Who was Alf Jacques and how did he contribute to preserving traditional lacrosse. What was Jacques’ role in promoting Native American heritage through the sport of lacrosse. How did Alf Jacques’ lacrosse stick making skills impact the game and Indigenous culture.
The Life and Legacy of Alf Jacques: Master Lacrosse Stick Maker
Alf Jacques, a renowned lacrosse stick maker from the Onondaga Nation, passed away at the age of 74, leaving behind a remarkable legacy in the world of traditional lacrosse. Jacques was not only a skilled craftsman but also a passionate advocate for preserving the cultural heritage of the sport.
Born and raised on the Onondaga Nation, Jacques began learning the art of lacrosse stick making from his father, Louie, in the 1970s. Over the course of his career, he crafted thousands of wooden lacrosse sticks, earning a reputation as one of the most respected stick makers in the world.
Early Beginnings and Family Tradition
Jacques’ journey into lacrosse stick making began in his backyard on the Onondaga Nation. Working alongside his father, he honed his skills and learned the intricate techniques passed down through generations. This father-son collaboration laid the foundation for Jacques’ future as a master craftsman and cultural ambassador.
Preserving Traditional Techniques
In an era of mass-produced plastic sticks, Jacques remained committed to the traditional methods of crafting wooden lacrosse sticks. His dedication to preserving these techniques played a crucial role in maintaining the cultural significance of the sport for Indigenous communities.
The Significance of Wooden Lacrosse Sticks in Native American Culture
Wooden lacrosse sticks hold a special place in Native American culture, particularly among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people. These sticks are not merely sporting equipment but are imbued with spiritual and cultural significance.
- Symbol of tradition: Wooden sticks represent a connection to ancestral practices and beliefs
- Spiritual importance: Many believe the sticks possess a spirit and are treated with great respect
- Cultural identity: The crafting and use of wooden sticks help preserve Indigenous heritage
Jacques’ work in creating these traditional sticks helped to maintain this important cultural link, ensuring that future generations could continue to experience the deep connection between the sport and their heritage.
Alf Jacques’ Contributions to the Sport of Lacrosse
Beyond his role as a stick maker, Alf Jacques made significant contributions to the sport of lacrosse throughout his life. His involvement extended far beyond the workshop, touching various aspects of the game.
Playing Career
Jacques was not only a craftsman but also an accomplished player. He served as a goalie for the professional indoor lacrosse team, the Syracuse Sting, demonstrating his deep understanding and love for the sport.
Coaching and Management
After his playing career, Jacques continued to be involved in lacrosse as a coach and general manager for multiple Onondaga Nation squads. In these roles, he helped nurture young talent and promote the traditional aspects of the game.
Cultural Consultant
Jacques’ expertise was sought after beyond the lacrosse field. He served as a cultural consultant for the movie “Crooked Arrows,” which tells the story of a Native American high school lacrosse team. His involvement helped ensure an authentic portrayal of the sport’s cultural significance.
The Art and Science of Traditional Lacrosse Stick Making
Crafting a traditional wooden lacrosse stick is a complex process that requires skill, patience, and intimate knowledge of materials. Alf Jacques mastered this art over decades of practice.
Selection of Materials
The process begins with carefully selecting the right wood, typically hickory, known for its strength and flexibility. Jacques would choose trees with straight grains and few knots to ensure the best quality sticks.
Shaping the Stick
Once the wood is selected, it is carefully shaped using traditional tools and techniques. This process can take several days to weeks, depending on the complexity of the design and the moisture content of the wood.
Steaming and Bending
To achieve the characteristic curve of the lacrosse stick, the wood is steamed to make it pliable. It is then carefully bent into shape and held in place until it cools and sets.
Stringing the Head
The final step involves stringing the head of the stick with leather or synthetic materials. This requires great skill to achieve the proper tension and pocket depth for optimal ball control.
The Impact of Alf Jacques on Indigenous Youth and Culture
Alf Jacques’ work extended far beyond the creation of lacrosse sticks. His dedication to the craft and the sport had a profound impact on Indigenous youth and culture.
Inspiring Future Generations
Through his work and teachings, Jacques inspired many young people to connect with their heritage and take pride in traditional practices. His workshops and demonstrations helped pass on valuable skills and knowledge to the next generation.
Promoting Cultural Understanding
Jacques’ role as a cultural ambassador helped promote greater understanding and appreciation of Native American traditions among non-Indigenous people. His appearances at events and in media helped educate a wider audience about the cultural significance of lacrosse.
Preserving Language and Traditions
The process of stick making often involves the use of traditional language and practices. By continuing this craft, Jacques helped preserve important aspects of Indigenous culture that might otherwise have been lost.
Challenges Facing Traditional Lacrosse Stick Makers
While Alf Jacques achieved great success in his craft, traditional lacrosse stick makers face numerous challenges in the modern era.
