Close to 1,000 years ago, wooden sticks designed from a hickory tree gave what is now North America the oldest team sport on its continent – stick ball, which is now widely known as lacrosse. An addictive, physical modern game that has become one of the fastest growing sports in America has strong roots of Native American culture written all over it. Sean Quirk, who’s in his first year as the Springfield College men’s lacrosse head coach, preaches the same messages that were around when the ceremonial game was created.
In the back corner of the athletics coaching center in November 2025, Quirk sat in his office, chomping at the bit in anticipation of his first season at the helm of his alma mater. Quirk succeeds Keith Bugbee, who had paced the sideline for 42 years, including coaching Quirk from 1991-95, until his retirement in the Spring of 2025. The office looks the exact same as Bugbee’s — same room, all-american plaques still plastered on the walls, “Show-up” bracelets scattered across the desk. The only difference is on the back window, as a piece of work lies on a stool that will stick with Quirk forever back to his days as the head coach at Endicott College.
Jeremy Dexter-Smith was a student and lacrosse player for Endicott in the early 2000’s, a program that Quirk led from 1998-2015. During Dexter-Smith’s junior year, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but it didn’t stop him from playing the game he truly loved.
Dexter-Smith would come back from chemo treatments at Massachusetts General Hospital to practice; Quirk would strongly encourage Dexter-Smith to take breaks, as he would vomit over trash barrels, but Dexter-Smith couldn’t quit. He finished out his collegiate career, and a few years later, successfully received a stem cell transplant that allowed him to live longer than his family imagined. In Dexter-Smith’s senior year, his parents Michael and Barbara gave Quirk a gift: a painting of lacrosse being played by Native Americans.
Native Americans were the inventors of the sport of lacrosse, as Quirk constantly sheds light to the history of the sport to all of his players, and it stuck with Dexter-Smith’s entire family. Quirk has had the painting for over 23 years now.
The painting strikes a chord with Quirk. In the 12th century, Native Americans and more specifically the Haudenosaunee came up with the Creator’s game, also known as lacrosse, to build their community and settle disputes. It was later modified with standardized rules by William George Beers in 1867, but the Native American’s reasons for the sport is key to why Quirk continues to coach.
“I just get chills thinking about why I coach,” Quirk said. “We all play, we all coach the sport for different reasons, but the main reason is to bring it back to the Creator’s game. That has been a massive part of my coaching philosophy. When you take the field in today’s game and today’s brand, you play it with intent, you play it with respect, and you respect your teammates, you respect your opponent.”
In the Native American tradition, the Great Spirit is seen as a God equivalent, and more specifically to the Haudenosaunee tradition, the Great Spirit is known as ‘the Creator.’ In their tradition, it is said that the sport of lacrosse was a gift from the Creator, and Quirk emphasizes that the Creator’s game is something every lacrosse player should appreciate.
“We talk about it in our program every day,” Quirk said. “We talk about the heritage of the game, the meaning of the game, because that’s really important. I think for our young men that are playing lacrosse here at Springfield College, the more they can appreciate and understand where this game has come from and where it is today. It’s going to make them better people, most importantly, and certainly better players and better teammates, and that ultra competitive, fierce style we play”
Quirk first learned about the history of the sport when his high school coach Paul Adams, who is a Springfield alumnus himself, talked about lacrosse’s timeline. Throughout Quirk’s time as a student-athlete at Springfield, Quirk took a deeper dive into the heritage of the sport, which jumpstarted his appreciation for the culture that brought the game to life. He thought about the traditions and customs of the game, and it always connected to why he played the game.
The Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse, which eventually became the Premiere Lacrosse League, hired Quirk in 2015 as the Head Coach and Director of Player Personnel, a position he held until 2023. In his time with the Cannons, Quirk brought in a few players from Native American backgrounds, and Zed Williams, who is from the Seneca tribe, was one of those players. Quirk admired the way Williams would show up to practice, and that was when Quirk started to really understand the Native American influence.
“Seeing firsthand how Zed approaches the game, literally from the moment he enters the building at the facility, to the locker room to stepping on the field to little things like not touching the lines,” Quirk said. “He doesn’t touch the lines unless he’s playing. He steps over them. That’s respect for the game.”
In his latter years with the Cannons, Quirk also coached Lyle Thompson, who’s arguably the greatest Native American lacrosse player of all time. Thompson is a major advocate for his culture, and shows it on-field as well with a traditional, free-flowing playstyle, and has been a major figure to the next generation of lacrosse.
