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oys born in Haudenosaunee country grow to be one of three types of men: a speaker of their clan’s language, a singer of their songs, or a lacrosse player. For someone like 58-year-old Rex Lyons, a member of the Onondaga Nation’s Eel Clan, the sport is a fundamental right. A hickory lacrosse stick was placed into his hands out of the womb, and he will be buried with one in his grasp.

Rex was a part of the first Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse team in 1983. His father, Oren Lyons, is a lacrosse legend — formerly an All-American at Syracuse University in the 1950s who’s credited with forming the first official Haudenosaunee team. Lacrosse flows in the Lyons’ blood. It’s why Rex does everything he can to help people today understand the sport’s origins. Because, Rex said, not many people do.

Under current rules, the Haudenosaunee — who invented lacrosse — are not permitted to compete in the sport they consider a sacred tradition under their own flag at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“We’re not going to go there as a gesture,” said Rex, a board member of the Haudenosaunee Nationals Lacrosse Team. “We should be there under our own flag, standing shoulder to shoulder. Not subservient, not playing in an exhibition game and getting a pat on the head. No, no, no. That’s not inclusion. That’s exploitation.”

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an Indigenous group whose territory extends throughout parts of New York, Ontario and Quebec, created lacrosse around 1100 A.D. It’s the oldest organized sport in North America. In 2023, the International Olympic Committee approved lacrosse’s return to the summer games for the first time since 1908. Yet, the sport’s creators may not be allowed to participate.

The Haudenosaunee are advocating for special approval from the IOC, which would grant them sovereign nation representation and the chance to play lacrosse at the next Olympic Games. On Jan. 17, the United States and Canada submitted a joint statement calling on the IOC to admit the Haudenosaunee.

But, as multiple Haudenosaunee citizens agreed, statements only mean so much. They still face an uphill battle amid a crucial calendar year that could determine their Olympic eligibility — which they say would be a major milestone in securing status as a sovereign nation.

According to an IOC statement sent to The Daily Orange, the committee’s current stance remains that the Haudenosaunee will not be allowed to compete as their own team in 2028.

“Only National Olympic Committees (NOCs) recognised by the IOC can enter teams for the Olympic Games in accordance with the Olympic Charter,” an IOC spokesperson stated. “This means it is up to the two NOCs concerned (USA and Canada) – in coordination with World Lacrosse and the National Federations concerned – to decide if they include athletes from Haudenosaunee in their respective teams depending on the passport they hold.”

At the same time, according to Rex, the LA28 Organising Committee has expressed its support for the Haudenosaunee players to compete under their own flag.

The Haudenosaunee are searching for a special exemption to participate at the 2028 Olympics in lacrosse, the sport they created. Photograph Courtesy of the Haudenosaunee Nationals

The IOC’s position follows the U.S. government’s justification for centuries of land theft from Indigenous peoples across the country. On the global stage, Haudenosaunee lacrosse players are typically only allowed to play for the U.S. and Canada. Though a sovereign people, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is not a federally recognized country. The IOC, thus far, won’t automatically grant them Olympic competitor status.

“It’s our sport, it’s our gift to the world, and this is not like we’re looking for charity either. We’re third in the world in international competition, and we’re a full-fledged member of World Lacrosse as an independent, sovereign nation,” Rex said. “The challenge is that the IOC is its own entity. They don’t really answer to anybody.”

After the IOC confirmed lacrosse as an Olympic sport in 2028, Rex said he and the Haudenosaunee Nationals’ board had multiple productive meetings at the White House this past summer where they pushed for their inclusion. Former President Joe Biden supported the Haudenosaunee’s mission throughout his term, including in a speech at the White House Tribal Nations Summit on Dec. 6, 2023.

In January’s joint statement, the Haudenosaunee National Lacrosse Organization also thanked Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for coming together, signifying an improved relationship.

Haudenosaunee Nationals Board Chair Leo Nolan said much of their outreach to the U.S. and Canada has consisted of re-educating policymakers about who the Haudenosaunee are and how lacrosse is ingrained in their culture and history. But, as Rex and Nolan both said, the process has become more difficult with a new administration in the White House; they feel they must start over again with President Donald Trump now in office.

Considering Trump’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship in the U.S., a concern for Indigenous people in America, Rex said he’s less confident in the Haudenosaunee’s ability to work with the new president.

“It was getting better. Now we’re back to square one … It’s so tiresome,” Rex said.

This pattern of oppression is a repeating one for Indigenous people across North America, according to Neal Powless, head of SU’s Ombuds Office and a former Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse player. He said the U.S. government backtracks every time Indigenous peoples make progress in their pursuit of peace and sovereignty.

Upon winning independence from England, delegates at the U.S. Constitutional Convention used the Haudenosaunee’s Great Law of Peace to help draft the Constitution in 1787. The Great Law of Peace helped form many American democratic principles. Then, seven years later, the U.S. and Haudenosaunee signed the Treaty of Canandaigua, creating domestic peace between the Haudenosaunee’s Six Nations who lived in the land between the American-British Canadian border.

