When Lacrosse Fans In The Crowd Threaten To "Scalp" A Native Opponent, You Know There Is A Major Issue In The Sport. Here's How To Heal Those Issues
(Jordie’s Note: This is going to be a little bit of a longer blog because it’s a major conversation that needs to be had. If you truly care about the sport of lacrosse, I suggest you stick by to read it all. If you don’t care about lacrosse and you are just interested in the headline, the context for what happened can be see in the two tweets following the opening paragraph)
This past weekend in Philadelphia was supposed to be a major celebration for the sport of lacrosse. The 2019 US Lacrosse Convention was in Philly and pretty much everybody of significance in the sport was in town. From equipment companies to every lacrosse media outlet to the best players in the world, the sport of lacrosse was being celebrated in Philadelphia this weekend and it was an incredible time. One of the biggest highlights of the weekend was that the Georgia Swarm were in town to take on the Philadelphia Wings on Saturday night, and there ended up being over 12,000 fans that walked through the door that night. That’s not 12,000 tickets sold. That’s 12,000 fans who were actually in the building to watch a professional lacrosse game. That speaks volumes to how much the sport is growing. And as for the game itself on the floor? It was perfect. The Swarm have players like Lyle and Miles Thompson. Two of the most exciting players in the game. The Wings were bringing back Kevin Crowley, last year’s leading scorer in the NLL, back for the first time after trading for him last weekend. And the game ended up coming down to just about the final minute of play before Georgia was able to secure a 13-11 win. So LaxCon was great. The actual Wings vs Swarm game was great. But unfortunately, it will all be overshadowed by a disgusting reminder that for how much progress the sport of lacrosse has made over the years, we still have a long long way to go in terms of getting racist bullshit out of the game entirely. And if you haven’t seen or heard what happened yet, here is everything you need to know.
Lyle Thompson, along with his brothers Miles, Jeremy and Jerome, grew up in the Onondaga Nation. If you’ve been around lacrosse long enough, you know that lacrosse came from the Haudenosaunee people and the Six Nations. If you’re only slightly familiar with lacrosse, these are the Iroquois. Now something that is very prevalent in Haudenosaunee culture is the hair braid. And even though the braid looks cool coming out the back of a lacrosse helmet, the braid means so much more to the Native people than just a look. It’s a tradition. It’s a part of their identity and it’s a way for them to keep their identity in touch with their ancestors. It’s not just a hairstyle, but lifestyle. So when Lyle Thompson–one of the most well-known and well-respected lacrosse players in the world who has done so much to grow the sport and preserve its roots–is playing in a game in front of 12,000 people and this comes across the PA system:
It’s obviously a major issue. Now here’s a quick disclaimer: In no way am I attempting to make an excuse for Shawny Hill (the Wings in-arena host) for saying “let’s snip the ponytail right here”, but I will say that I know Shawny well. And I know that this comment didn’t come from a malicious place, but rather an ignorant one. Shawny is not in the lacrosse world. Sure, he works for the Wings but I have to imagine the first Wings home game this year was the first lacrosse game he’s ever actually watched. So not only do I not think he realized that Lyle Thompson is Native, but he also does not know the history of the game and what the Haudenosaunee people mean to the sport. Had he known that, he wouldn’t have made those comments. So was the comment racially motivated? Not at all. But does that shed light on a major issue in this sport, which is the fact that the history of the game is not celebrated well enough to make sure everybody is aware of it? Absolutely. And we’ll get into that more a little later on.
The Wings have apologized for the incident, Shawny Hill has apologized for the incident, and Lyle is such a great guy that I’m sure he will gladly accept those apologies. Do I still think it’s justified for Hill to catch some heat for not being aware of the history of the game and how much the braid means to people like Lyle Thompson? Absolutely. But Lyle doesn’t have a bad bone in his body and I’m sure he’ll understand it was just an awful mistake. However, what there is quite literally ZERO EXCUSE for is the fact that fans were even mentioning the word “scalp” to Lyle. And an apology could never be accepted for those types of actions.
That shit right there is beyond disgraceful. I wish there was a way to figure out exactly which fans were saying shit like that because those people deserve to never watch another lacrosse game for as long as they live. That is as racist and as disgusting as it gets, and there’s not possibly enough shame in the world for those people to feel for themselves. It makes me so sick that in 2019 anybody has to hear anything like that from anybody, let alone one of the greatest lacrosse players in the world from people who consider themselves lacrosse fans. That type of shit has no place in the game and no place in this world. It’s an embarrassment is what it is. And it also sets the game back so damn much because regardless of how much the sport of lacrosse grows, negative incidents like this one are all that major media outlets are ever really inclined to cover. So just when we think the sport is gaining traction in the world, we take a massive step back with racist shit like this. And that’s what it is–it’s racism to its very core. The comment about the ponytail from the In-Arena Host was a terrible mistake but it came from a lack of knowledge/understanding of both the player and the history of the game. The “scalping” comments from the fans were pure racism and as much as this sucks to admit, it’s not like this was an isolated incident that never happens anywhere else in the sport.
The incident this weekend had some other great Native players, like Tehoka Nanticoke, recounting experiences of their own with racism in the game. Unfortunately this particular experience with Tehoka was yet another racist incident in Philadelphia, however, this type of stuff happens everywhere. That’s obviously not the main point and I’m not just trying to protect Philly here, but these types of incidents happen all over the place. And what that demonstrates to me at least is that there’s a disconnect between the sport of lacrosse today and its origins.
Pretty much anytime you bring up the sport of lacrosse around people who aren’t familiar with the game, they’re always going to bring up the bro culture. They’re always going to say it’s for “Brads and Chads” who and then something along the lines of their dads being lawyers or something like that. And you know what? Yes, there is definitely a bit of a bro culture in the sport of lacrosse. It’s not as exaggerated as people make it out to be, but it’s not like the “lax bro” label on the game came out of nowhere. However, the bro culture in the sport is not the original culture of lacrosse. It’s an appropriated version of the game. The original culture of lacrosse are the Haudenosaunee people. The Iroquois brought us the Creator’s game. The game has changed over time and it’s been appropriated in a few different ways. But it’s still the Creator’s game and we have the ancestors of players like Lyle Thompson and Tehoka Nanticoke to thank for it. But unfortunately, they’ve had to endure racist remarks being thrown at them throughout their playing career as Natives.
Obviously racism in general is terrible. But for anybody to be racist against the people who gave us the sport of lacrosse in the first place? It’s just un-tolerable at any level. The Iroquois refer to as lacrosse as the medicine game. The game has a healing energy and gives you peace of mind. If there’s one thing that lacrosse desperately needs after an incident like the one that occurred this past weekend, it’s healing. It’s to make sure that we go back to the medicine game roots of the sport and begin to heal together. Healing starts with knowledge. It starts with everybody learning and knowing the history of the game so that we don’t allow it to evolve into something that fosters racism. And in order for that knowledge to be known by everybody, the sport needs to continue to celebrate the origins of the game. An in-arena host working for a professional lacrosse team shouldn’t be able to go out there and work in the lacrosse industry without knowing the history of the game first. The reason why that happened is because for some reason, not everybody thinks the origins of the game are a necessity to understanding the sport so they don’t bother to make sure those origins are known.
And that’s really what this all comes down to. I mean sure, there are always going to be racist assholes out there who make racist remarks. But in order to actually be the Sport Of The Future, we need to make sure that we celebrate the origins of its past.
P.S. – Lyle is an absolute beast. What a snipe.