When a player has a long, storied career, it comes in phases. Even the best to ever do it change through a Hall of Fame journey. For Kevin Leveille, his career evolved through phases, each leaving its mark on the sport of lacrosse.
In Act One, Leveille was a hotshot young weapon for an elite Boston Cannons team. In two years, the UMass star put on for the local team. He posted 41 points as a rookie in 2004, helping the Cannons to an appearance in the Major League Lacrosse title game.
After a breakout, 39-goal sophomore campaign, Leveille had arrived as one of the top finishers in the game.
Leveille was one of the best off-ball attackmen of all-time. His finishing touch, high IQ and soft hands made him a menace throughout the 2000s. A former hockey player, Leveille brought toughness, creativity and an elite sense of space to an offense.
“The game was just so slow in his brain,” said Denver Outlaws head coach Tim Soudan, who coached Leveille with the Rochester Rattlers.
Like all the best finishers in history, Leveille got to his spots at will. Any time he found himself around the crease, a goal was happening. Leveille is second in pro lacrosse history in shooting percentage at 40.4%.
In Act Two, Leveille shouldered a bigger responsibility. No longer a piece of the puzzle, he became the entire puzzle with the Chicago Machine. As the sport spread westward, Leveille was a pioneer helping grow pro lacrosse in a new market with a young team.
Individual success was always there. Leveille’s sixth sense around the goal made him one of the league’s top goal scorers year after year. At the peak of his powers with the Machine, he scored at least 35 goals in three straight seasons.
Despite all of Leveille’s brilliance by the crease, Chicago struggled to build a contender around his abilities.
The final act of the Kevin Leveille story took him back to his home state of New York and the Rochester Rattlers. No longer the young gun or the prime star, he was the elder statesman.
Leveille’s experience was a crucial piece for the Rattlers in the early 2010s. In addition to his own scoring punch — two 20-plus point seasons in Rochester — he became a leader for the Rattlers young stars.
Those early Rochester teams drafted a young core of players that became faces of the league and built the team culture. The likes of John Galloway, Jordan MacIntosh, Ned Crotty and Jordan Wolf came in to dominate the league.
But Leveille was the steady older hand to lead the way.
“People looked up to him,” Soudan said. “He was a natural kind of leader, just because of who he was,”
Many of the simple teambuilding tenants of the Rattlers culture were adopted in this era, with Leveille spearheading the charge. Little things like making sure the team would go to dinner together and go out together after games started with Leveille and the Rattlers veterans.
Leveille became a beloved leader and veteran not only in Rochester, but in the entire lacrosse community. In the final coda of his career, right before he hung up his magnetic stick for the final time as a pro, he captained the stars and stripes of Team USA in the 2014 World Lacrosse Championships.
Leveille retired in 2014, ending one of the most prolific careers the sport had ever seen. He finished with 357 points in 114 games, scoring 273 goals (ninth all-time) along the way. When he retired, he was second all-time in scoring.
His legacy carries through into the modern era of the game.
Whether it’s the players he led like Mike Manley who carry that leadership and traditions to the next generation, or the new wave of elite American finishers like Jake Taylor who carry on his style of play, lacrosse is still reading from the Kevin Leveille story.