Despite progress, former President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, displacing Indigenous tribes located east of the Mississippi River. The U.S. government used various methods of ethnic cleansing in the lead-up to the act’s passage, employing violence and legally binding treaties that falsely promised peace. It led to the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 Indigenous people in what’s known as the “Trail of Tears.”

Powless said while the Haudenosaunee have always emphasized remaining an independent nation, the government breaks treaties every day. This history of Indigenous devastation isn’t taught as it should be in U.S. schools, he said.

“It’s a constant battle over sovereign expression as a country,” Powless said of the Haudenosaunee’s history. “The U.S. and Canada don’t acknowledge the Haudenosaunee as a country within a country.”

Lacrosse is among the modern-day examples of this sentiment.

Haudenosaunee citizens say earning representation under their own flag in the 2028 Olympics would be a small but necessary inflection point for mending domestic relations with the Indigenous community.

“I can’t imagine seeing a young Indigenous person, certainly Haudenosaunee, not dreaming of being in the Olympics at some point in their lifetime and seeing that it’s actually a reality,” Powless said. “That is the power of hope, and that’s also the power of sovereign expression.”

The infants of the Onondaga Nation are given miniature lacrosse sticks, referred to as “cradle sticks,” Rex said. The Haudenosaunee invented the sport to give thanks to The Creator, who loved nothing more than a good lacrosse game, Rex said.

For the Haudenosaunee, lacrosse is a harbinger of peace; the sport stopped conflict between the five warring nations at Onondaga Lake 1,000 years ago. But once you step on the grass field, Powless said, tranquility evaporates.

“It’s like a replacement for war,” Powless, a former three-time All-American at Nazareth College and 2002 All-World Lacrosse Team member, said of the sport. “I exerted as much pressure and push as I could when I played. I was channeling all of those who came before me and those that come after me to make a point to play for them.”

Lacrosse in the Onondaga language is Deyhontsigwa’ehs, which Rex said means it’s a rough sport. You bump hips. You experience peaks and valleys with every win and loss. It’s not all smooth sailing, Rex said, but it creates character to absorb what life throws at you.

For the Haudenosaunee, a game of lacrosse is a small way to honor the suffering of their ancestors.

It isn’t just a game for Haudenosaunee people: it’s a spiritual journey. Its deeply-rooted meaning makes Nolan believe lacrosse stands alone in comparison to other games that have simpler origins.

“I believe this is probably the only sport in the Olympics that comes from this kind of background, from a very spiritual, cultural background,” Nolan said. “It’s not like basketball or baseball or any of these other sports.”

Lacrosse’s indelible imprint on Haudenosaunee spirituality makes their push for Olympic qualification even stronger. Yet the Haudenosaunee, at times, feel that’s something only they know.

“That’s part of some of the challenges of contemporary society. I would say the general public is oblivious to this, this understanding, this notion,” Rex said of lacrosse’s Indigenous origin.

It wasn’t until 1983 that the Haudenosaunee formed their first organized, sanctioned men’s national team. The objective, Rex said, was to instill sovereignty. But ahead of the 1986 World Lacrosse Championship in Canada, the team was denied entry to the tournament by the Federation of International Lacrosse.

The FIL, now known as World Lacrosse, admitted the Haudenosaunee in 1988. They’re the only Indigenous team with international recognition as a sovereign people. And in 2008, the Haudenosaunee’s women’s national team became FIL members.

The Haudenosaunee Nationals have made seven appearances in the World Championships since 1990, finishing third three times in 2014, 2018 and 2022. They’ve also competed at the World Lacrosse Box Championships in the past, including in 2024 in Utica — about an hour from Syracuse — where both the women’s and men’s squads earned Bronze medals.

“Anytime we represent our people, it’s a huge honor,” said Trey Deere, sophomore attack for SU and the Haudenosaunee Nationals. “It’s hard to describe because there’s so many people before that had the honor of representing us and they did it with pride and they represented what we stand for.”

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Rex said the Haudenosaunee have more than earned their right to compete on the global lacrosse stage. But freedom, in the same way their human rights were stripped by European colonists, is continuously taken from them, he said.

He noted that less than three years ago, the Haudenosaunee were initially excluded from the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. Even on Haudenosaunee land, the team’s non-NOC status resulted in their exclusion from the competition. Ireland eventually dropped out to allow the Haudenosaunee to compete, and they finished in fifth place.

“What kind of competition would you have in lacrosse if the first nation to ever play, and still one of the best, isn’t represented?” Peter Milliman, then-head coach of the Haudenosaunee men’s team, told The New York Times of the team’s initial snub.

The United Kingdom prevented the Haudenosaunee from traveling to Manchester, England, in 2010 for the World Lacrosse Championship. The U.K. wouldn’t take their Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports, which the European Union doesn’t recognize. To enter, the Haudenosaunee needed to show Canadian or American passports.

Powless said, at the time, there were four men’s players on the team who were born on the Onondaga Nation reservation and therefore only had Haudenosaunee passports. Instead of leaving some of their teammates behind, the team chose to skip the World Championship. To travel with another nation’s passport would have gone against their sovereign ideals, he said.

