Oren Lyons

Oren Lyons (born 1930) is a Haudenosaunee Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of both the Onondaga Nation and the Seneca Nation, and a celebrated lacrosse player and advocate. He was raised in the culture and practices of the Seneca and Onondaga nations in what is now Upstate New York, served in the United States Army, and won an athletic scholarship in lacrosse to Syracuse University, where he was an All-American on a team that went undefeated in his graduating year. After Syracuse he played for the New York Lacrosse Club, the New Jersey Lacrosse Club and the Onondaga Athletic Club. He founded the Haudenosaunee lacrosse team and was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1993, the Ontario lacrosse hall of fame in 1998 and, as a builder of his sport, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. He later became a professor of American Studies at the University at Buffalo and a long-serving voice for Indigenous peoples at the United Nations.