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Bennae Calac Category Builder Tribe Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 11/16/1969 Bennae is a strong Native woman, mother, business owner, mentor, teacher, and leader. Over the last 35 years, Bennae Calac has represented Pauma in various political, cultural, and administrative capacities. She has served as the repatriation chair since the age of twenty-one and her life’s work is to preserve the culture and traditions of her people. She is dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of Luiseño songs and dances and works with her own children and local youth programs to ensure that this traditional knowledge is instilled in the younger generation. Bennae was elected as Committee Member to the Pauma Band’s Tribal Council in December 2008 and served another two-year term as Secretary and Treasurer. Through her various Tribal roles, Bennae interacts with the youth, culture, public and political relations. Bennae continually answers the community’s call to speak on topics ranging from native wellness, health advocacy, domestic violence, women’s issues, and cultural preservation. Bennae serves on numerous boards and committees, including as the Co-Founder of the 7G Foundation , a (501)(c)(3) organization providing Native Americans, and other Indigenous people and communities, assistance in reaching their goals through Athletics, Education, Health-Mind-Body Practices, and Community. She has also established and serves as Board Chair for Onoo Po Strategies , a multifaceted consultancy and holding company with capabilities in Economic Development, Technology, Procurement and Distribution, Business Strategy and Marketing, and Environmental and Agricultural Management. Photo: Mom (left) and daughter at the US Bank Stadium, Minneapolis. Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More

< Back Ross Anderson Ross Anderson Cheyenne and Arapaho Induction Category: Year Inducted Athlete 2023 How did an adopted, full blooded Native American son become one of the most successful speed skiers in the world? The Native American alpine speed skier and racer with the fastest time in the Western Hemisphere did it through hard work, desire, perseverance and a ton of ability. Growing up in the mountains of Durango, CO Ross Anderson has held the record for the fastest American ever on skis. His 154.06 miles per hour (247.930KPH) was achieved in 2006. Born in New Mexico, Ross was adopted into an Anglo-American family. At three years old, Ross began learning the winter sport that put him into the history books. He was a six time national champion, and a member of the US Speed Skiing Team. Ross’ rise was a solitary one as the only competitor of color on this intensely competitive circuit. Not only did Ross set records becoming one of the top competitors in the world, including number two in 20O1 and number three in 2005, but he also understood the need to give back to this sport and all the youngsters who consider Ross their role model. The desire to give back is understandable considering that no Native American has ever come close to achieving the international stature that Ross has consistently earned while setting the highest standards in a remarkable career. In 2022 Ross was the featured athlete in a national television commercial produced by the New Mexico Travel Bureau that was released November 1, 2022. His unparalleled accomplishments continue to radiate hope for literally thousands of inspired youths, especially those of color who see that their dreams of standing atop a podium one day truly can come true. <Back

Maurice “Mo” Smith Category Athlete Tribe Navajo Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 11/20/1962 Maurice “Mo” Smith is the Executive Director for the Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake (UICSL). Mo is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who grew up in an urban Indian community in Denver, CO. He has been a “friend” to Indian Country for many years, better known for his work and accomplishments while serving as the Executive Director for the Native American Sports Council, a member-organization of the United States Olympic Committee. His passion and inspiration for his work today stems from his identity of a friend to Indian Country, better known for his work with the Native American Sports Council in the area of Sports and Wellness; hosting the largest sports and cultural celebration of North America, the 2006 North American Indigenous Games (7,000+ athletes). Maurice “Mo” Smith is the first documented enrolled tribal member to break the sub-four minute mile with a personal best of 3:55. Mo is from the Navajo Nation and grew up in an urban Indian community in Denver, CO. Mo is a five-time NAIA National Champion in Track & Field (800 & 1,500 Meters) while attending Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado. Competed in 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Track & Field Trials. Responsible for hosting and administrating the 2006 North American Indigenous Games in Denver, Colorado. Completed five Marathons including the 2021 Boston Marathon in October during Indigenous Peoples Day. Mr. Smith obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Adams State College and a Masters of Arts with a concentration in Non-Profit Management from Regis University. Originally from Colorado, Mr. Smith has lived and worked in various parts of the country including New Mexico, Montana, Arizona, Washington, no residing in Washington DC. His past employment experiences include serving as the Executive Director of the American Indian Business Leaders, the Director of Programs and Government Contracts for the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, Inc., the Executive Director of the Native American Sports Council, the Program Manager for the United States Olympic Committee and the Development Director of Wings of America. Mountain trail running, play in charity golf tournaments, and spending time with his two children and four grandchildren are a few of his past times. His 1990 Steve Prefontaine Mile winning sub-4:00 minute race is located here: Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More

