Neal Powless (Onondaga): Breathing Life into a Treaty Relationship Through Sport, 400 years later

By Neal Powlesss

I was standing in the middle of the locker room, addressing players that were about to embark on a journey that I had envisioned over 5 years ago. I looked into their eyes that were as intense as the massive lion heads eyes that covered the front of each jersey. The lion is on the royal Crest of the Dutch Royal Family surrounded by the royal orange color and today, that same orange was an accent color to the mean looking black uniforms that would eventually become the talk of the 2019 World Championships in box lacrosse hosted in Langley, Canada just outside of Vancouver.

In 2017, the Dutch National box lacrosse competed in its first sanctioned international competition in the European championships. The team finished in 14^th place, which was good enough to be last, and were ranked 17^th in the world heading into the World Championships. The Dutch would not get an easy welcome to the tournament as the first game would be against Ireland, the #6 team in the world, who was boasting that they were shooting for a top 4 finish in pre-tournament interviews.

“You are wearing the Royal crest on your chest. It is time to hunt. You are going to hunt like never before, and you will not stop! EVER! It’s time to let the lion out of the cage,” I exclaimed to wide eyes and intense cheers from the team. We rushed onto the field that evening, intense and intent on success, but the Irish were also set on victory as well.

This journey began over 400 years ago when Dutch settlers traveled up the (now named) Hudson River and met the Mohawks. After much deliberation and discussion among our leadership, the 5 unified nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) would strike up our first treaty with a European country. This agreement would become known as the 2 row wampum, and continues to be a driving force in the international negotiations between the people of the Haudenosaunee and the world. This relationship with the Dutch is referenced in speeches often to the UN by the likes of Faithkeeper Oren Lyons and Tadodaho Sidney Hill.

“For as long as the grass is green, as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, as long as water flows downhill so shall this agreement,” is the language of the connection the Dutch share with my ancestors. It is fitting now, that I am now coaching the Dutch National lacrosse team in a sport that is also a gift to the world that originates from the northeast region of Mother Earth. The single stick and ball game of Dehontsigwa’ehs (they bump hips) in Onondaga, and Tewarathon in Mohawk is now played by over 50 countries on almost every continent in the world and is being considered for the Olympics.

Having played lacrosse professionally for 7 seasons and competing internationally for 14 years for the Iroquois Nationals, I understood what it meant to be coaching a European team as an Indigenous person. I also understand that it will always be a relationship that evolves as we all grow together as players, coaches and humans. But it is also my personal mission to remind these players of our ancestral bond by teaching them the essence of how we as Indigenous people play the game and share the reverence that we have for the sport. This game is a gift from the creator that has brought our people and communities together in peace and friendship for centuries.

In the summer of 2012, I was in Amsterdam promoting the International World Premier of my lacrosse movie, Crooked Arrows which is a story about an Indigenous sports team. I often joke that it is the lacrosse version of Mighty Ducks. While in Amsterdam, I met with many of the Leadership members of the Dutch National team. A month later the National teams head coach was found to be committing fraud and was fired as their coach. While searching for a new head coach, I was suggested by numerous people and my nomination was accepted. I would become the first Indigenous Head Coach of an International lacrosse team since the beginning of the World Championships in 1967 and first coached in Denver, 2014 and would finish 16^th in the world out of 38 competing countries.

Right from the beginning I saw the potential of raw talent and in 2016, we competed in the European championships hosted by Hungary and won our pool to advance to the top 8 bracket. After a few losses, we would finish in 7^th place after beating Scotland in our final game who was coached by a college teammate of mine that I respected greatly. After this tournament, I shifted my focus to the developing Netherlands Box Lacrosse team which I was asked to coach. Through lessons learned from my previous work with the national field team, I created a coaching staff that would allow the team and country to develop lacrosse internally. Our focus would be proper skill development and fostering an attitude that harnessed the love of the game that I grew up with.

Growing up I had heard many things from my family and community about how the game should be played. It should be played tough, with great intensity, and with great respect for your opponents. From these many values I had created three rules that I have continued to drill into the heads of my players. Rule #1 is to always have fun. Rule #2 is to always know where the ball is. And the final rule is to always do your best. Within these basic rules the idea of family, one mind and togetherness is stressed. Working together while being as creative as possible in the game is how all these values come together. I had developed that for myself as a kid playing in the back yard with my friends.

At Onondaga, summers were spent doing chores as quickly as possible so that all the kids my age could play lacrosse the rest of the day. We would grab the goalie pads and rotate between goalie and player to compete one on one. No amendments for size, speed or skill were made. The goal was just to be better than the other guy that day. It fostered a creative style that we each had to develop on our own in order to be successful. It taught us our own gifts and how to use those as a way to counteract your opponents’ gifts.

In the Dutch athlete I found that many are very coachable and do things as technically sounds as they are trained. They seemed very coachable, and the challenge became how to instill the development of individual gifts while training a solid base of general techniques. I struggled with this balance until the most recent tournament in 2019.