Competition from Mass-Produced Sticks
The widespread availability of cheaper, mass-produced plastic sticks has made it difficult for traditional craftsmen to compete in the broader market. This economic pressure threatens the viability of traditional stick making as a sustainable practice.
Scarcity of Materials
Finding suitable wood for lacrosse sticks has become increasingly difficult due to environmental changes and restrictions on harvesting. This scarcity of raw materials poses a significant challenge to traditional stick makers.
Passing on Traditional Knowledge
As older generations of stick makers pass away, there is a risk of losing the intricate knowledge and skills required for this craft. Efforts to teach and preserve these techniques are crucial for the survival of traditional stick making.
The Future of Traditional Lacrosse and Stick Making
Despite the challenges, the legacy of craftsmen like Alf Jacques continues to inspire efforts to preserve and promote traditional lacrosse and stick making.
Educational Initiatives
Many Indigenous communities are implementing educational programs to teach young people the art of stick making and the cultural significance of traditional lacrosse. These initiatives help ensure the continuation of these practices.
Collaboration with Modern Sport
There are ongoing efforts to incorporate traditional elements into modern lacrosse, creating a bridge between the ancestral game and its contemporary form. This includes the use of traditional sticks in certain competitions and exhibitions.
Cultural Preservation Efforts
Museums, cultural centers, and Indigenous organizations are working to document and preserve the techniques and stories associated with traditional lacrosse stick making, ensuring that this knowledge is not lost to time.
Honoring Alf Jacques’ Memory and Continuing His Work
The passing of Alf Jacques marks the end of an era, but his impact on the world of lacrosse and Indigenous culture will continue to be felt for generations to come.
Memorial Initiatives
Various organizations and communities are planning memorial initiatives to honor Jacques’ life and work. These may include exhibitions of his craftsmanship, educational programs, and the establishment of scholarships in his name.
Supporting Emerging Craftsmen
Efforts are underway to support and promote emerging lacrosse stick makers who are carrying on the traditional techniques championed by Jacques. This support is crucial for ensuring the continuity of this important cultural practice.
Preserving Jacques’ Legacy
Documenting and sharing Jacques’ techniques, stories, and philosophy will be essential in preserving his legacy. This may involve creating archives, producing documentaries, or publishing books about his life and work.
Alf Jacques’ contributions to the world of lacrosse and Indigenous culture were immeasurable. His dedication to preserving traditional stick-making techniques and promoting the cultural significance of the sport has left an indelible mark on both the lacrosse community and Native American heritage. As we reflect on his life and accomplishments, it becomes clear that Jacques was not just a craftsman, but a cultural guardian whose work will continue to inspire and educate for years to come.
The challenge now lies in honoring his memory by ensuring that the knowledge and skills he worked so hard to preserve are passed on to future generations. By supporting emerging craftsmen, promoting educational initiatives, and continuing to celebrate the cultural importance of traditional lacrosse, we can help ensure that Alf Jacques’ legacy endures, keeping alive the spirit of this ancient and revered sport.
Indigenous lacrosse community rallies for stick-maker Alf Jacques (photo of the week)
Posted inPhotojournalism
Funds from the tournament will help pay Jacques’ medical bills as he battles cancer.
by Michael Greenlar
Mike Greenlar | Central Current
The Native American lacrosse community organized a five-team tournament on April 15 and 16 to support legendary stick-maker Alf Jacques.
He is currently battling cancer, and the proceeds from the tournament will go toward his treatment. The five teams came from across New York State.
Jacques is a world-renowned, traditional wooden lacrosse stick maker. He began making his sticks with his father Louie in their backyard on the Onondaga Nation in the 1970s.
Since that time, Jacques has made thousands of wooden lacrosse sticks.
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Lacrosse stick-maker discusses heritage | The Ithacan
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By The Ithacan
Published: November 20, 2013
To conclude its celebration of Native American Heritage Month, the Ithaca College anthropology department and the Office of Student Engagement and Multicultural Affairs hosted Alf Jacques to speak before a screening of the movie “Crooked Arrows” on Nov. 19 in Klingenstein Lounge.
Jacques, 64, is a member of the Onondaga Nation, and he has made wooden lacrosse sticks for more than 50 years. He was a cultural consultant on the set of “Crooked Arrows,” which tells the story of a coach who leads a Native American high school team on an uphill journey to the state lacrosse championship game.
Jacques was a former goalie for the professional indoor lacrosse squad the Syracuse Sting and has been a coach and general manager for multiple Onondaga Nation squads, which play with wooden sticks.
Steve Derderian, assistant sports editor, sat down with Jacques to discuss the movie, his lacrosse stick–making career and the Native American version of lacrosse.
Steve Derderian: How did you get involved with this screening process?
