Nation player sees culture in box lacrosse games

Published July 20, 1997, in the Herald American.

Barry Powless ripped a shot into the goal at the Onondaga Nation's box lacrosse field, and he started a wiggly, joyous dance. As he moved Friday under a bright moon, car horns blared in the night and his friends and neighbors shouted their support.

Powless plays and coaches the Onondaga Nation team in the Iroquois Lacrosse Association, started in 1993 to offer the chance for summer competition and fellowship.

The dusty box lacrosse field at the Onondaga Nation presents the game in its simplest, purest form. Other teams in the league play indoors in cozy arenas. Other teams have roofs over their heads. Other teams, Powless said, pay players.

The Onondagas play under the stars. They play, for free, on a field where it is impossible to complete a game without getting a face full of dust. The field is lined with plywood and chainlink fence. Spectators sit in bleachers or stand to look over the fence or sit in their cars. After Onondaga goals, horns blast for a minute.

"This is the only outdoor lacrosse in the league," Powless said, "and that's all part of the excitement. Ah, we hear some comments from the visiting teams. We tell them this is good air conditioning. The other teams call it, because of the dust, "Desert Storm.' Our comeback is, "It was good enough for our grandfathers, it's good enough for us."'

BOX LACROSSE is booming. A new winter pro league, which plans to place a team in downtown Syracuse, has been formed. Powless coached Rochester to the 1997 Major Indoor Lacrosse championship. His team played in front of packed arenas. He knows the slick, homogenized form of his sport.

Powless, 40, had no doubt he would return to the Onondaga team to play this summer. He wanted to compete in the box in the middle of his neighborhood. He wanted to play with several of his closest friends. He wanted to listen to the car horns and the appreciative shouts of his people.

He enjoys his job coaching in Rochester, likes flying on jets to games. But it's not the same as riding on buses with his teammates to road games or the same as playing in the outdoor box on a warm summer night.

"When you're playing for heart, for recognition for your people," Powless says, "that's enough to propel you."

LACROSSE is closely entwined with Native American culture. "We believe lacrosse to be the creator's game," said Kent Lyons, who plays for the Onondagas. "The game was given to us by the creator for him to enjoy."

Playing outside, Lyons said, strips the game down its most basic, and best, form.

"You can see the spiritual connection," he said. "That's the biggest thing we've got here. We've still got that spiritual connection. It's one of the last places where you'll still see that strong spiritual connection. That's what drives a lot of these boys."

Lyons, Powless and their teammates lost, 11-10, Friday to the Akwesasne Thunder in a emotional, crisp, tense game. The game featured plenty of checking and scuffling and imaginative stickwork.

No doubt, the Thunder can play. They rallied from a 10-7 deficit to win Friday night in front of a hostile crowd. They romped through the regular season with a 12-0 record. The Onondagas finished second with a 9-4 record.

Friday's matchup was the next-to-last game in a round-robin series that serves as a prelude to the league playoffs, which begin this week. The Onondagas will play host Saturday and Sunday to the third-place Akwesasne Outlaws.

Powless expects a rugged series with the Outlaws. He also expects to win, and then face the Thunder in the title series.

He looks forward to the next time he plays the Thunder at the naturally air-conditioned, slightly uneven, utterly wonderful outdoor field on the Onondaga Nation.

David Ramsey is a columnist for the Herald American and The Post-Standard.

Copyright (c) 1997 The Herald Company