David Powless Category Athlete Tribe Oneida Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 5/29/43 David Powless’ high school football team was the undefeated Illinois State Champions of 1960. He was an All State offensive tackle. He received college football scholarship offers. He chose the Oklahoma University (OU). He left OU as a sophomore and went to the University of Illinois and played offensive guard on the University of Illinois Big 10 and Rose Bowl Championship team in 1964. In 1965 as a graduating senior he was drafted in the National Football League (NFL) by the New York Giants and also by the American Football League (AFL) by the Kansas Chiefs. He was with the New York Giants one year and then went to the Washington Redskins his second year. That year he had a spinal injury requiring surgery that ended his football career. Powless worked for Native American tribes including his Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin. He also owned several personal businesses. His expertise was in economic development. In 1983 he received an award in the “White House Rose Garden” from Vice President of the United States George Bush for the development of recycling technology. In 2008 he was inducted into the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame for his athletic contributions. Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More

< Back Ayanna O’Kimosh Ayanna O’Kimosh Oneida/Menominee/Arikara Induction Category: Year Inducted Athlete 2023 Ayanna “Naenwehtawukiw-Warrior Woman” O’Kimosh is from Keshena, Wisconsin and she is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation and descendent of the Menominee and Arikara Nations. She is a freshman at the Shawano Community High School in Wisconsin. She began a journey in boxing in 2018 with the Menominee Indian Boxing Club. As an amateur boxer, she won two Junior Olympic State Championships, two Silver Gloves State Championships, is a Silver Gloves National Champion and is a 2x USA Boxing National Champion. In addition to her love of boxing, she spends a lot of her time training and playing softball for Impact Sports Academy’s in De Pere, Wisconsin. Living up to her Menominee name, she is a warrior spirit who represents resiliency in her tribal nations Oneida-Menominee-Arikara. Her platform inside and outside of the ring is to fight to bring attention and awareness to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and girls/people epidemic that plagues Native American communities throughout the United States and Canada. Her motivation in fighting is to demonstrate that resiliency by breaking down barriers and challenging the statistics, injustices, to change the narrative for future generations by being a positive role model for other native youth. She chose to focus her platform on awareness and supports prevention efforts fundraising to support much needed community resources aimed to reduce the risk for women and girls. Some notable awareness work includes local and national collaborative events with professional women boxers including local and international interviews, presentations, keynoting for 2021 Girls Summit and using her social media to spread the word. When she is not at the boxing gym training or at the softball complex training, she enjoys some of her other favorites such as reading, singing, playing the guitar, painting, baking, creating art and crocheting. <Back

Mark Burnam Category Coach Tribe Mohawk Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 8/30/1961 Mark “Redman” Burnam is truly a rare, unique and influential individual in the sport of lacrosse. Burnam has touched many lives from among his community, his country and around the world by sharing his passion for competition, coaching, and storytelling. His early introduction to lacrosse as a Mohawk child started a life-long relationship that continues to this day as one of the true ambassadors of the sport. With a playing career punctuated by winning, he started by winning the 1980 NYS Lacrosse Championship earning MVP at Henninger High School. Burnam played at Syracuse University and in 1983 won a NCAA D 1 National Championship and in 1984 were Runners-up. Mark has decades of international experience both as a player and a coach. Burnam was a 5-X World team captain with the Iroquois Nationals and was a professional NLL player from 1987-1998 with NJ Saints, Buffalo Bandits winning two World Champions in 1992 and 1993 finishing up with Rochester and finally the Syracuse Smash. Burnam was the head coach at IMG Academy from 2016-19 and he currently is the head coach of the Iroquois Nationals U19 world team. Red has coached both as the head and assistant coach of Iroquois National teams for the past 12 years. Maybe his greatest impact is as a coach is where he continues to influence youth, adolescent, and professional athletes, teaching the meaning and value of the sport as a character-builder for all who choose to play and learn. Burnam’s notable and easily recognizable tough and relentless playing style is exceeded only by his enthusiasm, love, and infectious sense of humor with family, friends, colleagues, and those for whom he forever calls Team. Bio credit: Dan Witmer, quotes legends of lake placid bio Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More

