Sudden Turn

Lamont Cardwell cannot stop smiling.
It is a particularly wide grin, an ear-to-ear parting of the lips that show the 6-foot-6 senior’s two big front teeth. Any subject - particularly basketball and academics - lead to that smile.
The jovial 17-year-old is living right these days as the starting center on the first-place Hillcrest basketball team and a solid 78 average student who is on pace to graduate this spring and attend college.
The root of his happiness, actually, came from darkness.
When he arrived at the Jamaica school in September 2006, Cardwell was a troubled teen. He was expelled from Beach Channel for fighting and was not going to class at Hillcrest. When he was there, he had a permanent scowl. He drifted the hallways in search of trouble and avoiding class.
“He was like this big, tough guy you were afraid of,” said Christine Donley, a dean at the school.
Cally Prasinos, the Hillcrest basketball coach - she is one of two female varsity coaches, with Ruth Loveland of Boys & Girls in Brooklyn being the other - a physical education teacher and dean, was not scared. She would often seek out troubled students she thought could be helped.
With Cardwell, it took a consistent effort. He did not want to be helped at first. Then again, nobody had reached out to him before, either.
Coming from the Edgemere section of Far Rockaway, all he knew was the street life, where gangs and drugs dealers make a living. He was dragged into the life, and school was not only secondary, it was unimportant.
“I just felt like she was just talking to be talking,” recalled Cardwell, who is averaging six points and six rebounds per game for the Hawks. “I had trust issues.”
Around the time Prasinos reached out, his cousin, Christopher Glenn, 16, was murdered. It set off an alarm in Cardwell’s head. Glenn had always wondered why his older cousin never played high school basketball. Cardwell, armed with a soft touch and athletic gait, was good enough to play varsity ball. They had talked about putting effort into school together. The heartbreaking turn of events made a difference.
“I told myself, ‘I don’t want my life to end like my cousin’s,” he said. “I can do better. I want to make it out of the hood. I can make something of myself.’”
All the while, Prasinos kept pushing. She put him on her conduct plan, where she monitored his day-to-day activity in class - when he arrives, how he participates in class, what his teachers are noticing.
“I felt like there was something talented in him,” she thought back. “He gave himself an opportunity and he was successful. He’s not a stupid kid; he just never gave himself the chance to prove it.”
Slowly, Prasinos and Donley noticed a change. His marks began to rise. Whenever he graded well on a test or an exam, he proudly presented it to them to place on their wall where fellow student’s exploits’ hung.
“Every time he was very, very proud of himself,” Donley said.
“He once told me, ‘I never had someone care about me so much,’” Prasinos said.
The problem did not go away immediately, Prasinos noted. Even though Cardwell was going to class and doing his work, he was still arriving late. Therefore, Prasinos made a habit of following him. She even held him by the arm so he could not stop and talk to friends. Out of embarrassment, Cardwell resisted but eventually relented.
“The next few times, I would look through the glass,” she said, “and he was looking to see if I was going to keep doing it. Like, ‘is she going to keep doing it or is she just talking.’”
He raised his grades 60 percent from September of 2006 to June of 2007 to where he was eligible to play basketball. At Prasinos’ advice, he also took makeup classes after school to get on track to graduate.
When this past fall rolled around, he was excited to play basketball, but bad habits had crept back in. He was sleeping in, cutting his first-period class. Ever the disciplinarian, Prasinos threatened to take away basketball if it continued.
“You should’ve seen him the next day, he was there at 7:45,” she said.
The commute from Far Rockaway is a difficult one, a two-hour bus trip. To arrive on time he must leave home before 6 a.m. However, it is worth it. For the first time in his life, Cardwell is playing basketball.
Even more important, he is succeeding in the classroom. He thinks about graduation and college even more than the upcoming playoffs.
“I never thought I had a chance to graduate high school,” he said, flashing that million-dollar smile. “I didn’t think I was going to do it, so that’s why I’m so dedicated.”
It began with a harmless chat. It did not end there. Prasinos kept on him. In addition, because of her relentless pursuit, it has turned into so much more.
“I always used to think there was nothing going on in my life but the streets, but then Ms. Prasinos came and showed me a different way,” he said. “She told me you could go to class, you can make it, you could be a role model for your brothers.
“She showed she cared about me because she didn’t give up on me,” he said. “There were times I didn’t show up for a couple of days and she still came to talk to me, encourage me to keep going.”
“Sometimes kids need that special attention,” Prasinos added. “Who knows where he would be right now.”