<\/a>Donovan Jackson of Juneau competes in the one-foot high kick during the 2022 Traditional Games. The games will be back at Thunder Mountain High School in early April. (Ben Hohenstatt \/ Juneau Empire File)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Worl said he was always heavily involved in the Traditional Games while living in Anchorage, and when he moved to Juneau he said the one thing he especially missed was still having that connection with the games.. Being that Juneau is the capital city, Worl said he found it surprising that there wasn’t more of a presence since the Traditional Games represent over 100 different communities from across Alaska.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“The NYO games is what really kept me healthy and kept me involved in the community through high school and college, so, when I moved to Juneau I realized there wasn’t a big program for even teams at the high school level, they did have some stuff going on at the elementary level, but I found when I moved here that the last time Juneau had a team to travel to state NYO was somewhere around 1991.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Worl said the program started out small with only running games through summer camps, but when the idea proved to be so well received, that’s when Sealaska Heritage started asking what it would take to pilot the program in Juneau high schools. After recruiting Worl as a coach based on his experience from coaching in Anchorage, Juneau NYO started holding practices at both high schools until finally in 2018 they brought their first Juneau team to the State Traditional Games competition in Anchorage, marking the first time Juneau was represented in the state competition in roughly 27 years. Worl said the last team to go to state was coached by his uncle Ricardo.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Since 2018, Worl said the program has continued to take a team back to the state competition and has only continued to grow and expand throughout Juneau and all of Southeast Alaska. Worl said it’s grown so much, in fact, it’s allowed the program to split up into more divisions than are often offered through other programs within the state.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“One of the unique things about our event that isn’t done at a lot of the other events is that we have an adult category,” Worl said. “Even if a high schooler graduates but they’re really into the sport throughout all four years of high school, there’s no reason for them to stop, they can compete as an adult in that division.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Someone who couldn’t be more pleased with the adult division is 19-year-old Ezra Elisoff of Juneau. Elisoff, who is Tinglit, participated in the games for all four of his years at Thunder Mountain High School and said he now looks forward to competing this year for the first time within the adult division.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t