The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Commitment earned freshman Lazarus opportunity with Huskies
STORRS — A few days before Christmas, Shamel Lazarus sat alongside five other of Erasmus Hall’s Football Bowl Subdivision recruits ready to put pen to paper.
Certainly more than a few of those in attendance that day knew of the sacrifices the talented defensive back made to realize his dream of playing major college football. It’s been quite the ride in more ways than one for Lazarus to find his way to UConn and to take the field in Saturday’s annual Blue-White spring game at Rentschler Field.
Each morning Lazarus would take a train from Queens to his high school in Brooklyn and another one back home.
“I had a big commute about two hours a day,” Lazarus said. “I had to take a lot of time out from school work just traveling on a train. The commitment was a big deal to me.”
Lazarus was part of nine and 10-win teams in his final two years at Bayside High School. His lone season at Erasmus Hall fell just shy of a perfect season and a city championship.
“I got a lot better fundamentally,” Lazarus said. “I came in playing free safety and they changed my position to corner and that helped me a lot.”
College recruiters don’t exactly need to plug Erasmus Hall into their GPS systems. It is a regular stop for recruiters regionally and when the national powers head to the tri-state area, Erasmus Hall games are on the itinerary more often than not. This year was no different with Matt Jones and Aron Cruickshank signing with Ohio
State and Wisconsin respectively.
Even before his senior season started, the move paid dividends culminating with Lazarus committing to UConn in July.
“Definitely it was Coach (Danny) Landberg, the coaches over there they saw a lot in me and wanted to address my future,” Lazarus said. “I really wanted to get with those guys and bring a championship to my school.”
Erasmus Hall outscored its opponents 425-69 to rip off 10 straight victories including a 55-0 win over his former school before the Dutchmen fell to Curtis High School 36-35 in the New York PSAL title game. An injury-plagued senior season limited Lazarus’ on-field impact but did little to diminish the memories he took from his senior season.
“I was so happy for my guys, a lot of my guys earned scholarships and it was a fun experience,” Lazarus said. “It kind of hurt me not to be on the field with them and not share all of those experiences with them, but I am just happy for everybody who earned a scholarship and is in college now.”
Once the season was over, his focus was on graduating early so he could enroll at UConn for the spring semester.
“I only had one class that held me back. I had enough credits to graduate after junior year, but it was just a math class. It was actually online and I actually had to put a lot of work into it because I had to do about a full year of school work in about two or three months,” Lazarus said. “Every day I was going at it, staying dedicated so I could get here in the spring.”
Lazarus is one of three true freshmen able to take
part in spring drills because they graduated early and enrolled at UConn for the spring semester. A knee injury has kept offensive lineman Noel Ofori-Nyadu out of spring practice, but Lazarus and fellow defensive back Malik Banks have taken advantage of the 14 spring practices and will be taking part in Saturday’s spring game, set for noon at Rentschler Field.
“We are roommates so we are always together watching plays and talking about how hard the playbook is, so we got really close,” Lazarus said.
Although they are both defensive backs, their roles are much different. Banks has seen time at the hybrid safety/linebacker position in defensive coordinator Billy Crocker’s 3-3-5 scheme, while Lazarus has worked mostly with the second team at cornerback. He did get to spend a recent practice with the starters when an ankle injury kept rising sophomore Jordan Swann on the sidelines.
“I am really thankful that I had this opportunities to get these reps, it took it as a learning experience so I show Coach (Curome Cox, UConn’s defensive backs coach) what I can do so maybe he is more comfortable putting me in that situation next time.”
During that aforementioned practice, each time Lazarus came off the field, Swann was there to offer his support and pieces of advice.
“I know he is only a (sophomore) but he is a great veteran, he will pull me aside and help me with the playbook,” Lazarus said. “He always calms me down if I have a bad day at practice. He is definitely the most helpful among all the guys to me.”