by By Dan Ninham (Oneida)
The inaugural All Nations Football Conference is a 9-man league formed by eight tribal schools in South Dakota this 2019 season. The conference’s mission is to provide a positive football experience for tribal school athletes. Rather than being outsized and outmatched by public school competition, the conference strives to compete with opponents of equal size and match. The semi-finals will be held at the top seeds of each division on November 1st with the championship game being played at the DakotaDome on November 8, 2019 in Vermilion, SD.
Select players from each of the four semi-final teams will be featured this week in a story with ndnsports.com.
JayShaun Morrisette is a sophomore wide receiver and defensive lineman for Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The #1 seeded West Division Red Cloud Crusaders, 7-0, will be hosting the #2 East Division Lower Brule Kul Wicasa, 5-2, at 2:00 pm MST in the semi-finals of the inaugural All Nations Football Conference this Friday, November 1, 2019. The other semi-final game will be #1 East Division Crow Creek Chieftains, 7-0, hosting the #2 West Division Little Wound Mustangs, 5-2, at 5:00 pm MST.
“I am from the Oglala Lakota tribe, and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe but I live on the pine Ridge Reservation,” said JayShaun Morrisette. “My parents are both from the Oglala Lakota tribe, and they both live on the Pine Ridge Reservation.”
“One aspect of the game that I help my team out the most is the way I try to make sure everyone knows what there tasks are and make sure everyone works together,” said JayShaun. “My Lakota values and the way I was raised reflected back on my academics, like making sure I’m being respectful and always make sure I’m on top of all my work.”
“In the future I want to have a good paying job and a way that sports are going to help me do this is to make sure that I give it my all in everything and anything I do when it is related to sports or academics,” said JayShaun.
“A person who influenced me throughout my life is my Grandpa Joe Morrisette, because when I was growing up I had a knee injury that made me want to not play sports anymore. Grandpa Joe motivated me to look past the injury and look forward and work hard so I can come back stronger from the injury,” said JayShaun. “Another person who really motivated me and pushed me in my life was my mom Jennifer Morrisette, and this woman means so much to me because when I was sick or was having a rough time she was always there supporting me or helping so I owe everything to my mother.”
“In my freshman year of high school I suffered a knee injury during basketball season that hurt me a lot especially after I saw that I was improving and making my way up the line up,” said JayShaun. “It happened the day after I dunked for the first time, so it really hurt my mental health but I had supporters around me who made me want to work so after I healed I worked and worked and was in the gym for eight hours a day trying to get back to where I was. I wanted to come back stronger and quicker than I was before I got hurt, and that just shows never to quit and always keep grinding no matter what you go through in life. The moral of that story was to never give up even through your struggles because God gave his hardest battles to his strongest warriors.”
“An accomplishment that I have achieved in sports so far was how I won All Conference in football and I was the only freshmen to do it in the past 10 years,” said JayShaun.
Photograph provided by Red Cloud School Athletics.
