Native American Lacrosse Culture

One of the biggest leaders that helped change the Native American sport into its modern version seen today was a Canadian dentist by the name of Dr. William George Beers. Beers was a lacrosse fanatic, who had been introduced to the sport at a very early age in the French colonies in upper North America. As one historian points out as Beers grew older, “He became obsessed with the need for some sort of controlled play, some codification that would stabilize the erratic nature of the Indian sport and at the same time standardize lacrosse to eliminate the petty squabbles over technicalities that characterized so many Canadian games.” (Vennum 254) Beers became the main leader of these Caucasian lacrosse clubs in Canada that were being dominated
The culture surrounding the sport was completely changed by these white settlers, and one of the most telling incidents recent years at what this new lacrosse culture has evolved into was the Duke Lacrosse team rape scandal that occurred in 2006. The team was forced to stay on campus during their spring break that year to practice and prepare for upcoming games because their season was in full swing during that time. One author explains the events that stirred these rape allegations citing, “Traditionally, during the spring break week when the lacrosse players were stuck in town, the team had a “bonding party” at a local strip club. But the previous year, the club they selected began cracking down on fake identification and excluded the underage team members. To avoid this problem, some of the seniors decided to hire strippers to come to their off-campus house so everyone could participate in the fun.” (Seigel 4) That night most of the team had been drinking heavily since the early afternoon in preparations of the arrival of these strippers which set the stage for the events that followed that