once it’s medicine for yourself, to fi nd a way to make it medicine for others. It helps me play harder knowing that there’s someone older than myself that I’m playing for, that for him it’s a joy to watch. It helps me play harder for people that aren’t able to run up and down the fi eld.”
January 2017 US LACROSSE MAGAZINE 15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
