Monday, April 17, 2006
By Kevin Winters Morriss
Contributing writer
The Onondaga Nation Redhawks lacrosse team put on a clinic Saturday night during its exhibition game against the Ebony Storm from Howard University at the Nation arena.
The game was billed as the first meeting between a team comprised entirely of American Indians playing against a team of all African-Americans.
“It was really a great opportunity for us to come out here as black people playing a sport that the Indians made,” Howard’s Kareem McKnight said. “I really enjoyed playing the game and had fun out here. It’s not about the win or loss, it’s about coming out here, having fun and bringing the black youth and the black players up to the level where we should be playing with everybody else.”
The Redhawks’ Neal Powless, who starred for LaFayette High School and Nazareth College, said he didn’t want to miss Saturday’s game because of the game’s historical significance.
“That is why I came here and that’s why I played,” Powless said. “I don’t even know if I’m going to be playing with the Redhawks this year because I’m trying out with a pro team (San Francisco Dragons of the MLL). But I definitely wanted to be a part of this.”
The two teams traded gifts before the game started. The Nation team presented the Howard team with a wooden lacrosse stick, while the Storm gave the Redhawks a collector’s box filled with items from across Africa that represented the continent’s five clans. The two teams posed for pictures in front of one of the cages after the game.
“For us to come out here and come to the Indian nation and to play their game, that was the most significant part of it,” McKnight said.
The idea for the game came from Howard coach Duane Milton, who grew up in Ithaca and lived in Syracuse for a number of years. He said he approached the Nation about playing a game and that the contest has been in the works for the last year. He was glad to see the planning finally come to fruition.
“I think it’s absolutely needed in the world of lacrosse,” Milton said. “It helps people realize that the game of lacrosse is universal. There’s not a group of people who own the game. I think games like this are something people are looking for. It’s something new and fresh.”
The scoreboard read 6-0 at the end of the contest, but the Redhawks passed six goals within the first few minutes of the first period and didn’t stop scoring. The score was the least important part of the night.
“They wanted to come up and learn our game and that’s what it’s all about,” Redhawks captain Gewas Schindler said. “Hopefully they learned something about a different type of lacrosse. They’ve probably never been a part of something like this.”
The Nation team’s ability to pass and stick handle in traffic mesmerized the Howard team. The Redhawks often found themselves alone in front of the Storm’s cage with the goalie the lone person to beat.
“In the first three minutes of the first period, I was like, oh my goodness,” Storm goalie Jamison Scott said.
“I wasn’t seeing the ball. I was moving around, I was jumping. I am so used to making stick saves. You hold your stick a totally different way.”
To be fair, it was the Storm’s first experience with box lacrosse, and it took some time for the players to catch on. But the Howard team refused to give up, even refusing to switch goalies.
“We wanted to give them our goalie and they didn’t want to take it,” Schindler said. “It shows they have a lot of guts and they don’t want to give up at all. If we played field lacrosse, it might have been a different story.”
The Howard team, which drove up early Saturday in a van, planned to spend the night in the area and hoped to swap lacrosse stories with the Nation players.
“We’re going to hang out and go get some wings,” Milton said. “We’ll talk some lacrosse. I think our guys really enjoyed it.”