Category: Tulalip News

Seahawks legend Michael Bennett brings football camp to Tulalip

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

The Pacific Northwest is Seahawks country. From Blue Fridays to rallying chants of “Sea-Hawks!”, the 12th Man is synonymous with Seahawks fandom. But even for the most devout of fan bases, it’s a rarity for beloved players to make themselves accessible to their adoring fans, let alone those who live on a small reservation an hour outside of Seattle. Amazingly, Super Bowl champion Michael Bennett proved to be the rare exception when he held an inclusive football camp on the Tulalip Reservation.

“It’s important to give tribal people, the original people of Seattle, the opportunity to be with the players they follow and love to watch on Sundays,” said Bennett. “Even though their circumstances are different, I want to help empower them to fight for what they want to fight for while always being the people they want to be.”

Nearly 250 kids between ages 7-18 years old participated in the highly anticipated O.C.E.A.N. sports camp held at the Tulalip Sports Complex on Sunday, June 23. Registration was completely free of charge for any youth of Tulalip and surrounding communities thanks to collaborating partners Rise Above, Boys & Girls Club of Snohomish County, Tulalip Tribes, Galanda Broadman and The Bennett Foundation.

“We’ve been using football camps as a way to promote healthy lifestyle choices and overall wellness for close to seven years now,” explained Bennett Foundation cofounder Pele Bennett, Michael’s wife. “The Foundation has been fortunate to host camps in other states and countries. Even though Michael is no longer a Seahawk, we love being able to return to Seattle where we are so welcomed and make an impact to the local communities.”

During his five-year tenure as a Seahawk, Bennett was a defensive stalwart with an uncanny ability to get after the opposing team’s quarterback. Even casual fans remember his celebratory sack dance that happened so frequently it earned him three consecutive trips to the Pro Bowl and his team back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. Now, he’s using his abilities and larger-than-life personality to tackle a new opponent, childhood obesity.

“When you look at obesity and diabetes in our community, the black and brown communities around the world, it’s rampant,” said Bennett. “Food and nutrition are the biggest barriers to the overall well-being of our peoples. People don’t have Whole Foods everywhere they go. For tribal people, they don’t have access to their traditional foods. It’s important to have a sense of compassion and empathy for what other people are going through, and work together to break down those barriers that divide us.”

Bennett and his wife Pele started The Bennett Foundation with the goal of raising awareness about obesity and providing communities with educational opportunities to learn how to live a healthy and active lifestyle. As one of the longest running programs of The Bennett Foundation, O.C.E.A.N. is an acronym for fighting Obesity through Community, Education, Activity and Nutrition. The objective of the O.C.E.A.N. sports camp is to educate the community on healthy food choices and promote physical fitness as a family.

Every camp is designed specifically for each individual community, and may feature a health expo, a family fitness clinic, or an exciting fitness challenge. For Tulalip, the emphasis was on physical fitness through a variety of football drills and skill building exercises that were enjoyed by all youth participants.

Among the hundreds of eager kids who made it out on the picture-perfect summer day in Tulalip were families journeying from as far south as Olympia and as north as Nooksack. Of course, many local parents and guardians took full advantage of the on-reservation event to have their young athletes meet a sports superhero they’ve only seen on TV playing for their favorite football team.

Excited 8-year-old Annavay Hatch and 7-year-old Lila Joel described meeting the former Seahawks Pro Bowler as “Good. Wait, no, it was great!” Both ran multiple passing routes in the hopes of catching a football thrown by Bennett. Annavay beamed a huge smile after catching a Bennett pass, while Lila was unable to, but still had lots of fun trying. “I caught zero. The ball was slippery, but I came really close a couple times,” she said. 

Making a memory she’s sure to never forget, 11-year-old Noelani Cultee ran a Doug Baldwin-like comeback route, jumped up, extended her arms as far as she could and made a highlight catch by bringing in a Bennett pass thrown well above her head. Following the impressive play she boasted, “That was so cool. I thought I wasn’t going to catch it because I could feel it slipping through my fingertips, but I held onto it!” 

Countless youngsters made the most of their opportunity to catch a pass from the Super Bowl champ. One after another managed to reel in a pass and after each successful attempt they’d quickly run the ball back to Bennett and give the professional football player an ecstatic high-five. At one point Bennett joked he’d connected on so many touchdown throws that the Seahawks should sign him as their backup quarterback.

As the kids motioned around the football field transitioning from station to station they completed a number of physical activities. Aside from the countless curl, post, slant, and out routes ran, they also engaged in agility ladders, tested their lateral reactions with cone drills, jumped mini hurdles, and got stronger with lunges, squats and pushups just like the pros. With a DJ providing musical hits to workout to, there were only positive and encouraging vibes in the air.

“You can just feel the positive energy that’s here in this moment,” marveled Jaci McCormack (Nez Perce), founder of the nonprofit Rise Above which uses sports to educate and empower native youth to live healthy lives. “There’s no way to measure how these camps and athletic clinics impact these kids long term, but if we could measure that I think it would be a significant. 

“These kids are going to remember catching a pass from Michael Bennett for the rest of their lives,” continued Jaci. “It’s not necessarily about football, it’s about Michael and all the volunteer coaches choosing to be here and spend time with them. We care about them, they are our future and for them to choose to make positive choices every day is the ultimate goal. Experiences like this speaks volumes to our kids and lets each of them know they matter.”

