Alf Jacques

Alfred Warner Jacques (March 2, 1949 – June 14, 2023) was an American lacrosse player and Native American craftsman known for making traditional wooden lacrosse sticks. He was a member of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, and produced over 80,000 traditional wooden lacrosse sticks in his lifetime, earning a reputation as a figure in preserving Indigenous lacrosse traditions. to parents Louis Jacques and Adelaide "Ada" Jacques. He began his craftsmanship training at the age of five, learning from his grandmother how to make black ash wooden splint baskets. Likewise, at age five, he began playing youth lacrosse. By age twelve, Jacques was playing for the Onondaga Miners but he did not have his own stick, borrowing his brother's. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Jacques played for various teams at the junior and senior lacrosse levels.

Career Jacques worked as a machinist for 24 years while continuing to make sticks. He additionally was known for his environmental stewardship, regularly planting hickory nuts to ensure future generations would have access to the necessary materials for stick-making. In 1974, Jacques played as a goalie for the Syracuse Stingers in the National Lacrosse League, before the team moved to Quebec the following year. He created all of the sticks used by the defense of the Iroquois National Lacrosse team at the 2002 World Lacrosse Championship in Perth, Australia. For nearly twenty years over his career, Jacques gave an annual lecture and demonstration of his work at Syracuse University for students studying religion and sports. Additionally, the Onondaga Nation organized a "Stickmakers Tournament" in April 2023, raising $7,300 to support his treatment. The award was accepted on his behalf by lifelong friend Oren Lyons and brought to Jacques' hospital bedside, where he was able to see it before his death. Following Haudenosaunee tradition, he was buried with one of his sticks, which would "allow him to continue playing lacrosse in the Creator's Land".

Legacy Examples of Jacques' sticks are held on exhibit at the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Museum in Sparks, Maryland. In 2024, Jacques was inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame as a "builder".