Lee commits to Gannon
Aaron Lee is natural born leader.
The 17-year-old, Grade 12 student at Notre Dame loves to act as a player/coach on the pitch, whether it’s from his natural fullback position or from centre-back.
“I’m a strong defender and very vocal,” the Pelham resident said. “If you come out to watch any of our games or practices, I’m constantly projecting my voice. I’m quite quick on the wing and I like to play fullback and get up and down the wing when I can and then track back and try and make a strong challenge. At centre-back I can see everything on the pitch and offer advice and tell my players while on the pitch what I see and give them best opportunity to do better.”
Notre Dame men’s soccer coach Dan Carter is a huge fan of Lee, on and off the pitch.
“He is the guy on your team that will go out, not just with regard with what he has to do, but he gets other guys on the team to get into that whole team atmosphere,” Carter said. “He’s the hardest working kid, respectful, obedient. His success is directly because of the person that he is.
“As his coach, I’m just facilitating him and helping him along the way.”
Lee, who also plays for St. Catharines Club Roma League1 U21 squad, is taking his leadership talents to Gannon University, a National Collegiate Athletic Association, Division 2 school in Erie, Pa., beginning this fall after being offered a partial scholarship.
“It checked off all my boxes academically. I want to be a dentist so they have a really good pre-dental program in health sciences,” Lee said. “The soccer team is fantastic. They have a very strong team and the coaches, I really like them.”
Lee was first noticed by the Gannon coaches at an identification camp. He was invited for a tour of the campus in February and came away impressed.
“It helped tremendously because you can’t judge a book just by its stats. You have to go there and get the feel for it,” Lee said.
Lee, who is an outstanding student with grades in the mid-90s, loved the small town feel of the campus.
“It felt very homey and they have good people. I went with mom on guided tour and it was extremely well done. They greeted us and they knew a little bit about me. They gave us information on the biology program.”
Carter is thrilled to see Lee succeed.
“It’s amazing, it’s awesome,” he said. “We get into teaching primarily to influence kids with their education but I think at times as teachers we learn from them as well. He’s just a really good individual.”
Lee began playing competitive soccer in Grade 6 with Elite Soccer Development before moving on to Roma last season.
Dear readers: If you liked this story or one of the 5,900 other stories found on our website, please consider hitting the Support Us button on the right-hand side of our home page and making a PayPal contribution to our website. Your support would be much appreciated. If you are a business owner, please consider advertising on our site. Our rates are reasonable and we provide plenty of exposure for your business. Contact bpotrecz@outlook.com for more information.