Alf Jacques: This all started when [“Crooked Arrows” co-producer Neal Powless] came to visit me. He saw what I was doing and thought it was unbelievable. They loved the history, the culture and tradition at Onondaga Nation and the sticks especially. I always go back to talking about this stick then and now. But today’s sticks are plastic with titanium handles. But they loved it.
SD: What specifically was your involvement with the movie?
AJ: All the handles that go into the plastic were made by me. When you see [the actors] running through the woods playing the game, a lot of those sticks were mine that they rented from me.
I was also on the set as a cultural consultant. They actually changed the script to accommodate the Onondaga people and the traditional native people. When I came back from the shoot, people were asking me what it was like. I said, “You’re going to like stuff, and you’re going to hate stuff,” and that’s exactly what happened because it’s Hollywood. If we wanted our story our way, it would be a documentary and not a Hollywood movie.
SD: What are some of the differences in the Native American approach to the game compared to the modern game?
AJ: At Onondaga, we play our traditional game our way, our stick, our rules, our ball, without any input from Baltimore or any of the non-Native rulemaking people. It’s always a wooden stick. You don’t play with plastic, that’s just not done. You’re supposed to play this game as hard as you can, you run as fast as you can, you hit as hard as you can, but it’s not about hurting anybody; it’s about playing the game to the best of your abilities.
On the field, there’s no center line, there’s no faceoff circle, restraining line, crease, endline, sideline or out of bounds in our game.
SD: Your father taught you to make wooden lacrosse sticks when you were a teenager, but do you have an apprentice or somebody you’re teaching to make these sticks?
AJ: I’ve looked for apprentices for a long time. I’ve gone the longest time without having a true apprentice who stuck with me long enough to get something done, and that’s a long time — 25, 30 years. I did train a couple people who made one or two sticks, but they didn’t stick with it. Bottom line, there’s a lot more work to this than people realize.
SD: When done right, how long does the process take to make one stick?
AJ: Eight months per stick. You don’t make one at a time, you make them in groups.
SD: Do you have any sticks on display in museums?
AJ: I have a stick in the Iroquois Indian Museum near Cobleskill.
I have another stick in the governor’s collection in the New York State Museum in Albany, and I have a stick display from a split cut bent finished in Baltimore where they create all the rules in that museum there.
SD: So how much longer do you plan on making these sticks?
AJ: As long as I can. The apprentices are coming up. I’m going to make sure they can do it before I stop. I’m going to ease back, and I can’t physically do what I used to when I was younger. That’s just obvious. The numbers will dwindle down. I won’t be making a whole lot of them, I’ll just make less and less. Then the price will go up.
The hockey equipment market becomes a monopoly
Hockey is traditionally considered one of the most expensive sports in terms of equipment costs. If football players only need leggings, boots, underwear and uniforms with a ball, then hockey players have a much larger set of protective equipment both in terms of the number of elements and their complexity.
Do not forget about the service life – modern professional-grade composite sticks break like matches.
Ice hockey is inferior to football in terms of audience and geographic coverage, but the key markets of Canada, the US, Scandinavia and Russia are still very desirable. In addition, the specifics of the production of many elements of hockey equipment are similar to technologies in other sports – baseball (bats and traps), lacrosse (sticks and helmets), roller skates (skates), so many manufacturers are not limited solely to hockey.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, the market remained extremely competitive. Finnish Koho goalkeeping equipment was in great demand, many field players chose helmets from the Swedish company Jofa. Canadian CCM has experienced two bankruptcies in the 80s and 90s and more than one change of ownership. Bauer, one of the pillars of the industry, was bought by Nike in 1994, a move that marked a turning point in the gradual monopolization of the market.
The motives of the Americans were quite understandable – the Nagano Olympics were on the nose, where professionals from the NHL played for the first time, and Nike, which replaced Reebok, again became the supplier of game jerseys for all national teams for the first time. The contract with the IOC, by the way, is still valid.
Quite quickly, the Bauer Hockey brand turned into Nike Bauer, and many were sure that the moment would soon come when the entire line of equipment would be transferred to the parent brand.
In 1998, CCM acquired the legendary hockey brands Jofa, Koho, Canadien, Heaton and Titan. Wayne Gretzky played with Titan clubs for almost his entire career. In 2004, the combined company was acquired by Reebok, which had not previously been represented in hockey (gaming jumpers at the Olympics in Lillehammer were a one-time story). Almost immediately, the company’s management decides to stop production under all brands except CCM, and use the existing developments and models for a new line under the RBK Hockey label.
This decision was largely dictated by the policy of the NHL, IIHF and IOC, according to which manufacturers of hockey equipment had to pay fees to tournament organizers for the opportunity to display their trademarks in television broadcasts. The logos of companies that did not enter the pool of suppliers were simply pasted over (pay attention to the helmet).
