June 24, 2006

When Jeff Goldberg last coached in a National Senior Showcase, Ryan Curtis was his stud defenseman, Ryan Powell caused him fits and Jay Jalbert scored the game-winning goal in overtime. It was 1996. All three players went on to win NCAA championships.

The most geographically diverse event of its kind, the NSS all-star games today will feature 93 high school seniors representing 32 states at St. Louis Soccer Park in Fenton, Mo. Among them will be one of Goldberg's own -- a precocious young man who aspires to be a neuroscientist and legitimate Division I lacrosse player, Cane Napolitano.

A versatile midfielder, Napolitano scored 41 goals, dished 20 assists and won 85 percent of faceoffs for St. Andrew's (Fla.) School, which went 26-2 and won its fourth consecutive Florida state championship. The Scots have won 15 of the last 22 state titles, including 10 of the last 12 under Goldberg.

That pedigree drew Napolitano from his hometown Weston, Fla.

"He got here as a junior, and the first words out of his mouth were, `I'll do whatever it takes to become a Division I player,' " said Goldberg, the head coach at St. Andrew's since 1995. "He never stopped to say how good he was. He never lifted enough weights. He never did enough speed work. He never shot enough goals. He never played enough lacrosse."

It wasn't always that way. In fact, through sophomore year of high school, Napolitano was, first and foremost, a golfer. Lacrosse was a side dish.

"Golf? Yeah, I'm alright," said Napolitano, a scratch handicap who shot a career-best 69 during his Weston days. He started golfing when he was 4. "Golf became a job, kind of. I got burned out on it. Lacrosse was something I had fun doing."

So it was that Napolitano came to meet Goldberg, at one of his preeminent Florida camps. Napolitano was rough around the edges. He couldn't dodge or shoot on the run. His left hand was weak. His former high school, Plantation-American Heritage, had only started its varsity program when Napolitano was a sophomore there.

"We were pretty bad," said Napolitano, recently named the Palm Beach Post's player of the year. "We were like a JV team."

"He's a guy that went from being an average Florida player to end up being the state's elite player," Goldberg said. "What a transformation."

Not that it was instantaneous. Napolitano, who transferred to St. Andrew's as a junior, at first had a difficult time adjusting to the steeper competition. But for the first time, he felt convinced that lacrosse could be his ticket, and that golf was a "thing of the past." (He nonetheless continued to play golf, a fall sport, at St. Andrew's, where he was named all-county as a junior.)

Napolitano will, in fact, be a Division I lacrosse player in the fall. After flirting with Providence, Dartmouth and Yale - in addition to a host of Division III schools - the former golfer whose underhand shot mirrors his swing will play lacrosse at Lafayette, where he'll major in neuroscience.

"Coming out of Florida, it was a really long haul to try play Division I lacrosse," said Mark Napolitano, Cane's father. "We're happy with the school itself. We'd love to see them playing for the Patriot League championship."

Though suitors drooled over Napolitano's face-off abilities, he hopes to resist the urge to specialize too soon. That's much of the reason he left golf - the hours spent practicing a specific mechanic. Still, it helped. The positioning of his hands, the hip turn, the torque - those are all elements of a blistering underhand shot previously engrained in Napolitano at the tee.

Now, it's time to admire the follow-through.