More than Xs and Os

ONIEDA – With the rapid growth of youth sports in recent years has also come an intense increase in competitiveness, stress and obligation for athletes across the country.

The Green Bay area’s newest lacrosse program, known as ‘Re-Lax’ is working to combat the stigma that often accompanies high-level amateur sports.

“A couple years ago, a few boys from the Pulaski High School lacrosse team, where my son plays, found out that I had played lacrosse in college. They reached out asking for help just seeing if I could run some practices over summer and show them some stuff. That evolved as all of the boys from Pulaski started coming. They had friends and people who were watching us practice out in Oneida and eventually kids from Notre Dame, Bay Port, Preble, East De Pere, West De Pere and Southwest, started joining as well,” said Re-Lax Head Coach Matt Ninham.

“We’re Oneida and the game of lacrosse to us is kind of like going to church. It’s part of our identity. It’s who we are. We are the innovators of this game and this is more about cultural identity. It’s more than just a game to us, and that’s how we teach it to the boys. We show them the modern way, but also give them the history and teach them how to respect the game. It’s medicine for your heart, your mind, your soul.”

As more and more high school athletes began to show up to Re-Lax’s informal practices, Ninham said that their format shifted into more formal practice times, still keeping an emphasis on the low-stress format of the game.

“A lot of the area kids come to Cora House Park in Oneida because we have a box lacrosse field there, so when they shoot the ball they don’t have to chase it in the weeds. There would be a lot of kids playing and they’d see us practicing and just jump in. It just kind of grew from there,” said Ninham.

“I started getting to know the kids and then the throw-arounds evolved into ‘okay, let’s practice two times a week.’ I just wanted to help them and then I asked some of the Oneida players who played in college — one of them played at the Syracuse club team and one of them played for another team out east — for help and then they started coaching. We now have an offensive coach (Emerson John), a defensive coach (Ben Phillips), a faceoff specialist (Isaiah Powless) and a goalie coach (Richard Summers III).”

Now that a significant portion of kids from the Green Bay area have shown interest in the ‘playing for the joy of the game’ format, Ninham said that the team has started to translate their time into playing competitive games as well.

“We encourage the kids to play for some of these AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) teams that are out there in an effort to form a partnership with them. What we do is supplemental to that. There are national travel teams that they can play for in addition to training with us,” explained Ninham.

“Our team is called Re-Lax like ‘relax.’ It’s kind of a community thing and it just got more organized. We have uniforms now. Everything is self-funded, so everyone chips in to help with the cost of tournaments in addition to some fundraising we do. That has enabled us to play in a few tournaments this summer.”

Even though Ninham said that the paramount reason for joining Re-Lax is to bring back the fun and therapeutic element of the game, he and the other coaches still hold the players to high standards and expect them to put their best effort in if they are serious about improving their skills.

“That’s kind of how it is… relax. Just show up when you can. The original team consisted of about 24 players, but it has spread through word of mouth, and now we are up to about 40 players,” said Ninham.

“We play year round. We have some more tournaments here in fall and winter and we have to figure out if there is going to be an A team or a B team or how we are going to do that, but we don’t turn anyone away. When the high school season starts we take a break.”
In addition to his experience with lacrosse, he has been able to use his experiences as a community resource officer to help mentor the players on his team in areas that transcend the stress of high school sports as well.

“Re-Lax is more than just lacrosse. I was a community resource officer for the Oneida police department for 16 years. Community and youth programs were my thing, so I have tough talks with the kids sometimes. We talk about bullying. We talk about substance abuse. We talk about teenage topics, along with leadership and mentorship and helping these kids grow into young men. We’re not about wins. We focus on the process, not the product. If they’re working hard and dedicated and committed, the winning at these tournaments will come. The first two tournaments we played in we lost every game. We lost. We didn’t get beaten — we never gave up. In the third tournament, we won four games and made it to the semifinals,” said Ninham about the Re-Lax process and mindset.

Taking it to the next level

According to Ninham, oftentimes the players who are drawn to Re-Lax are those who are passionate about the sport, but maybe don’t get a lot of playing time and are looking to develop their skills.

However, in working to grow their skills and improve as people and as players, some of the members of Re-Lax have found themselves with opportunities they would have never thought possible.

Two players, Kael Pierquet and Jacob Susa were recently presented with lacrosse scholarship offers to continue their athletic careers at the collegiate level at Missouri Valley College.

“(Susa) thought his lacrosse career was done. He played in high school and his plan was to just go to UW-Green Bay and be done with lacrosse. I told him to just come play for us and he was hesitant at first. He came to play for us and one of the college coaches watched him play all weekend at a tournament and offered him a scholarship to play at Missouri Valley,” said Ninham.

“Jacob was going to quit but he got his fire back. He loves playing.”

Susa played lacrosse for four years at Bay Port before graduating and deciding to casually play for the Re-Lax team. Within three weeks of a recent tournament, he received an offer, visited the campus and decided to change the course of his life by making the switch and committing to Missouri Valley.

“At first I was just playing for fun. I didn’t really care what happened, but I really liked (Coach Matt’s) coaching style. He makes all the drills a lot of fun and it’s not a lot of pressure like other sports or teams. It made me like it a lot more and want to go to practice.

His coaching made me want to try a lot harder,” said Susa.

“The development I’ve gotten from Re-Lax has helped me get to where I am now.”

Because of the Re-Lax format, Susa said that he was able to play more freely than he ever felt he was able to before.

“I was at one of the tournaments. The coaching style isn’t super strict and they just let you do what you need to do. My job was to hit people hard and keep the energy up. The college coaches liked my play style and thought it was perfect for his team, so he reached out to me,” said Susa.

Susa said that given how quickly his plans changed, the one thing that kept him motivated was the support he gained from his parents, coaches and teammates at Re-Lax.

“They were proud because it’s such a big opportunity for me to get a scholarship offer. They told me to go for it. I’m excited to play at a higher level because I can focus a lot more on that,” said Susa.

“Kael is one of the kids that helped start this thing. He came up to me after a game and asked for help. He had gone through a bit of a slump in his high school season. He was working so hard but still felt he was struggling to find his stride in the game. He played for us and in one of the tournaments he scored his first goal back to knock him out of his slump. Me and the other coaches were jumping up and down like it was the Super Bowl. The parents were going nuts and everyone else was like, ‘What is everyone going nuts for?’ We lost the game, but to us, that was the win. He got noticed by the same coach at Missouri Valley,” said Ninham.

The Re-Lax team holds practices from 5-7:30 p.m. in Oneida, relying heavily on parents and volunteers to assist with photography, game film, medical assistance, hosting cook outs, etc.

“We welcome everyone, no matter your skill level. If you’re in high school and want to join, just shoot an email to stormtrooper874@yahoo.com. We’ll have a basic waiver for you to sign, but otherwise — it’s free to practice. The only cost is for uniforms or tournament registrations fees. Right now, we’ve got 35 players who joined just by word of mouth,” said Ninham.