“Those two young men in particular and how they play it and the meaning behind it is special. Once they leave the field, for them, it’s done,” Quirk said. “They did their work, their craft was completed. Once I started coaching Native Americans is when it ultimately hit me, because I was living those experiences with them.”
Sid Jameson is another big influence on Quirk. Jameson, who’s Native American, was a coach at Bucknell University from the program’s inception in 1968 until he retired in 2005. The two met through a mutual friend, and Jameson would help out with Quirk’s own camp held at Springfield College, Peak Goalie, over the summers. Jameson would always give a closing speech — the same one every time, but Quirk would listen to it because the message was uber insightful.
“I just loved it,” Quirk said. “He was so passionate about it that he was one of my first mentors from the Native American community.”
Lacrosse is a “medicine game” to a wide variety of people close to the sport. If anyone asks Quirk ‘“what is lacrosse?” a medicine game will be the first thing he says. A website called Medicine Man Lacrosse was created in 2011 to value the, “Spirituality and inner consciousness, and its effect on outer body performance.” In its about us page, Medicine Man Lacrosse explains why lacrosse is a medicine game.
“Lacrosse is a medicine game because in many ways, it heals us. Our mind, body and spirit is nourished when we run, throw, and play. Our lives are enriched when we form bonds with our team, coach, friends and community through The Medicine Game.”
That philosophy will sound very familiar to anyone that attended Springfield College, as spirit, mind and body is the same humanics philosophy the college uses, and it’s branded everywhere. Spirit in fact, was a highly-sought out name for Springfield’s new branding a little under 30 years ago in a controversial time on Alden Street.
From 1968-1993, Springfield College were the Chiefs, an obvious reference to Native American culture, with the visual logo being a Native American head and headdress. The college wanted to move away from the Chiefs, as they believed it was disrespectful to Native Americans. There wasn’t a clear cut name for nearly five years, as men’s teams on campus were still the Chiefs, and women’s teams were the Maroons. People around campus created a “Keep the Chiefs” movement, and in a vote collected by the school, 492 votes out of 500 were to keep the Chiefs, with five being for the Pride, however the momentum for the Chiefs was short-lived.
Once it was clear that sticking with the Chiefs wasn’t an option, according to records from Springfield College’s archives, the majority of students and faculty thought Spirit was the next best name, yet Springfield College president at the time, Randolph W. Bromery, thought otherwise, and in 1997 he named the Pride as Springfield College’s new mascot to be put in place for the fall semester of 1998. Bromery retired from Springfield in 1997 and later passed away in 2013.
Around campus, various athletic programs and teams have underground names for themselves. Women’s basketball is the Posse, football is the Brotherhood and baseball has the Studbolts. For the men’s lacrosse team, its self-given nickname traces its origins back to the early 1980s.
Earle Morrill was a student-athlete on the men’s lacrosse team who had a unique southern accent, and would always refer to the team as a bunch of “Dogs”. His teammates caught on quickly to it, and later self-branded themselves as the ChiefDogs, but with time and generation turnover, the moniker became the ChiefDawgs. The logo is representative of the main character from an old cartoon show, “Underdog,” and the logo has stuck through 40 years, but there’s no connection to Native American culture.
“They’re two totally separate things,” Quirk said when talking about the ChiefDawgs and the old Chiefs identity. “The ‘Dawg’ part is really at the forefront, like a Snoopy character with a stick. That’s what ChiefDawgs are. We’re gritty, we’ll claw our way back and always fight until the end.”
In his first 10 games with the Pride, Quirk has driven his squad to a 6-4 record, good for the best start since 2018. In their most recent game on Sunday, March 29, the Pride battled back down six goals to defeat MIT in double overtime. The comeback is the largest second half come-from-behind victory in program history since 2013, and Quirk let his players know that the win reminded him of why they’re called the ChiefDawgs.
Quirk has tried to implement the ChiefDawgs name on helmets and other Springfield College owned jerseys, but the college can’t allow it as of now due to branding conflicts. The team still sells ChiefDawgs apparel and other merchandise, which the college is fine with. While it may be far fetched, Quirk won’t stop trying.
“Having sat in an administrator’s chair, I know what the answer will be,” Quirk said. “Would I like to have the conversation? One-hundered percent – I think it would be unbelievable.”