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The Daily OrangeMLAX | Complete package: Mike Leveille's quiet focus and all-around skill have made him SU's deadliest scorer
By Andy McCullough
Posted: 5/7/08, 7:54 PM EST Section: Sports
Brooks, ever prescient, said Leveille looks like a hockey player when he's on the field. And again, he has a point: Leveille played center on Albany Academy's hockey team all the way up to his graduation from high school.
Or take the preseason speech about the ranking.
Leveille heard during Thanksgiving break that Syracuse, after last year's 5-8 record, wouldn't be ranked in the top 10 when the season started. The tri-captain called a meeting to let the team know that wouldn't be the case for long. The Orange was better than that.
"It was really intense," freshman midfielder Jovan Miller said. "No laughing. No joking."
Just Leveille talking.
But ask Leveille to explain it, and here's what you get: "Yeah, I was bit fired up."
Or take the Hobart game earlier this season. Leveille netted a hat trick to help the Orange pull away in a 13-5 victory. When it was over, and the Krause-Simmons Trophy was handed out to the winners (as it has been to the winners of this series since 1986), Leveille snatched it up and ran toward his teammates.
They engulfed him before he handed off the hardware to freshman goalie John Galloway.
Then the media surrounded him, and he went back into the shell.
"I feel like that trophy belongs to Syracuse," he deadpanned.
That's just who he is, George said. Humble, like George and his wife Nancy wanted their children to be. Which makes things a bit difficult, considering who came before him.
Leveille arrived on campus in 2005, just as Mikey Powell, the last of the three Powell brothers, exited the Syracuse lacrosse world.
But Mikey, an attack like Leveille, was more than just another lacrosse player.
Before he settled down as an upperclassman, Powell was half on-the-field star, half fly-by-night partier: a man-about-town in a town that adored him. He won the national title and the Tewaarton as a sophomore in 2002 then missed fall practice because his grades were too low.
He pulled himself together - and pulled his grades up, too - in time to win another title and Tewaarton in 2004 before graduating, leaving a legacy Leveille and others are still trying to meet.
"Who wouldn't want to be a Powell?" George said. "They're fabulous players. But Mike is Mike. Mike is a different type of player, different type of personality, different type of field ego. We just wanted Mike to be Mike. "
He had the chance to carry the torch: Leveille wore Powell's No. 22 in a few fall practices as a freshman.
He chose to wear 19, Kevin's number, instead.
"We think that expectation might have been there, and that's OK," George said. "We understand that, and we knew what we were getting into. We're just happy that this year has been a great year, and Mike's abilities have sort of shone through as being worthy of being at Syracuse."
ramccull@syr.edu
Or take the preseason speech about the ranking.
Leveille heard during Thanksgiving break that Syracuse, after last year's 5-8 record, wouldn't be ranked in the top 10 when the season started. The tri-captain called a meeting to let the team know that wouldn't be the case for long. The Orange was better than that.
"It was really intense," freshman midfielder Jovan Miller said. "No laughing. No joking."
Just Leveille talking.
But ask Leveille to explain it, and here's what you get: "Yeah, I was bit fired up."
Or take the Hobart game earlier this season. Leveille netted a hat trick to help the Orange pull away in a 13-5 victory. When it was over, and the Krause-Simmons Trophy was handed out to the winners (as it has been to the winners of this series since 1986), Leveille snatched it up and ran toward his teammates.
They engulfed him before he handed off the hardware to freshman goalie John Galloway.
Then the media surrounded him, and he went back into the shell.
"I feel like that trophy belongs to Syracuse," he deadpanned.
That's just who he is, George said. Humble, like George and his wife Nancy wanted their children to be. Which makes things a bit difficult, considering who came before him.
Leveille arrived on campus in 2005, just as Mikey Powell, the last of the three Powell brothers, exited the Syracuse lacrosse world.
But Mikey, an attack like Leveille, was more than just another lacrosse player.
Before he settled down as an upperclassman, Powell was half on-the-field star, half fly-by-night partier: a man-about-town in a town that adored him. He won the national title and the Tewaarton as a sophomore in 2002 then missed fall practice because his grades were too low.
He pulled himself together - and pulled his grades up, too - in time to win another title and Tewaarton in 2004 before graduating, leaving a legacy Leveille and others are still trying to meet.
"Who wouldn't want to be a Powell?" George said. "They're fabulous players. But Mike is Mike. Mike is a different type of player, different type of personality, different type of field ego. We just wanted Mike to be Mike. "
He had the chance to carry the torch: Leveille wore Powell's No. 22 in a few fall practices as a freshman.
He chose to wear 19, Kevin's number, instead.
"We think that expectation might have been there, and that's OK," George said. "We understand that, and we knew what we were getting into. We're just happy that this year has been a great year, and Mike's abilities have sort of shone through as being worthy of being at Syracuse."
ramccull@syr.edu
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