The 2026 lacrosse state championships will take place this weekend at the Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus. It’s the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s ninth state tournament for the sport.
But the history of the game goes back much further — all the way to the 12th century, when Native American communities played variations of lacrosse with wooden sticks and balls.
Now, groups like the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, whose homelands encompass western Ohio, are reclaiming the traditional sport.
The tradition of lacrosse
At a workshop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Doug Peconge cut a plank of wood into a long, narrow handle. Then, he roughly sanded it down to give it shape and steamed one end to make it flexible enough to bend into a loop.
“It's a stick that historically our ancestors would have played with here in the lower Great Lakes,” he explained.
Peconge said hundreds of years ago, the Myaamia people played the game both for fun and to settle disputes or welcome an honored guest into the community. It was an important part of the tribe’s culture.
But then, the game went dormant.
“There was a time period where our community was not well,” Peconge said. “And that was because of disease, war, loss of land and then eventually removal west. We had to focus on surviving, and so those lacrosse sticks were set down for a period of time.”
Revitalizing the sport
About two centuries later, tribal citizens like George Ironstrack, assistant director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University, didn’t know how to play.
“I think I originally saw [lacrosse] as more like a prep school sport for non-Native Americans,” Ironstrack said.
Growing up, he said he saw the sport glancingly on tv. But only after he devoted himself to Myaamia language renewal projects as a teenager in the ‘90s, did he realize the game had indigenous origins.
“[I] came across numerous references to what we call ‘peekitahaminki’ or what people call lacrosse or stick ball in English,” he said.
Ironstrack wanted to learn to play, so when he saw a fellow college student at the University of Illinois Chicago with a lacrosse stick laced between the straps of their backpack, he chased them down and then joined them on the field.
“So I learned how to throw and catch and cradle and some of the basics of the game there at a club, and I was really hooked,” he said. “I played all different kinds of sports as a kid, but lacrosse instantly felt different because I felt this kind of instant connection to my ancestors through the game.”
Since then, Ironstrack has taught a lot of other people how to play the sport, including kids at summer language and culture programs in Oklahoma and Indiana.
At first, they used an assortment of equipment found on eBay and Play It Again Sports, but about a decade ago, Ironstrack, his father and a group of other community members traveled to the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin to learn how to make Great Lakes style lacrosse sticks for themselves.
They shared that knowledge with Doug Peconge, who has since honed the craft.
As Peconge finishes each stick, he rubs it down with a mixture of dirt from the tribe’s homelands in the lower Great Lakes, Kansas and Oklahoma.
“A big reason for that is because, as Miami people, we have a connection to place,” he said. “And so, for a community member, no matter where they're at in the country, whether they're in Maine; Miami, Oklahoma; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Oxford, Ohio; California, their ancestors touched one of these places. That we can absolutely say.”
From the winter of 2018 to the following spring, Peconge made 70 traditional lacrosse sticks — enough for every player on the field to hold one during a community game the next year.
“It really was a game changer for our community because it made it possible for us to play the game in the same manner as our ancestors did,” he said.
Playing ‘peekitahaminki’ today
But traditional, Great Lakes-style lacrosse sticks aren’t the only part of this game that’s different from those that will be played in the Crew Stadium this weekend.
Instead of big, netted goals at either end of the field, Myaamia community members use wooden posts. There’s no restrictions on how large the field should be either, or limit to the number of players.
At the group’s annual game in Oklahoma later this month, Peconge says around 60 people could take the field.
“We have 4- and 5-year-olds out there with their lacrosse sticks and we have elders 78 out there playing as well,” he said.
Ironstrack says the goal isn’t just to win.
“Maybe they only touch the ball once or twice in an hour-and-a-half long game. But everyone just leaves feeling full of good cheer from the rest of the community's efforts and all striving together to have a good game,” he said.
Games like this are becoming more common. From Ojibwe community games in Minnesota to the Haudenosaunee Nationals gunning for the Olympics, groups all over the country are revitalizing their versions of ‘peekitahaminki.’