Carol Pickett Hull Category Athlete Tribe Inupiaq Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 4/7/64 An Alaska Native Games icon from Alaska, Carol Pickett won the 1989 Denali Award as Alaska’s Sportsperson of the Year. Even as a teenager she proved to be a natural with jaw-dropping kicks that reached 7 feet, pushing the women’s records to new heights. She still holds the world record in the traditional one-foot high kick, set in 1990. Born and raised in Anchorage, AK, Carol began participating in traditional Native sports in 1979. Since then, Carol has competed successfully in the Native Youth Olympics, World Eskimo Indian Olympics and Arctic Winter Games – Inuit Sports. For 30 plus years of participating in traditional Native sports, Carol has won over 100 medals to her collection as well as the 1989 Alaska State Sportsperson of the Year, Outstanding Contributor Award from World Eskimo Indian Olympics and various other recognitions. Married to fellow Alaska Native Games icon Garry Hull, Carol continues to support traditional Native games events by volunteering, coaching, organizing and officiating events. Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More

< Back Breas Ross Breas Ross Pimicikamak Cree Nation Induction Category: Year Inducted Athlete 2026 Breas Ross, a talented young kayak paddler and a member of Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also known as Cross Lake, Manitoba, is deeply rooted in his Indigenous heritage despite not growing up in his native community. Breas is making waves as the son of Trina Ross, a member of Team Canada and a World Champion Dragon Boat paddler. Breas’s journey with kayaking began at age 8, when his mother introduced him to the sport, and he quickly progressed, joining the Manitoba Canoe and Kayak Centre alongside his older brother. By 13, Breas's dedication earned him a spot in the top kayak program and a place on the Provincial Kayak team. At age 12, in Regina, Saskatchewan, the Western Prairie Divisional Championship was particularly memorable, as he secured his first gold medal in the 2000 meter race. He concluded the competition with two gold medals and a bronze. His first individual medal earned him an Order of Sport Excellence Award presented by Sport Manitoba. At just 13 years old, Breas achieved a remarkable milestone by making Team Manitoba's Kayak team for the North American Indigenous Games, where he secured a bronze medal in the K1 3000 metre event in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In August 2024, his talent and dedication earned him an exclusive invitation to represent Team Manitoba at the U.S. Nationals Sprint Kayak Championships in Gainesville, Georgia. Competing in the Bantam division, Breas claimed three K1 individual silver medals in the 3000 metres, 1000 metres, and 500 metres events, and contributed to silver medals in the U16-K2 and U18-K4 teams. In August 2025, Breas was required to compete for the final two positions on Team Manitoba’s kayak team at the 2025 Canada Summer Games in St. John’s, Newfoundland. He successfully secured a spot on the team by winning a 500-meter race-off. Although age categories did not exist for his age group, he was assigned to the K4 men’s team. Ultimately, Team Manitoba’s kayak and canoe team garnered one silver and three bronze medals. <Back

Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert <Back Hopi Induction Category: Media Year Inducted 2024 Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert is Professor of History and American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. He is an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe from the village of Upper Munqapi. Centering his research and teaching on Native American history and the history of the American West, he examines the history of American Indian education, the Indian boarding school experience, and American Indians and sport. Over the years, Gilbert has published extensively on Hopi long-distance running, including an article titled “Hopi Footraces and American Marathons, 1912-1930” (American Quarterly, March 2010) and “Marathoner Louis Tewanima and the Continuity of Hopi Running, 1908-1912” (Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn 2012). He is, however, best known for his book, “Hopi Runners: Crossing the Terrain between Indian and American” (University Press of Kansas, 2018), which won the 2019 David J. Weber-Clements Prize of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies. In it, he examines the ways Hopi marathon runners navigated between tribal dynamics, school loyalties, and a country that closely associated sport with U.S. nationalism. He calls attention to Hopi philosophies of running that connected the runners to their village communities and to the internal and external forces that supported and strained these cultural ties when Hopi people competed in U.S. marathons. He argues that between 1908 and 1936, the cultural identity of Hopi runners challenged white American perceptions of modernity and placed them in a context that had national and international dimensions. This broad perspective linked Hopi runners to athletes from around the world, including runners from Japan and Ireland, and caused non-Natives to reevaluate their understanding of sport, nationhood, and the cultures of indigenous people. His work and expertise on Hopi running have been featured in an ESPN documentary film, “Run Hopi” by Scott Harves, and various media outlets, including the KUYI Radio Station (88.1 FM) on the Hopi Reservation. A sought-after speaker on Hopi and indigenous running, he has given lectures for academic audiences, tribal organizations, primary and secondary schools, and Native American cultural centers and museums, including the Heard Museum, Amerind Museum, and Tohono O’odham Cultural Center and Museum.

