April 15, 2008

Note: This article appears on the cover and inside the April issue of Lacrosse Magazine, a monthly publication of US Lacrosse. Become a member today to start your subscription!

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by Nathan Maciborski, Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online

Steele Stanwick has visions.

Not the psychic hotline, I-see-dead-people type. The 18-year-old senior attackman from Loyola Blakefield (Md.) High School tends to see things differently.

Whether he's directing passes as a forward for Loyola's soccer team in the fall, running point for the basketball team in the winter, or leading the Dons' offense in lacrosse, Stanwick has an uncanny sense of his surroundings. And his ability to peer into the future - whether he sees a defenseman slide a split-second before he actually does or imagines himself hoisting a championship trophy years down the road - has made him arguably the country's top high school lacrosse player.

Steele Stanwick was born in September of 1989, the fifth of eight children of Wells and Dori Stanwick. He grew up in Baltimore surrounded by sports, namely his lacrosse-playing older siblings. Stanwick started playing when he was 6, and it wasn't long before he envisioned himself leading his team to glory.

"I grew up watching the MIAA (Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association) since I was 6 or 7," Stanwick says. "I had always gone to the championship game and imagined how cool it would be to play in front of all those people. I always wondered what I'd do in that situation."

By the time Stanwick reached middle school, his reputation preceded him - "He was always somebody you worried about as an opposing rec coach," says Baltimore Lacrosse Club coach Ryan McClernan - and he needed to decide where to play his high school ball.

He could have followed his brother, Tad, who is two-and-a-half years his elder, to perennial powerhouse Boys' Latin, and played alongside the person who Steele says he has "always kind of looked up to and modeled my game after." But that's the thing about visionaries - they don't follow trails; they blaze new ones.

Instead, Stanwick chose Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Md., another strong program, but one that traditionally bowed down to Boys' Latin. Stanwick finished with 14 goals and 14 assists as a freshman, but went 0-2 against his older brother, including a loss in the MIAA semifinals.

"It was definitely a little awkward," recalls Tad, now a redshirt sophomore at Rutgers. "I'd have to pick him up from school the day before the game. But it was a lot of fun."

Steele's game improved as a sophomore, when he finished with 35 goals and 17 assists, but the Dons again fell short of a league title. He had a big summer playing for McClernan on the Baltimore Crabs, and was already immersed in the college recruiting process as he entered his junior year at Loyola.

The easy, more comfortable route might have been to follow Tad to Rutgers, or head to Georgetown where his three sisters, Sheehan, Wick and Coco, have been collecting All-America awards since 1998. But among the Division I programs vying for his services was Virginia, fresh off its 2006 NCAA championship victory over UMass. Steele and his mother visited Charlottesville, where he got another one of his "feelings."

"They have a great program there, but when I came back, it just felt right," Stanwick says. "My mom knew I was going to commit there right after I took my visit. She saw the smile on my face and knew that was the place for me."

Commit he did, ending the recruiting process almost as soon as it began, two years before his first 8 a.m. lecture.

It enabled Stanwick to turn his focus back to the playing field. After getting off to a 1-2 start, including a 9-8 loss to Boys' Latin, Stanwick and the Dons turned it on last season. They rattled off 11 straight victories, setting up a showdown with heavily favored Boys' Latin in the MIAA championship game.

Ask any of Stanwick's coaches and they'll undoubtedly talk about Stanwick's vision, whether he's dishing assists on the court or sending a shot past an overmatched goalkeeper. But with his humble attitude and team-first mentality, it's often hard for them to remember specific instances of Stanwick stealing the spotlight for an entire game.

Until the 2007 MIAA final.

As Stanwick prepared to face BL, a team which he had never beaten, he remembered watching those contests as a young boy. "You never know if you'll get this chance again," he told himself.

After the Lakers took a 1-0 lead, Stanwick orchestrated a 7-0 Dons run from which BL could not recover. His performance, the highlights of which can be found on YouTube, included four goals and four assists in the 10-6 victory over the Lakers.

"I'm glad to say I missed that one," says Boys' Latin alum McClernan. "He took it over."

"I love BL, but you've got to root for [your brother]," Tad says. "He ended up having a great game and came out on top."

Stanwick finished his junior season with career highs in goals (37) and assists (35), earning Baltimore Sun 2007 Player of the Year honors. He then tried out for the 2008 U.S. Under-19 team, and was one of only four current high school seniors selected to compete in this summer's International Lacrosse Federation (ILF) World Championship.

"I thought he kind of ran the team," says U.S. head coach Chuck Apel. "Steele's got great vision, and he's real smooth with the ball. And he has his head up all the time. He's a good guy to set people up."

Before he heads off to British Columbia and then Virginia, however, Stanwick's focus will remain in Towson, where he hopes to cap off his high school career with another MIAA title.

"There's a big target on our back now," he says. "I think the real key this year is going to be leadership, leading the younger guys by example and not settling for anything but a championship."

Whether Stanwick is able to lead the Dons to a second straight title or not, his legacy has been cemented.

"I teach in the middle school and our kids, they all know him," says Loyola head basketball coach Josh Ravalli. "They know who he is and they look up to him. He sets a great example in that you can have these talents and skills, but you don't have to showboat. He does it in the right way."

"Coaching these all-star teams for as long as I have, I've seen some of the all-star guys with all-star attitudes," McClernan says. "Steele's not that kind of guy. He's a great young man and the kind of guy that makes you want to be in coaching."

It's not hard to envision Virginia coach Dom Starsia saying the same thing some day - sooner rather than later.