No Limits Despite prosthesis, Stamford’s Scott is a lacrosse standout.
By Bob Greeney
Staff Writer - Stamford Advocate
Article Launched: 04/27/2008 02:41:00 AM EDT
Tom Scott is at the top of the box with the ball nestled in the basket of lacrosse stick. He surveys the situation, aware of his teammates he could potentially pass to, and he is ready to make his move.
He does, and he cannot be stopped. Tom Scott is fast. Really fast. Along with that speed, he has the quickness and dodging ability necessary to be a strong offensive player in lacrosse.
He also has the field awareness and passing ability to set teammates up after he has beaten his man.
Tom Scott, a senior captain for the Stamford High School boys lacrosse team, will not be deterred.
The attitude that Scott has on a lacrosse field is also a microcosm of his life.
When Scott is making his quick dodges and sharp cuts, he is doing so with a prosthetic left leg.
“I have seen Tom working out at the Italian Center over the winter. I know he is a dedicated athlete,” said Trinity Catholic coach Bob Cavaliero, who watched Scott get two goals and an assist while helping Stamford beat Cavaliero’s Crusaders Thursday. “The fact that he has a prosthetic leg doesn’t even enter my mind. You can’t look at it that way because he plays as if he has two very strong legs. He moves, he catches the ball, he passes very well. He has a good sense of lacrosse - where should be, and he anticipates very well. He has a good shot with good location and he knows the game. He’s got skill at this level that stands out.”
Scott, 17, is a well-rounded young man who participates in a variety
of activities despite being born without an ankle and left foot.
“It’s just the way God gave him to us. There’s no reason behind it, it’s just the way we got him,” said Tom’s mother Michelle. “We feel very fortunate. As difficult as it was at his birth, it became a great life lesson to all of us. He hasn’t had any real problems, not any emotional problems or anything like that. When he was young there might have been a couple days when he said: ‘Why me?’ But he’s a great athlete, a great student, he’s well spoken, he’s on the National Honor Society. He’s just an absolute delight.”
“I’m just very happy for him,” said David, Tom’s father. “Growing up as a boy and coming to the realization of not having a left foot, there were some extraordinary harsh moments that Tom had to come to grips with. He did and he really did turn it around.”
David Scott pointed out that his father was a terrific athlete at Fordham, but that David himself did not do much of anything in sports. So David takes great pride that the athleticism skipped a generation and that Tom has his grandfather’s stellar athleticism.
“You could see at a very young age that Tom was a very good athlete,” David Scott said. “Even at the age of two, with a very crude prosthesis, he adapted. I remember throwing a tennis ball against the wall (and Tom retrieved it). I was amazed at how he moved with his prosthesis and made it happen.”
Tom grew up playing many sports - football, baseball, basketball, soccer - and he ran cross country for four years at Stamford High to build his endurance for lacrosse.
“I pretty much got involved in all the sports I could until I found what was right for me, which was lacrosse,” Tom Scott said.
It is amazing Tom is such a good lacrosse player considering he took up the sport slightly more than three years ago.
The Scotts’ next-door neighbor, Bob Lutz, assisted Stamford head lacrosse coach Jeremy White in building a new lacrosse program at SHS and Lutz is now an assistant coach at Darien. In another example how timing is sometimes everything in life, Lutz looked out his window one day to see Tom playing basketball on his driveway court when Tom was a freshman at Stamford High.
“My neighbor saw me playing basketball, he actually walked over with a lacrosse stick and told me I was going to play lacrosse,” Tom Scott related. “By the time I met Coach White I was positive I wanted to play.”
“He picked it up right away,” Lutz said. “He’s fast in all aspects and the way he’s able to cut. He’s got good hand-eye coordination. He’s a good player. He’s a hell of a basketball player, too, but I don’t know how much (playing) time he would’ve gotten if he stuck with it. Now he’s playing a lot of lacrosse and playing very well.”
The irony of it is that Lutz recruited Scott to the lacrosse program when Lutz had no clue about Scott’s physical condition.
“When I first moved in I was helping Jeremy White at Stamford and we said we have to recruit athletes for the program,” Lutz recalled. “One day I look out the window and he’s playing basketball. I walked over, gave him a lacrosse stick, and I didn’t know anything about his leg or anything. I just saw him as a good athlete in the neighborhood.”
It was not until another teacher brought it up to Lutz that Scott had a prosthetic left leg and Lutz finally looked more closely and noticed it the next time he saw Tom playing basketball.
Scott is forever grateful for that day Lutz came into his yard with that lacrosse stick.
“Lacrosse is definitely the perfect sport for me,” Scott said. “It’s the speed of the game, the quickness and bursts of speed you need in lacrosse, and you really have to think on the field. It kind of satisfies the competitive side of me. Everything about it embodies how I have a responsibility to myself, my teammates and my coaches. I try to play my hardest and do my best for them. That’s really what it’s all about to me.”
White traditionally has one player from the junior class serve as a team captain along with a few seniors.
Scott was the junior captain last year and now is a two-year captain.
Scott never wanted to be known as the kid who plays lacrosse with the prosthetic leg. He wants any acclaim he gets to be as a lacrosse player, pure and simple.
He has tried to play the game that way, but he also has an awareness of the limitations he has to compensate for.
“With my prosthetic leg, and with technology getting better and better, it has come down to I really wanted to get better at the sport. I really did as much as I could so I could be good enough for me and my teammates,” Scott said. “Even with the changes in technology, at this point I definitely favor my right leg when it comes to balancing and playing. When I shoot on the run my right leg is my power leg, and I have to compensate more with my torso and arms. I kind of find the balance of pressure whether I cut right or left. I kind of just keep that and go that way. I don’t favor one side. My right leg is my strong leg but I don’t favor it. I know it’s important to go to both sides in lacrosse, or any sport, really.”
The 5-foot-8 Scott had 31 points last year as an attackman and was the third leading scorer on the team behind seniors Dan Zuchelli and Francis Burke.
This year he has four goals and 11 assists.
“His scoring is down but his role has gotten larger,” White said.
White switched him from attack to midfield this year so that Scott could quarterback the offense.
White and the other Stamford players have gotten so used to Scott’s situation through the last few ensuing years that they simply view him as a solid lacrosse player.
“He’s just had to work a little bit harder than everybody else to get where he has gotten,” White said. “We sort of take it for granted. It’s different than when he was a freshman and we’d take a look at him and say: ‘Wow, look at this.’ Now the kids ... it doesn’t hit them until opposing players or opposing coaches say, ‘Hey, that kid’s playing with a prosthetic leg.’ That puts it all into perspective how incredible it is what he does. I sometimes yell at him for things - I want him to do this or do that. Then I say to myself: ‘Maybe he can’t.’ Then he proves you wrong and does it. It’s just great. He’s an incredible athlete. He really is.”
In addition to being and incredible athlete and a great student, Scott is also a very good singer.
He is the lead singer in a band that includes his brother Sean as the drummer, a lead guitarist, a bass guitarist, and they recently won a Battle of the Bands competition at Stamford High.
Scott is also a singer in the Madrigals Choir at Stamford High and he works at a yoga studio.
Scott will attend the University of Connecticut, he wants to play for the university’s club lacrosse team and would love it if UConn made the transition to Division I status during his college years.
Basically, there are no limits in his life beset by a so-called handicap and that is why Tom Scott is a champion in life.
“I definitely have the great support of my parents,” Scott said. “This was something I had to individually cultivate myself. I kind of recognized boundaries, found out which ones I could keep pursuing and bending, and obviously the boundaries I cannot cross, and I look at things I can be better in.”