This article appears in the December edition of US Lacrosse Magazine. Don’t get the mag? Join US Lacrosse today to start your subscription.

Highbridge Green School sits in the South Bronx, somewhere between Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo. It’s part of what was recently the poorest congressional district in the country. There’s no local bank. Few real restaurants. A lot of concrete.

But there’s something beautiful blooming on these barren blocks, and it can’t be found up the road at the New York Botanical Gardens.

“Lacrosse has kind of been this flower in the neighborhood,” said Dan Leventhal, who founded the lacrosse program at Highbridge Green as well as Bronx Lacrosse, the non-profit organization that grew out of it. “You play in your yard and other kids watch through the fence, and it grows from there.”

If one looked through those fences a few years ago, he or she wouldn’t have seen lacrosse. Kids mostly played basketball. For all but a select few individuals who failed to make their middle school basketball team, there was no alternative. Try out again next year. Try to stay off the streets until then.

Leventhal arrived at Highbridge Green in 2015, fresh out of Tufts, where he helped the Jumbos win an NCAA championship. He came to the Bronx to teach special education math. What he ended up teaching might have been even more special.

By the spring of 2016, Leventhal had 30 players had signed up at Highbridge Green. Grants from US Lacrosse in 2017 and 2018 gave them sticks, nets and all the equipment the team needed. They added a girls’ program.

Then came Bronx Lacrosse, which is dedicated to opening up programs in other neighborhood schools. It just started a second team, a few blocks away, at MS 218. The organization is growing so fast that Leventhal runs it full time. He has two coaches — Malik Garvin and Darrel Kidd — with backgrounds the local players can relate to running the teams. Garvin came up through Harlem Hockey, a nonprofit bringing ice hockey to the inner city. Kidd captained the lacrosse team at Hampton.

The players hold their own on the field, but the program’s real success shows up in the classroom. Highbridge’s players are progressing faster in math and reading than other students. Attendance is up, too. It makes sense. If grades slip, they can’t play. The program promotes good grades through Twitter (@Bronx_Lacrosse) and posts success stories on BronxLacrosse.org. They also produced a video, “Highbridge: A Bronx Lacrosse Story,” that has been viewed on YouTube more than 20,000 times.

John Pena emerged as the star of the video, and the team. Leventhal called Pena, who now plays at Cardinal Hayes High School, one of the best players in the city. High praise for a guy who hadn’t even touched a stick a few years ago.

These kids, one subway stop from Yankee Stadium, don’t want to be Aaron Judge. They want to be John Pena.

“A lot of people want to recruit him,” said Muhammad Krubally, a seventh-grader who plays at Highbridge Green. “That’s the opportunity I should take. Go to college. Then go to the MLL.”

They dream big. Darius Voyd, another Highbridge Green seventh-grader, said he wants to play lacrosse, basketball and football at Duke. Dreams are what make a sometimes-difficult life more tolerable, but Leventhal also wants to set achievable goals. He has taken the players to Fordham Prep, where they all want to go. But not everyone can go to prep school. Not everyone can go to Duke. Leventhal’s goal is to establish programs at the local public high schools. He wants Bronx Lacrosse alumni to plant roots. Be the leaders in the community. Change their own worlds.

“Right up the block there are shootings at playgrounds,” Leventhal said. “It’s ridiculous, some of the stories these kids deal with. We keep them focused and motivated, give them something to grip on to and stay on the right path.”

As long as Bronx Lacrosse is in their lives, it seems the players will stay on the right path. There’s a waiting list. Players know that if their grades drop, there will be another waiting to take their place. Program mentors are in the school all day, making sure players keep up with schoolwork.

“It was awkward,” Krubally said. “Because someone was making me do the work.”

Krubally, whose family comes from Ghana and Jamaica, hadn’t heard of lacrosse growing up.

“I thought it looked dumb,” he said. “They just had a stick and ball. I was into basketball.”

He changed his mind the first time he got to hit someone. Krubally was recently able to play with Columbia University’s club team. The college players towered over him, but his favorite part was getting to hit them. He doesn’t think lacrosse looks so dumb anymore.

“You can’t go down the hall without seeing someone with a stick,” Krubally said.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BRONX LACROSSE

The idea behind going to places like Columbia is to get the players exposed to new experiences. Leventhal recently took players to his hometown, Chappaqua, N.Y., the Westchester County suburb where the Clintons live. For some, it had been the first time they’d ever left the South Bronx. One player told Leventhal he thought he needed to go to Alaska to see that many white people.

They haven’t made it to Alaska yet, but they did camp in the Adirondacks.

“It’s funny,” Leventhal said. “But it shows how they haven’t been exposed to the things that other kids have. We’re just showing them that these things can be very attainable if they work hard in the classroom.”

The Highbridge Green players are passing these lessons to a younger generation. At first, Voyd’s mother didn’t want him to play lacrosse. She thought he’d get hurt. He begged until she gave in. Now he plays with his sister and younger cousin in the backyard. His cousin’s school doesn’t offer lacrosse, yet. That doesn’t mean lacrosse isn’t in his future.

“He knows how to catch. He just needs to know how throw,” Voyd said. “When he gets to high school, I’ll convince him to play.”

The Highbridge Green School in the South Bronx has benefitted from multiple US Lacrosse offerings, including First Stick Program and National Diversity grants in 2017 and acceptance into the Urban Lacrosse Alliance in 2018.  To support these initiatives, visit uslacrosse.org/donate.