Following the football-filled afternoon, everyone gathered in the end zone to conclude the event with a traditional song. Bennet was gifted a unique ‘Salish Song’ paddle and commemorative 12th Man hand drum. Generously giving of his time, the NFL defensive end stuck around for an additional hour and a half to ensure every camp participant and adoring fan, including many parents and volunteer coaches, received an autograph and one-on-one picture.

“When you interact with tribal people, you feel the spirit of everything around, the essence of where you are,” reflected Bennett as he walked off the field and took in the scenery that is Tulalip Bay. “Here there’s a culture behind everything, there’s a significance to everything being done. It’s powerful, something I’ll never forget.”

Save the Date! Annual Community Wellness Conference is May 14-15

By Kalvin Valdillez, Tulalip News

For its seventh consecutive year, the popular Community Wellness Conference returns to the Tulalip Resort Casino once again on May 14 and May 15. Sponsored by the Tulalip Tribes Problem Gambling Program, the two-day event invites local citizens to focus on their healing journey by providing them with tools, education and resources on how to improve overall health and wellbeing through a number of interactive workshops, professional panel discussions and community talking circles. 

Approximately 200 participants attended each day of the conference in previous years, and Problem Gambling is anticipating about the same number of attendees this year. Both the Tulalip Tribes and the Marysville School District agree that self-care is of the utmost importance, especially in today’s social media led society. For this reason, the school district is allowing their students the opportunity to attend the Wellness Conference during the school day; middle school students on the first day and high schoolers on the second day. Tribal government employees are also often allotted two-hours of paid administration leave to participate in the workshops, upon supervisor approval. 

“What to expect from this year’s Wellness Conference is a great gathering for the community and also for the youth,” says Community Wellness Conference Emcee and Youth Education Advocate, Deyamonta Diaz. “There’s middle and high school days where the students get a chance to be exposed to some great keynote speakers and also some helpful educational workshops that will teach them a lot of things that maybe are too hard to talk about, as far as wellness or self-care, as well as other issues we face in the community. The theme is ‘champions for life’ so it’s a positive message, something that can go a lot farther than just the conference.” 

Each workshop presenter knows about the issues we face in Native America, and specifically in Tulalip, as the conference is a collaborative effort with local departments such as the Child Advocacy Center, Family Haven, Youth Services, the Education Department and Family Services. The conference aims to equip those carrying emotional, spiritual and mental baggage with the tools of how to get through their toughest days and several resources for when they’re in need of a helping hand or an ear to listen. 

Since we are living in a new era, many youths now deal with cyber-bullying, stalking and harassment on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram. The Child Advocacy Center is debuting a workshop during the Wellness Conference addressing these issues and teaching the community about the dangers occurring on social media sites. 

“I’m doing a social media health and safety workshop,” says Child Advocate and Wellness Conference presenter, Megan Boyer. “I think it’s important for families of youth, and youth themselves, to learn about what the dangers are when online and how they can keep themselves safe and what parents can do to keep their kids safe. They are going to learn about some of the policies and laws about how law enforcement uses social media as evidence. They’ll learn to identify red flags, what bullying is, what consent is, how social media can be harmful and how it can be helpful, because education is key.”

Sarah Sense-Wilson, Problem Gambling Coordinator, briefly explains the topics the keynote speakers will be touching upon during the Community Wellness Conference.

She states, “Our keynote speaker for day one, Frank Grijalva, is going to be talking about resiliency, and health and wellness, as it relates to overcoming trauma and overcoming various barriers that are experienced within tribal communities, that interfere with individual health and wellness and thereby affects the family unit and the community as well. The idea is that there’s hopefully going to be some stronger, more in-depth awareness and understanding about trauma responses and how trauma responses negatively affect relationships. 

“Day two is Jerry Moomaw.” Sarah continues. “She’s nationally known within the movement addressing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Children. We’re hoping people take away prevention strategies and also awareness and understanding about how to keep our communities safer, our women safer and our children safer. And that interweaves with all the rest of the workshops in learning about red flags and warning signs around commercial and sex trafficking.”

And the Wellness Conference committee added a special surprise for those who are fans of Native humor by adding the talents of Toni Jo Hall to the mix. Known nationwide within tribal communities, the Native American comedian will be performing at both conference days as her beloved, yet hilariously inappropriate, character Auntie Beachress. 

“In acknowledging and recognizing that much of the workshop topics are heavy and can stir and bring up trauma and negative experiences and feelings, we felt it was really important to have balance and that we also include comedy relief and have a good time with laughter.  We know that laughter is good medicine and helps us heal,” says Sarah.

Both of the conference days will end with gender specific talking circles where the attendees are welcome to open up, be vulnerable and begin their healing process without judgement. The ladies talking circle will be led by Tulalip tribal member, Deborah Parker, while the fellas circle will be guided by community elder, Jim Hillaire. 

The Problem Gambling program and the Wellness Conference committee invites everyone to the 7th annual Community Wellness Conference. The event is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 14 and Wednesday, May 15, in the Orca Ballrooms of the Tulalip Resort Casino. They would also like to encourage local elders to attend the second morning of the conference (May 15) for the Tulalip Youth Council special honoring for all of the wisdom keepers in attendance. 

“We’re hoping participants take away a stronger understanding on how to support their youth,” expresses Sarah. “We’re looking at building tools, building skills, providing resources and education on some of those issues, but also aim to have fun and hopefully build stronger connections amongst each other and with the community. It’s about healing, it’s about wellness, it’s about health. We want people to walk away with a good experience that is valuable for them, that they could apply to their life. The champions for life theme really embodies that idea. We want people to leave feeling empowered and feeling that they are part of that champions for life message.”