Introduction: The North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame (NAIAHF) honors and recognizes the indigenous sport cultures of 27 countries of North America by recognizing outstanding leadership and achievement in individual and team athletics. By honoring and celebrating the empowered journey of the annually inducted individuals and teams, the hope is their stories may inspire future generations to follow their dreams in athletics and life. Nomination Process: Nominations for individuals and teams to be considered for induction into the annual North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame are accepted throughout the course of the year until the October 21st noon central time deadline. Nominations are accepted for individuals or teams in the following categories: • Athlete • Coach • Team • Builder • Media • Official • Trainer Inductee eligibility: Inductees are recognized and honored, past and present, as Indigenous to North America including but not limited to Tribal, First Nation, Métis, Inuit including federally recognized and self-identified descendant in the listed categories throughout the year. Inductee’s may also be considered who are indigenous to North America and compete outside of North American and those who are indigenous outside of North America and compete in North America. The inductee’s credentials need to include being at the highest state, provincial, region, national or international sport recognition, and/or being recognized in college or professional athletic realms. To receive a nomination form or for additional information, contact Dr. Dan Ninham at 218.368.6430 (text preferred) or coach.danninham@gmail.co m . The annual nomination deadline is noon central time on October 21st for the next year induction. The inductee’s credentials need to include being at the highest state, provincial, region, national, international sport recognition, and/or being recognized in college or professional athletic realms. Induction Recognition: There may be a virtual banquet recognition to be determined. There will not be a hall of fame facility or in person awards banquet. Each inductee will receive a certificate. The stories of the inductees will be produced in online print and video in addition to being in a curriculum to be provided to schools and recreation communities. The induction announcement will be made on January 2nd of each induction class year.

Becki Wells-Staley Category Athlete Tribe Blackfeet and Blood Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 9/9/1974 Becki Wells-Staley established herself as one of the most elite female Native American Athletes in history while running Track and Field and Cross Country. Becki is a 20-time North Dakota State Champion. She graduated from Dickinson High School holding the fastest times in the country for the High School Girls 1600m and 800m in 1993. She was the US Jr. National Champion in the Girls 1500m in ‘93. Wells-Staley went on to represent the US in the Jr. Pan American Game in Winnipeg where she was a silver medalist. Wells-Staley signed with the University of Alabama to run Track and Field and Cross Country. She was the Southeastern XC Conference winner in her first season with the Tide. She was the Jr. National XC Champion in 1994. In 1995 Wells-Staley transferred to the University of Florida. Wells-Staley was the Commissioner Trophy Award winner twice while running for the Florida Gators. The Commissioner’s Trophy goes to the highest point scorer at the SEC Track and Field Championships. She ended her career with the Gators winning the NCAA DI National Title in the Indoor Women’s Mile and the Outdoor Women’s 1500m. She held the school record for over a decade at 4:12.88. She is a 10 X All American in Track and Field and XC. She went on to represent Nike, Reebok and The Native American Sports Council as a professional athlete in Track and Field. Wells-Staley qualified for the 2000 US Olympic Trials in Track and Field in the 800m and 1500m. Becki still holds the North Dakota State record for high school girls at 4:44.44. She was inducted into the Dickinson High School Hall of Fame, the ND State Athletics Hall of Fame and also the University of Florida Hall of Fame for Athletics. Becki currently lives in North Mankato, MN with her husband Maurice Staley who played football for the University of Tennessee (94’-96’). The Staley’s have four boys: Eleazar, Ephraim, Nahshon and Nathan. Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More

Tanner Albers Category Athlete Tribe Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Year Inducted 2022 D.O.B. 2/12/1977 - 2/2/2010 Tanner Albers was a team captain for the 1994 and 1995 Boys Basketball Teams at Takini High in South Dakota. In both of those years he was the team’s leading scorer, earning All-State and All-Tournament honors while leading the Skyhawks to back-to-back state tournament appearances. He was also a team captain for the 1997-98 United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) Thunderbirds where he led them to the school’s first Junior College National Tournament appearance. That year he earned 1st Team Mon-Dak All-Region, Mon-Dak Region 8 Player of the Year, and was the school’s first, 1st Team All-American. Tanner is currently still the school’s all-time leading scorer UTTC. Tanner played for the Division I Delaware State University Hornets for the 1998-99 season and finished up his collegiate basketball career at the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND. Up until his passing in 2010, Tanner had traveled across North America, playing in many basketball tournaments with teams Iron 5, Iron Boy, Rim Rats, Pure Method, and many others. He would often receive MVP, All-Star, and others honors because of his amazing scoring and shooting talents. He had the opportunity to coach at the collegiate level and was a co-creator of HOOPGOD Basketball Camps. Home 2026 Banquet 2026 Banquet Sponsorship About Inductee Search Provincial Nominees Contact More