After graduation, Ellis used a post-graduate year at Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn. He experienced a culture shock being away from home for the first time and losing a lot of football games. Ellis said Westminster humbled him and taught him how to mesh with different people. He channeled the losses by focusing on personal improvement and working with teammates on the next game’s scouting report.
Experiencing failure, Ellis said, made him a stronger person. He took the SAT four times before attending college. He was never the smartest kid in his classes, but he learned academic discipline from his grandmother and his best friend’s family. Ellis wanted to make his mother proud so that she could brag, he said, “My baby is smart, not just an athlete.”
After his post-graduate year at Westminster School, Ellis decided to return to Long Island and enroll at Stony Brook. It was close to home, a state school with reasonable tuition, room and board costs. The Seawolves also offered Ellis a scholarship to play lacrosse. A short-stick defensive midfielder, he played in 12 games as a freshman In 2014 and in all 18 games as a sophomore in 2015.
Ellis’ college career was derailed the next year. Stony Brook got off to a 5-1 start in 2016. But Ellis badly bruised his leg in the sixth game, a 13-5 win over nationally ranked Hofstra. According to Ellis, he told the coaches and staff something wasn’t right with his knee, but they cleared him to play anyway. Albany was up next, and Stony Brook needed its full suite of defenders against its conference rival.
Ellis found the task of preparing for Albany’s unconventional, high-scoring offense equal parts daunting and annoying. Miles and Lyle Thompson graduated, but the Great Danes still had Connor Fields and a plethora of complementary weapons.
“You have to do your role,” Ellis said. “Offense always beats defense. If you don’t communicate on defense, your core will struggle.”
Ellis said he pushed himself too hard in practice. He tore his ACL, his junior season over after appearing in just four games. According to Ellis, Stony Brook’s coaches apologized for not listening to his concerns. Still, the following fall, he asked for a transfer release. Ellis said Stony Brook blocked several schools in which he expressed interest, causing him to miss the 2017 season, before it eventually released him without restrictions.
Ellis landed at Hofstra, which had recruited him out of high school. He received a scholarship to join the Pride despite not playing for nearly two years. Ellis played in all 14 games as Hofstra’s top defensive midfielder in 2018 and scored his only goal against Stony Brook in an emphatic 14-2 win. Ellis also scooped four of his career-high 25 ground balls in the blowout victory over his former team.
As a sixth-year senior in 2019, Ellis was named Hofstra’s co-captain. He started all 14 games for the Pride, amassing 18 ground balls and six caused turnovers while also scoring two goals. Again, it seemed, Ellis saved his best for Stony Brook, notching an assist to go with a season-high six ground balls, albeit this time in an 11-10 defeat.
Minutes before Hofstra’s game with Fairfield on the Stags’ Senior Day, Ellis learned that he was selected by his hometown Lizards in the MLL Rookie Selection Draft. At first, he was focused on beating Fairfield, but a teammate interrupted his pregame routine by telling him to check Twitter. Ellis didn’t have a Twitter account at the time, so he signed up to see the Lizards post. Pride coach Seth Tierney later walked into the locker room to congratulate Ellis.
“Let’s win this game,” Tierney concluded.
Hofstra did just that, finishing a disappointing 5-9 season on a high note with an 11-9 victory. Ellis went on to earn his master’s degree in sports science, his journey coming full circle in August when Stony Brook athletics hired him to be their new assistant athletic performance coach.
Meanwhile, Ellis has emerged as a steady presence for the Lizards, who expected their rookies to contribute in games from the jump. To succeed in professional lacrosse, he said, “One must play with a chip on your shoulder, not let things hold you back, put in hard work when no one is looking and surround yourself by people who push you to be better.”
During his rookie season, Ellis appeared in four games. In the condensed 2020 MLL season, he had five ground balls, four caused turnovers and two points in five games. Ellis left an even greater mark as one of the “MLL Four,” the league’s four Black players who stood apart from their teams at midfield during the national anthem at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in a show of solidarity in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ellis drew inspiration from his grandfather, Eddie Alexander. For an assignment at Westminster, he had constructed a family tree and produced a report on his greatest influences. Ellis’ grandfather was a Vietnam War veteran from West Virginia who was denied the rights and accolades most service members were bestowed. Many Black veterans, like the ones in my family, were subjected to discrimination and acts of prejudice by their superiors and fellow service members.
Imagine fighting for a country that doesn’t accept you as an equal.
Imagine playing a sport that doesn’t accept you as one of its own.
Ellis’ great-grandparents were coal miners, among the few jobs Black people could have in West Virginia at the time. Ellis defined true diversity and inclusion as “the community being open and understanding even when you don’t agree. The community must make progress and converse with those who feel outcast. Currently, there are many people who hide from this and it worsens relations.”
As a gesture of unity, Ellis often gave the youth lacrosse players he coached foods he learned to cook from his Jamaican ancestors. Hempstead is the epicenter of Long Island’s Black lacrosse history. Chuck Sherwood, an All-American goalie at Duke in the 1970s and the first Black player in ACC lacrosse history, came from Hempstead. So did Aaron Jones, an All-American defenseman at Cornell in the 1980s who was the CEO of Metro Lacrosse in Boston until 2019.
Ellis said he has an obligation to give back because he lacked the type of financial support his peers had growing up. He works with local organizations and wants to help kids avoid community violence.
“It is truly a blessing to be a Black lacrosse player,” Ellis said. “I’ve been through it all, and it means the world to give back to the sport that helped me. I must help the next generation of kids. It’s an obligation to fill the gaps and make the legends happy.”
Ellis also aspires to be a lacrosse retail store owner so he can help lower the cost for kids playing the sport. Asked what words of wisdom he’d give young players of color, Ellis replied, “Be consistent. Stay strong. Play hard. People can question your play, but heart, determination and grit can’t be [questioned]. Talent is overrated compared to work ethic and teamwork. You must be twice as good to be on par with others. Black people are built to withstand adversities. Be comfortable in your own skin. Never quit. Never doubt yourself.”