Iroquois Lacrosse in SI

Great story in SI this week on the Iroquois National Lacrosse Team. The only indigenous nation to compete internationally in any sport.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1172077/index.htm


Unfortunately it does not have a happy ending as they were unable to compete at the Lacrosse World Championship due to passport issues.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iI149z8c0uBRphmB54w06NhPQlNwD9H1321O0

For the life of me I can't understand why they didn't take the State Department up on the offer of US passports for the trip.

 

Stubbornness. I just wonder how much the various Iroquois tribal governments get from the federal government annually, since this lot seems to think they are an independent nation. I covered a tribal government and they were quick to say they were sovereign and always quick to ask for a federal handout.

 

Maybe they were afraid the federal passports were laced with smallpox.

 

That was a fantastic article and the storiess of "box lacrosse" were fantastic. The stubborness of the Onondaga is famous in CNY. It wasn't mentioned in the story, but there used to be a billboard on the interstate in Nation territory with hand-written scrawl welcoming people to "Onion City and a corrupt white police force." That wasn't the exact wording, but it was close.

I also heard stories from Syracuse people that if too many locals were hitting the tax free cigarette place on the reservation that the tribe would burn it down. The message was stay off our land no matter what.

 

Puerto Rico competes in international competitions. They don't issue their own passports.

This is a non-issue.

But it was important to them and they stood on principle. Good for them.

But if the principle was more important to them than the tournament, then they shouldn't be complaining.

It was their decision, and they made it.

 

It is a great story, and I agree with YF's last points.

Maybe this was a way for them to get some attention, because they sure as hell weren't going to win the world championship.

It's one thing to claim they're ranked fourth in the world but the truth is, only two teams have a real chance to win this tournament. The Iroquois weren't one of those two teams.