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Controversy Leads To Positive Outreach In Youth Lacrosse
 
 
by Mick Garry - Argus Leader
The Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: 7 Flames Lacrosse Club)

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."

The Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: 7 Flames Lacrosse Club)

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.

The Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: David Bross)

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.

The Rapid City-based 7 Flames lacrosse club will travel to Oklahoma this weekend for Lakota-Oklahoma Medicine Games. (Photo: 7 Flames Lacrosse Club)

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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