Lacrosse Legend Casey Powell on the Sport and the World Lacrosse Foundation

Talk Golden to Me Hosted by Evan Golden

Casey Powell is an American former college and professional lacrosse player from West Carthage, New York. In 1998, he graduated from Syracuse University, where he was a four-time USILA All-American. Powell was the NCAA Division I Most Outstanding Player in 1997 and 1998. Powell was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2017.
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Powell played in Major League Lacrosse, the semi-professional field lacrosse league, from its first year in 2001 through 2016, although he played in only 8 games between 2009 and 2013. Yet Powell ranks sixth in goals (243), second in assists (237), and third in points (484) on the MLL career totals list as of 2017. Powell also tops the all-time MLL playoff point chart with 40. In 2005 and 2014, he won the MLL Offensive Player of the Year award. Powell earned the MVP award in 2014 at age 38.

After retiring from professional lacrosse, Powell shifted focus to other business and philanthropic endeavors. Powell started the World Lacrosse Foundation, a non-profit organization for the advancement of lacrosse in 2015. He is a founder of Speed Lacrosse, a modified version of the sport.

His two younger brothers, Ryan and Mikey, were also lacrosse stars at Syracuse, where they all wore jersey number 22.

The Casey Powell World Lacrosse Foundation (CPWLF) was founded in 2014 by legendary, 4-Time All-American, Hall of Fame lacrosse player Casey Powell and Heather Chase O’Neill. Its mission is to share, support and inspire: to share the love of the game of lacrosse; to support sick and severely injured lacrosse players, many of whom are children with cancer; and to inspire others to become ambassadors. We create a network of support around our families who are undergoing difficult circumstances and stay with the families throughout their journeys.

Throughout my playing career in professional lacrosse, I had a lot of great relationships with people, and lacrosse is such a tight-knit community that people would come to me and say, “Hey, we have somebody in our program who has cancer. Could you come and do an appearance, or send him a video, or send an autographed helmet for a fundraiser to raise money for his family?” It happened more and more often, and in 2014, we were at the World Championships in Denver, and we said, “Let’s do something. Let’s figure out a way to make a difference.” We started the Casey Powell World Lacrosse Foundation that day. Our motto was to share, support and inspire. We share the game. We try to inspire more people to be ambassadors to the game, and we support lacrosse families in need. Throughout the past 4 years, we’ve really brought our focus to supporting lacrosse families in need.

One of the first players we supported was Noah Hays, a 17-year-old goalie from Charlotte, NC. One of his family friends contacted our foundation, and we immediately went into action. We went up to Charlotte with a group of professional lacrosse players, and we put on what we call a