If the Haudenosaunee were to use American or Canadian passports, it would play right into the two governments’ hands, Powless said. He added that it’s no surprise the countries voted no on the United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. The Haudenosaunee helped shape North America, yet Powless believes these countries’ governments are afraid to acknowledge the eminent domain of Indigenous peoples.

He used a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case, City of Sherrill, New York v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, to illustrate his point. The case questioned if a sovereign Indigenous nation in the U.S. could exercise its sovereignty over land it purchased from non-Indigenous landholders. But in an opinion authored by former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court ruled against Indigenous peoples regaining sovereignty over their ancestral, treaty-guaranteed land.

“It goes back to the colonial and post-colonial perspective of the world,” Powless said. “Colonial perspective assumes ownership based on things like discovery. Those agreements were made based on access to resources. And the reason that America is one of the richest countries in the world is because of the land to which they lay claim that they owned.”

Despite political challenges, many Haudenosaunee people believe the global lacrosse community supports their efforts for Olympic inclusion. Powless, who coaches the Dutch box lacrosse national team, said most other lacrosse-playing countries he has connections with want the Haudenosaunee to play in 2028.

Rex and Nolan said that whenever the national team is invited to an international competition, like the World Lacrosse Championship, the Haudenosaunee is the main attraction. Nolan added that the Haudenosaunee have formed strong relationships with opposing countries when at world events. He mentioned Japan and Taiwan as other countries that understand and support the Haudenosaunee’s goals.

Rex also said the bonds he’s formed with non-Indigenous players, such as Paul Gait, run deep and the wider lacrosse community understands the sport’s roots. Paul’s twin brother Gary Gait, head coach of Syracuse men’s lacrosse, agreed.

“It’s a very complicated situation, and I think everybody in the lacrosse world is hoping that it can happen and they’re supporting the Haudenosaunee,” Gait said. “I do as well.”

Terry Foy, CEO of Inside Lacrosse, said the modern lacrosse community has embraced the Indigenous community and wants Haudenosaunee players to feel welcome. Foy feels the sport of lacrosse owes a great deal to the Haudenosaunee for the “mistreatment” it has given them ever since William George Beers — known as the “father of lacrosse” — wrote the lacrosse rulebook in 1869.

“I think that people are not intimately familiar with the sport, and even still many who are intimately familiar with the sport of lacrosse don’t understand the sport’s relationship with the Native community,” Foy said.

If their men’s and women’s national lacrosse teams were left out of the 2028 Olympics, Haudenosaunee citizens feel it would be a disservice to their culture, which revolves around lacrosse. Photograph Courtesy of the Haudenosaunee Nationals

Speaking on the potential responses to rejection from the IOC, Foy floated the possibility of a U.S.-Canadian boycott if the Haudenosaunee aren’t allowed to compete in 2028; not to mention that Haudenosaunee players wouldn’t suit up for another country.

Foy sees 2025 as a key year for the Haudenosaunee to advance their platform. He said the Haudenosaunee need to lobby for an exemption from the IOC by demonstrating the benefits of their Olympic inclusion and arguing on behalf of their historical place in developing The Creator’s Game.

It’s unclear what the Olympic qualification process is for lacrosse — parameters are set to be released in “early 2025,” per World Lacrosse — but the Haudenosaunee would presumably need an exception soon to have a chance at playing in qualifiers.

Rex said the Haudenosaunee are putting together files of information to present to the IOC and government officials to further inform relevant parties of their unique circumstances. Rex saw the American-Canadian joint statement as a step in the right direction and is cautiously optimistic, as the Haudenosaunee “haven’t had much to cheer about.”

As for Nolan, the Haudenosaunee Nationals’ board chair is confident in the Haudenosaunee’s chances at playing under their own flag, again noting the joint statement’s value to their cause. The Haudenosaunee’s history in creating lacrosse is undeniable, and he believes they have enough support for the IOC to make a landmark decision. Nolan doesn’t see any argument against it.

“Why would you exclude some of the best players in the world because politically, you don’t care for them?” Nolan said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Neither does Deere.

“Lacrosse is our game,” Deere said. “For us to not be there, it’s a bad representation for the game.”

It’s not just about the right to play, Haudenosaunee lacrosse players say; it’s a small but necessary step to improving worldwide Indigenous recognition. The Haudenosaunee feel they can be a champion for Indigenous people all around the globe by taking the field in LA.

While he appreciates the support, Rex called it “misappropriation on steroids” if the Haudenosaunee can’t compete in 2028. The LA Olympic Committee wants them in. The lacrosse world wants them in. The Haudenosaunee feel most groups they talk to want them in.

Now, they have to wait and see if the IOC wants them in, too.

“Once the IOC sees and understands who we are, this is going to be a win-win-win for everybody,” Rex said. “How can they argue with that?”

Senior Staff Writer Zak Wolf contributed reporting to this article.

Photo Collage by Ilana Zahavy | Design Editor

Published on February 6, 2025 at 12:18 am

Contact Cooper at: ccandrew@syr.edu | @cooper_andrews