Naturally, the same goes for advertising budgets – why spend money on promoting 5 brands when you can focus on one or two?
As a result, by the mid-2000s, an interesting situation had developed on the hockey equipment market. The leaders were Nike Bauer and Reebok-CCM, which by that time had already been absorbed by the German adidas, which fought with Nike for leadership on the scale of the entire sports goods market. The Warrior brand entered the market, which in turn was owned by New Balance. Easton Hockey also held strong positions. The market seemed to have come into balance with 4 key players and 7-8 second-tier brands.
On February 21, 2008, Nike unexpectedly announced the sale of its Nike Bauer division to a group of private investors for $200 million. In 1994, Bauer was worth $395 million. There was no clear explanation for the reasons for this step, but analysts noted that the margins of the hockey equipment market are much lower than conventional sportswear, and Bauer’s performance had a negative impact on Nike’s performance overall. Literally six months later, the new owners of Bauer gained control of Mission-Itech, which merged two brands of hockey equipment in 2004. In 2009-m, both lines began to be released under the Bauer brand.
In 2013, after almost 10 years and tens of millions of dollars spent, adidas bosses recognized the futility of the Reebok brand presence in hockey and announced the closure of the line. From next year, all models of skates, sticks, helmets, gloves and hockey equipment began to be called CCM.
Two years ago, the owners of the Bauer brand, which by that time had already bought several manufacturers of equipment for sports related to hockey (primarily lacrosse and baseball), announced the acquisition of control in Easton Bell Sports.
Under the terms of the deal, the baseball and softball divisions came under the control of Bauer’s parent company, Performance Sports Group (PSG), while hockey equipment continued to be released under the Easton brand, albeit under license. A year and a half later, the hockey division was also under the control of PSG. The merger press release was quite candid: “Performance Sports Group has acquired all of Easton Hockey’s patents and we will be looking closely at all patents in other categories to identify elements that can be used to promote the Bauer Hockey product line.” . Reading between the lines, Easton’s days are surely numbered.
As a result, now there are essentially 2 key players left on the market – adidas and PSG, as well as 3-4 second-tier brands, the most famous of which remains Warrior. The Germans have been looking for buyers for the troubled hockey business for several years now (the motivation is about the same as that of Nike), and it is possible that CCM may end up in the hands of the same Performance Sport Group.
The reasons for this state of affairs are generally clear. Hockey is a very specific sport, equipment is sold at a small margin and you can make good money only by selling a lot, and in a narrow market this means absorbing competitors. A nice bonus here is lacrosse, softball, baseball, field hockey and roller disciplines, access to which is open to all major hockey players.
Photo: Gettyimages.ru/Harry How, Mark Sandten/Bongarts; RIA Novosti / Elena Rusko
Author dvoryrom
Lacrosse ball – Wikipedia
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PEARL X Lacrosse Ball
A lacrosse ball is the solid rubber ball that is used, with a lacrosse stick, to play the sport of lacrosse. It is typically white for men’s lacrosse, or yellow for women’s lacrosse; but is also produced in a wide variety of colors.
The old NCAA specifications are:
- Mass
- 140 g – 147 g
- Diameter
- 62.7mm – 64.7mm
- Rebound
- From 1,800 height 1,092 – 1292 mm (70% rebound from falling point)
- Rubber content
- 65%
The new NCAA specifications are:
- Color
- Can be white, yellow or orange
- Circumference
- 7 3/4 and 8 inches
- Weight
- 5 and 5 1/2 ounces
- Must be solid rubber
Ball must also be dropped from a height of 72 inches upon floor and needs to bounce at least 43 to 51 inches.
According to the 2015 and 2016 Men’s Lacrosse Rules and Interpretations:
“The ball shall be white, yellow, orange or lime green smooth or slightly textured solid rubber. The ball must meet the current NOCSAE lacrosse ball standard.” Later, in further defining the required specifications, the document states: “The measurements for the ball shall include the following: The ball shall be of white, yellow, or orange solid rubber.
The ball may measure between 7 3/4 and 8 inches in circumference. The ball may weigh between 5 and 5 1/4 ounces in weight.” [1]
Beginning with the 2014 season, all three governing bodies for lacrosse in the United States (US Lacrosse, NFHS, NCAA) have mandated that only balls meeting the NOCSAE ball standard may be used for competition. Balls must be emblazoned with the words “Meets NOCSAE Standard” in order to be considered legal for play by game officials.
Starting by June 2016, all lacrosse balls had to meet the new NOCSAE Standard. [2] for use in official NCAA and NFHS play. Canadian official games require CLA approvals.
History[edit]
Originally known as “stickball”, the earliest lacrosse balls were made from wood and later from buckskins filled with fur. These were made naturally and was meant to keep the game connected with nature. This was until Dr. William George Beers in 1860 codified the rules including having the ball made with rubber.
