‘Our game and our medicine’

The Haudenosaunee, creators of lacrosse, bid to compete in the 2028 Olympics in L.A.

Rex Lyons grew up on lacrosse. “When you grow up as a Haudenosaunee citizen, lacrosse is part of the culture,” said Lyons, a member of the Onondaga Nation.

The sport originated with the Haudenosaunee — the confederacy of Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora nations in upstate New York and Canada. Lyons, 60, was one of the first players when the Iroquois Nationals — now called the Haudenosaunee Nationals — formed in 1983.

Paisley Cook, a member of the Mohawk Nation, first picked up a lacrosse stick at age 5. At 15, she tried out and made the women’s division of the Haudenosaunee Nationals. When she heard lacrosse had been added to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, she was ecstatic. The 18year-old University at Albany freshman — who also plays midfield for UAlbany’s team — could become an Olympian.

But there’s one large hurdle in their way. The International Olympic Committee only recognizes countries with an Olympic Committee. In the coming year, the Haudenosaunee must make their case for why they should be included at the 2028 games in Los Angeles.

The Medicine Game

Variations of lacrosse were played by indigenous people across eastern North America, but the Haudenosaunee are largely undisputed as creators of the game, which goes back at least centuries before Europeans arrived, explained Jon Parmenter, an associate professor of history at Cornell University. Accounts describe some games spanning half a mile with hundreds of players. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century Canadians picked up the game.

“It could resolve disputes between families, clans, nations,” Parmenter said. “You often hear it referred to by people as medicine.”

The medicine is found in the lacrosse stick itself, Lyons said. Traditionally made of hickory wood and webbed with deer sinew, the components represent the earth and the animals, with a woven pattern linking it all together.

“It represents the families, the clans,” he said. “They’re all arm-in-arm.”

For Jaedyn Frink, a 20-year-old junior at UAlbany and attack player for the women’s lacrosse team, the medicine is also in the sport itself. A member of the Onondaga Nation and youngest of six, she’s been inspired by other players in her family. Her sister Taylor Frink is an assistant coach for UAlbany women’s lacrosse and an attack player for the Haudenosaunee Nationals.

“This game of lacrosse is a lot more than a stick and a ball,” Jaedyn Frink said. “It embodies my family, culture and past ancestors. It’s a lot bigger than a sport.”

Cook played at the Pan-American Lacrosse Association Sixes Cup this November in Jamaica, where the Haudenosaunee women’s team took home gold. Even there, other teams thanked them for the creation of the sport, she said.

“It’s our game and our medicine,” Cook said. “We are sharing it with the world, and that should give us the privilege to be there.”

The Haudenosaunee Nationals

Over the last 40 years, the Haudenosaunee

“This game of lacrosse is a lot more than a stick and a ball. It embodies my family, culture and past ancestors.”

Jaedyn Frink, UAlbany women’s lacrosse

Nationals have become one of the world’s topranking lacrosse teams, but Lyons notes they haven’t been free of challenges. They almost didn’t play in the 2022 World Games because they weren’t considered a sovereign nation until Ireland’s team gave up their spot. It was a turning point for recognizing the team, said 22-year-old Jacob Piseno, a long-stick midfield player for the Haudenosaunee Nationals and graduate student at UAlbany, who also plays for their men’s lacrosse team.

Piseno was named best defender at this summer’s World Lacrosse men’s championship in San Diego, where his team won bronze, coming up short only to the U.S. and Canada. He’d been playing lacrosse for years before an ancestry test in high school revealed his father’s side of the family was Purepecha — a group indigenous to Mexico. He found a greater love for playing lacrosse and a community in the Haudenosaunee Nationals.

“As Haudenosaunee, we don’t play for ourselves, we play for our people, and all the people watching us,” he said. “I think that was a big part of why we took it so serious, we want to be seen as the best in the world.”

There are several teams that — while not recognized countries — have their own Olympic committees and play in the Olympics, including Puerto Rico and Hong Kong. Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to play at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris as individual athletes under restrictions including not flying their countries’ flags or colors.

The Haudenosaunee Nationals has the backing of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympics, World Lacrosse and President Joe Biden in their bid to be in the Olympics. But the IOC has so far been firm on its decision. In a statement to the Times Union, a spokesperson said it was up to the United States and Canadian Olympic committees “to decide if they include athletes from Haudenosaunee in their respective teams depending on the passport they hold.”

The move to include lacrosse in the Olympics is a massive step for the sport and players, who don’t attract as much fame or revenue as other sports, Piseno said. But playing for another country is out of the question.

“The Haudenosaunee is not the U.S.A.,” he said. “The Haudenosaunee is not Canada. We are our own people.”

Lyons, who now serves on the Haudenosaunee Nationals’ nonprofit board, pointed out the Haudenosaunee have their own government and passports, and in 2024, the team will make their case to the IOC to include them, he said.

“We’re not going to compromise who we are,” Lyons said.