In the 2017 European championships we took our beatings well. We had fun, we learned more about the game and ourselves each day, we only won a single game and finished last in the tournament. The only team that we beat was Sweden who was coached by my childhood friend and cousin. He was one of those same friends that I grew up competing against every day, and he also beat me once so we are still even, for now.

After our first team practice in the 2019 Worlds, our volunteer support staff wondered what they had gotten themselves into and were genuinely concerned with our ability to succeed. Dropped passes, missed opportunities where everywhere and a lack of knowledge and proper technique was rampant. But using a variety of strategies and techniques we were able to develop quickly, which was good since we had a big scrimmage with the Iroquois Nationals quickly approaching.

Utilizing my connections to the local Indigenous community and the Iroquois Nationals I was able to create a few really monumental moments for the team. First, the Squamish Nation welcomed us to their lands with a traditional welcoming song and formal proceedings. Afterwards, the team ran drills and played a pick-up game with the local lacrosse academy. The pick-up game was free flowing, creative, unstructured and without consequence of getting yelled at or running sprints for mistakes. Some players commented that it was one of the most enjoyable moments they had ever had playing the game. This is exactly the same style that I grew up playing.

A few days later, we played the #2 team in the world, the Iroquois Nationals. The management also recognized the importance and history of the Haudenosaunee/Dutch relationship which is why they agreed to scrimmage such a low ranking team. Some of our guys were in awe, having watched some of these players on YouTube. The Iroquois had already won the game before the first whistle. But our guys battled, had a few moments of success and realized that for a moment, they actually could run with these guys. We scored a couple goals, our goalies made a few saves and our defense made a couple plays. It was enough to have the experience and gain the confidence we needed. We later scrimmaged Costa Rica who ironically came in last in the tournament, so we knew that our skill level was somewhere in the middle and had yet to be tested.

Due to the number of teams training for the tournament, we had been relegated to a practice facility that did not have great footing, so we still didn’t know how good we were or what we could do. It wasn’t ideal so late in the training camp to have 3 practices in a single day, but we had a night when we actually were able to secure 2 facilities with good footing. We spent the first hour shooting, and working on some of the more enjoyable moments of lacrosse. The last practice of the day would become our defining moment.

Having gone over everything, we finally had an opportunity to run a drill that I have come to love that pitted the offense against the defense in a full competition. It was in this moment, through the full field and half field drills, which we were able to get our first look at how good we could be. Coaches, staff and even the players recognized what we had achieved. We had the base of what could be a good team. In our final drill, the defense won the competition and the offense had to do 20 push-ups. The defense, without skipping a beat, jumped in to join their teammates. Now, we were a team, we had become a family and we were willing to do anything for each other.

“You will not stop! EVER! It’s time to let the lion out of the cage,” was the last thing I heard before the echoing roar by each player as we charged the field for the countries very first competitive game in the Box Lacrosse World Championships. We started a little shaky giving up two quick goals but surprised Ireland with four straight. The game would go back and forth with 3 more lead changes and would end the half tied at 6. Netherlands scored the first goal of the second half and would not look back from there, finishing the game and completing the most unlikely of upsets with a final score of 11-8.

The following night the Dutch would continue their success against Serbia by jumping out to a commanding 8-4 lead at halftime. But, like many lacrosse games, other sports and even life, the momentum shifted and Serbia was able to claw back to an 11-9 victory. The Dutch would close out pool play with victories over a rival Switzerland team and another new entry Hong Kong to finish with a 3-1 record which was good enough to win the pool and qualify for the top 8 bracket. And thus, a 5 year vision was realized by a head coach.

I did not know who, how or when it would happen, but I believed that we would win a pool and compete at the highest level in world competition. That had always been the goal from the first day that I agreed to coach for the Netherlands. But to do so, I had to create a culture of winning, a culture that immersed itself in the game, and a team that understood and embraced the origins of the game and its historical importance to my people.

In the upper pool we struggled, not with abilities, desire or coaching but quite simply experience. We had our moments of glory after losing our first game by a considerable margin to the storied and talented Czech Republic team. We then played Israel, who would eventually finish in 5^th place, and had the score 6-5 in the 3^rd period before the lack of experience kicked in resulting in another sizable loss. In our final game, we would strive to avenge our previous loss to the Czech Republic with a respectable 8-12 loss to finish in 8^th place in the world. 

The team embraced the game as I see my own people embrace the game. They played with honor, passion and at no point in any of the games, no matter what the score was, they never gave up. The best part is that they left it all on the field, and shook the hands of their competitors afterwards. They shared the cultural and spiritual bond that every lacrosse player has shared since the beginning. I am proud as a Haudenosaunee man to say that I am the head coach of the Netherlands National Box Lacrosse Team and I am proud of each and every person that helped us along the way. Nyawenha to all the staff, coaches, fans who traveled across the ocean and to the players all over the world for embodying the spirit of the game. A special and deeper gratitude is extended to my Dutch players who have embraced me, this game and my culture into their hearts.