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The
Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma
this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: 7
Flames Lacrosse Club)
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David Bross is a lawyer in Tulsa, Okla., who saw a story on
Deadspin about three mostly Native American lacrosse programs dismissed
from the Dakota Premier Lacrosse League shortly before the season
was to begin this spring.
The teams dropped were 7 Flames, a program based in the Rapid
City area with players primarily from the Rosebud reservation; Susbeca,
a Sisseton area program; and Lightning Stick Society, part of the
Oceti Sakowin Sports Council in Eagle Butte.
There remains plenty of dispute about the details that led to
the teams' removal from this youth lacrosse league, which this season
includes 23 teams from ages 11 to high school from North and South
Dakota, including four teams in Sioux Falls.
Conversations aimed at arriving at a resolution continue, though
it is safe to say coaches and directors from the three teams not
playing a DPLL schedule this year remain upset.
They focus on racism as the cause, asserting countless instances
where the Native American teams in the league have been subjected
to racial epithets. They also claim that the officiating is biased
and that their vehemence in asking for these issues to be addressed
is why Corey Mitchell, the founder and director of the DPLL, made
the decision to deny them membership in the league this year.
"The kids are being denied the opportunity to play," said 7
Flames director Cody Hall, summarizing an extended list of issues
he has with the league. "The fact that Corey Mitchell didn't want
to talk about it and didn't want to work with us is a problem."
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The
Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma
this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: 7
Flames Lacrosse Club)
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Mitchell has denied the expulsion of the three teams was racially
motivated, citing a series of rules violations that justified the
actions of the league.
"Enforcement of the rules is never easy," he said. "I've had
to deal with a lot of unpleasantness from several different clubs
being held accountable from not being certified to conduct
on the sidelines. It can be unfortunate at times, but people have
to be held accountable."
That's a very short version of what is going on within the world
of youth lacrosse in the Dakotas.
As conversations continue at arriving at tolerable resolutions
US Lacrosse, the nation's governing body for the sport, has
heard complaints from both sides and has proposed a series of changes
one person living in Oklahoma has tried to make things better.
"David Bross has made a bad story good," Hall said.
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The
Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma
this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: David
Bross)
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Bross is a civil rights lawyer who lives in Tulsa. He is not
Native American, but is a lacrosse aficionado who played the sport,
coaches it and has children who play it.
He's well-schooled in the role that lacrosse has played in Native
American culture and was disturbed by what he read in Deadspin,
a sports news and blog website.
"It fired me up," Bross said. "It bothered me as a father, a
coach and a lawyer."
That would have been where it ended for a lot of people. But
Bross reached out on Facebook to people he doesn't know and asked
what he could do to help.
Conversations with several coaches from the affected teams came
from the initial contact and the result with a heartwarming
level of support from people in Oklahoma has led to the 7
Flames program heading to Tulsa on a bus to play lacrosse this weekend.
"It's a big thing," Hall said. "For David Bross and the tribes
of Oklahoma and the community to come together and say 'this is
upsetting' and then do something about it is outstanding."
The conversations between Hall, Bross and 7 Flames coach Jeremiah
Moreno continued after the initial contact, with a schedule set
up for the weekend that includes lacrosse, fellowship and cultural
education.
On Friday night, after 16 hours on a bus, the team meets with
local tribe members in Tulsa with a demonstration of Native games
played for centuries by local tribes.
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The
Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma
this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: 7
Flames Lacrosse Club)
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It will continue with a series of lacrosse matches against local
Tulsa teams on Saturday morning, followed by a lunch catered by
a chef who prepares tradition Native meals. In the afternoon lacrosse
games will continue, with 7 Flames and Tulsa mixing up the teams.
It will be followed by a banquet held at Main Event USA, a large
restaurant/bowling/video game facility popular in Oklahoma.
"We really wanted to create an experience where everyone gets
to know each other," Bross said. "Everyone I contacted asked, 'What
can I do to help?' The Osage nation was very helpful. The casinos
around here are always willing to help the underprivileged. And
there were a lot of people giving 30, 40 of 50 dollars. By the time
we were done we'd raised more than $10,000 for the trip."
Lacrosse is known as "the Creator's Game" by Native cultures, with
versions of the sport going back more than a thousand years. Bross
knows the history, which compounded his concern.
"This whole thing made me mad and sad," he said. "Lacrosse is
more than a sport. It's more than a sport for me, a non-Native,
and it is an important part of their cultural history. I think this
trip, and how supportive people have been, shows how this sport
is different from the others."
It's not a gesture that will iron out the issues confronting
the sport in the state, but it does represent a series of deeds
rather than a series of words. That has to qualify as a positive
step.
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