Team Haiti captain to teach lacrosse in Elmont

Stevens Cadet had not even heard of lacrosse until he was a freshman at Elmont Memorial High School, where he wanted to play football and baseball, but the coaches decided that lacrosse would be a better fit for him than baseball. He has since become the captain of Haiti’s first national lacrosse team, and is now spreading his love for the sport by partnering with the Elmont Police Activity League and the Elmont and Sewanhaka high school lacrosse teams for a one-day lacrosse clinic at the fields behind the Elmont Memorial Library and an eight-week lacrosse program at his alma mater, the Gotham Avenue School.

He had wanted to start such a grassroots lacrosse program since he was 19, he said, to teach children discipline and “create a pipeline” of skilled lacrosse players to both of the high schools. He finally got his chance recently, when Jon Johnson, the president of the Elmont Cardinals Sports Club put him in contact with Nassau County Police Officer Kenneth Brown to create a lacrosse clinic with the Elmont PAL program, which began earlier this year to prevent juvenile delinquency and build positive relationships between police officers and the children in the community.

Johnson had lobbied the Nassau County Police Department for the program in 2019, and called Cadet, whom he said he knew for most of Cadet’s 28-year life, an “integral part” of the program because he could connect to the children of Elmont with his humble beginnings.

When he first joined the Elmont Memorial High School lacrosse team more than a decade ago, the team was not doing very well, varsity lacrosse coach James Carretta previously told the Herald, but after Cadet and his friends joined, it started to thrive.

“He was one of the foundations that we needed to bring the program back to life,” Carretta said.

In his junior year, Cadet became an offensive and defensive powerhouse, and played in the Martin Luther King Tri-State All Stars Tournament, which earned him multiple scholarships from Division I and II universities throughout the country. He was about to give up the sport soon thereafter, however, because his father died of a sudden heart attack, and, as his family’s only son, Cadet felt it was his responsibility to help provide for them.

But the staff at Ohio Valley University in West Virginia did not give up on him, sending him condolence cards and asking him to visit the school, which he was supposed to look at with his father. Cadet found it welcoming and enrolled in the university, becoming the school’s first African-Amercian lacrosse player.

Then one day, he said, a teammate hurled racial slurs at him, and officials’ failure to react made him feel uncomfortable, and so he left for Genesee Community College in upstate New York.

He was not allowed to play lacrosse in his first season there under Division II protocols, but spent his nights practicing alone, until one night a security guard saw him play and spoke to the school’s lacrosse coach, who signed Cadet up to play for the GCC Cougars. He was soon surrounded by several top players in the National Junior College athletic Association, and his competitive spirit led the team to face the Onondaga Community College Lazers in the 2012 NJCAA Lax Championship game in Nassau County. The team lost, but Cadet said, he felt honored to play his first championship game back home.

After finishing his studies, he attended the University of the District of Columbia, where a new lacrosse program had recently been started by professional lacrosse players Scott Urik and Roger Colbert, who went on to become the team’s coach. He called Cadet one of the program’s prime founders, who helped the team beat the nationally-ranked Mercy College Mavericks in a conference game.

Upon graduation, Cadet volunteered at a training camp run by Paul Rabil, who suggested he play for Team Haiti rather than the Long Island Lizards. He was selected as the team’s first pick in 2018, and has since traveled the world for competitions.

But through it all, Cadet said, he “had to work 10 times as hard as the next kid” because he did not start playing until he was a teenager, unlike some of his competitors, who had been playing the sport since they were children.

So, to better prepare Elmont children for a future in lacrosse, Cadet will work with lacrosse players from Elmont and Sewanhaka high schools to teach boys and girls in first- through sixth-grades the sport in a 30-minute clinic and a hardest-shot competition on March 27. Each participant will get a free t-shirt, and no equipment is required.

Children will also be able to attend an upcoming eight-week clinic that Cadet is spearheading with the support of both high schools and the Elmont PAL. It will feature lessons by some of Cadet’s college teammates.

“Even if one kid gets a scholarship, or even just becomes a successful lacrosse player in high school” as a result of these programs, Cadet said, “that would warm my heart.”

To register for the free clinic, visit www.ElmontPAL.website.sportssignup.com.