by By Dan Ninham
The Haudenosaunee Promise Scholarship Program at Syracuse University makes college dreams come true for aspiring native students.
The program seeks to make education available to qualified, first-year American Indian students who are citizens of one of six Haudenosaunee nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, or Tuscarora. Qualified students receive tuition, housing, meals on campus, and mandatory fees for each year of full-time undergraduate study.
Curtiss Summers is known by most as CJ. “My native name is Lastohslaló•loks, meaning He gathers feathers. I’m Oneida, Menominee, and Stockbridge-Munsee and my clan is bear. I am 18 years old and I’m from Oneida, Wisconsin.”
“I just made it on the Syracuse University men’s club lacrosse team, and I’m a freshman in college,” said CJ.
“I started playing sports around the age of six or seven years old,” said CJ. “I started out bowling in elementary school. As I got older I started to get more into lacrosse, basketball, and football. In middle school I ran cross country and played lacrosse, and also when I went to Oneida Nation High School.”
“While in college I strictly play lacrosse,” added CJ.
“My main accomplishments was winning a state lacrosse tournament when I was in the Oneida youth program,” said CJ. “Right after that we won a national tournament in Nebraska. In my junior year I made first team all-conference, and I got to play in the all-star game.”
“I tried out for the Iroquois Nationals, and got on the U18 team. Lastly, I made the Syracuse men’s club lacrosse team,” added CJ.
“The main tribal core value that defines me as a student-athlete is having a good mind and good heart,” said CJ. “I would say that because in order to get your work done on time and still make practice, you would need a clear and good mind. Having a good heart as a student-athlete just makes you a better person overall.”
“Someone who positively influences me as an athlete is Jeremy Thompson and Lyle Thompson,” said CJ. “As I was growing up I watched Lyle while he was in college and I liked his playing style and I wanted to work that into my game as well.”
“I liked Jeremy’s grit and determination he had for the game, and he plays the position I play for lacrosse. I watched closely how he does his things in the faceoff position,” added CJ.
CJ talked about his needed holistic training during the pandemic: “Physically, I run and I also weight lift with my cousin and brothers at my grandpa’s house. Emotionally, I focus my emotions on school and lacrosse so I can get the grades I need and be able to perform my best on the lacrosse field. Mentally, I maintain a positive attitude and every so often try to meditate to relieve some of the stresses from the week. Spiritually, I wake up and give thanks to the Creator for another day, and that normally puts me in a great mood for the rest of the day so I can perform my best without any stress.”
One of the people in the fan stands will be Mark Burnam. Mark is one of the leaders of the Iroquois Nationals Development Group (INDG). INDG provides opportunities for team development programming.
“I live right around the corner from CJ,” said Mark Burnam. “He is a great kid, very bright and a pretty damn good face-off guy.”
“He was definitely in the running until the end for the Iroquois Nationals U19 team,” said Mark. “In a few more years of experience he has a shot on the team. Now that he will be with kids from the northeast he will absolutely get better with all the great competition he will have here.”
“CJ has a very competitive spirit and that’s what you want in a face-off guy. He also took direction very well plus that young man has a motor that won’t quit! He has great size and with a little more experience and quality competition he will definitely become a very good face-off man,” added Mark.
“CJ, Lastohslaloloks ‘He gathers feathers’, started showing interest in lacrosse when he was about six or seven years old,” said dad Curtiss Summers. “I was primarily his coach throughout his young lacrosse career.”
“Being his father first, it was a challenge to be his coach,” said Curtiss. “He picked up on a lot of things on his own but he always had questions. He is a natural and is for sure a student of the game. Always learning. From the beginning, he spent hours working on passing, shooting and catching with his non-dominant hand. For most of the time he did it on his own, if I wasn’t there to play catch with.”
“By the time he was ready to play in actual games he was ready. He didn’t play in his first game until he was about nine years old. As he played through our youth program, he developed his basic skills as often as he could on his own and put them to work during practice and games. He would ask me or his other coaches if there was something else he can be doing different or better. It was crazy! He’s just a kid! He shouldn’t be asking things like that! But that’s the way he is and that’s just not on the field, he’s like that off the field as well,” added Curtiss.
“During his high school years he pretty much hasn’t changed a whole lot with his routine as far as him working on his own,” said Curtiss. “The only thing he added is, him going to many face-off clinics and going to a number of college prospect camps. This is where he was able to get some instruction he needed from a college perspective where he excelled his play on the field during his high school career.”
CJ was named first team all-conference as a junior. He had the highest face off win percentage in the conference for two consecutive years. CJ was also second in the state with FO% his junior year. Due to COVID-19, there wasn’t a senior season.
“He made the U18 Iroquois Nationals development team and now he made the lacrosse club team at Syracuse University,” said Curtiss.
CJ graduated with high honors from Oneida Nation HS and received a full scholarship to the Syracuse University through the Haudenosaunee Promise Scholarship. He is studying aerospace engineering.
Artley Skenandore, Oneida Nation HS Athletic Director, talked about a prized member of the school and outside community: “CJ Summers epitomizes the meaning of ‘Student Athlete’! While in high school, CJ always expressed himself in the classroom first, while never forgetting his passion for the LAX field. Now in college for Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse, CJ is still fueling his passion for LAX. I anticipate to one day hearing that CJ will be traveling in space. Maybe we will all witness the first astronaut with a lacrosse stick in his hand high above the Earth! No ceiling and no limits to goal achievement for CJ! ONHS is proud to say he is an Alumni!”
“CJ’s basis is with our culture, our ways,” said Curtiss. “To have a strong mind, heart and spirit is what teaches us to be the person who we want to be and CJ is that! The game of lacrosse is who CJ Summers is. He has that connection that a lot of our kids have that play this game. That is a direct connection to our culture and our Creator.”
“We’re very lucky to have this game in our family,” said Curtiss. “It brought us together and made us stronger because of it.”
Photo Credit: Louisa Mehojah
Thank you for such a great article on my nephew CJ Summers. I only wish his grandma and grandpa Reiter were so with us to cheer him on….CJ will definitely break many barriers in his lifetime and become a great role model for future youth.