Saline, a small town in Michigan known for its salt springs and dense forests was the birthplace of Collin Cederna and his love for lacrosse.

   “A lot of my hockey teammates played lacrosse and one day I decided to go check it out. I have been playing ever since,” said Cederna

   Cederna is now the Coach for Jackson County’s lacrosse team, jokingly referred to as the Jackson Jellyfish, The team has been around since April of 2023. The team much like the Jackson County High School hockey team is made up of a lot of many different schools around the county with 5 active players from Northwest. 

   “It would be a goal of mine to have a purely Northwest-based team in a couple of years from now,” said Cederna.

   Cederna started teaching advanced placement chemistry along with biology, and STEM classes at Northwest this year but he has a long history of coaching lacrosse teams across the globe. Cederna has coached lacrosse in places like Africa, Uganda, And Kenya, but still, he is particularly excited about coaching in the Jackson area,

   “I will be coaching the inaugural season of the lacrosse team,” said Cederna.
  Cederna believes that having lacrosse as a sport in Jackson is a great opportunity not only for the athletic programs of the Jackson area but for the Historical departments as well.

  “Lacrosse has been around for a long time. It used to be 1000 men against 1000 men,” said Cederna, “I think it would be cool to go in a time machine and somehow go watch it.”

   According to the World Lacrosse website, lacrosse was first documented around the year 1600 by the French settlers, and lacrosse was first seen in schools around the late 1800s and early 1900s.

   “My biggest goal is to start a program that will continue for a long long time,” said Cederna, “This is the foundation year so we don’t have to worry about winning a lot of games but mainly focus on getting a really solid team.”

   Although Jackson County is late in comparison to the counties it will be facing in lacrosse tournaments, Cederna is still keeping a positive attitude and just hoping to light a spark of interest in the hearts and minds of kids around Jackson to look into joining the alleged Jackson Jellyfish.