When Steve DeNapoli started as the head coach at his alma mater, Hewlett High School, he asked his former coaches which young players the program had coming through the pipeline.
Gavin Adler and Alex Vardaro were the two freshmen DeNapoli’s staff pointed to. Both were bought into lacrosse, talented and driven to be great.
Vardaro was a lock to make the varsity team as a ninth grader. But the coaches were iffy on Adler. Could an undersized, scrawny close defenseman who’d only picked up a long pole two years prior really be a varsity player on Long Island as a freshman?
“He came in the first day of practice and proved me wrong,” DeNapoli said. “That would be the story of his career.”
Adler only started playing defense because there weren’t any attack spots open on the club team he tried out for in seventh grade. He adjusted to the position quickly.
But, after he made varsity as a freshman, his club team cut him ahead of his sophomore season.
The following spring, he became the voice of the Hewlett defense as a sophomore, recognizing that the seniors on the team were too mild-mannered to take the reins and taking control himself instead.
“He’s looking for people to tell him he’s not good enough,” DeNapoli said. “He has that mentality of ‘Go [expletive] yourself.’”
Adler played four seasons of varsity lacrosse at Hewlett, including two years as a captain. He led all of Long Island in caused turnovers and ground balls as a senior. He was also a four-time all-conference selection, a three-time all-county selection and a Long Island Defenseman of the Year finalist.
Still, Adler wasn’t one of the 19 poles ranked in Inside Lacrosse’s 2018 top-100 recruiting rankings.
“Everyone’s looking for the prototypical 6-foot-3, rangy, long defenseman that can cover,” DeNapoli said.
“No! This kid is better than those guys because of his incredible footwork, his passion for the game and his toughness. I don’t care what size you are.”
DeNapoli, a longtime pro who won two championships with the New York Lizards and Philadelphia Waterdogs, helped guide Adler’s recruiting process.
To him, Adler and Cornell were the perfect fit. DeNapoli’s relationships with Connor Buczek, Max Seibald, Rob Pannell and others gave him confidence that Adler fit the Cornell culture.
“I couldn’t have been happier that he landed at Cornell, ” DeNapoli said. “That was just a match made in heaven.”
Adler personified Cornell’s Hard Hat mentality – which celebrates tenacity, hard work and selflessness over pure talent – and quickly made his presence known in Ithaca. A newfound commitment to the weight room and a next-level embrace of watching film set him up for success with the Big Red.
“When he stepped on campus at Cornell, you could just see he put on weight,” DeNapoli said. “He put on muscle, and really understood that if he wanted to get to the level of where he’s at now, that he was going to have to take his body serious.”
Adler quickly became a key cog in Cornell’s defense by his sophomore season, earning honorable mention All-American honors during the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
When the Big Red were back in action in 2022, Adler exploded, earning a first-team All-American selection. In his fifth year in 2023, he was a Tewaaraton Award finalist and was named college lacrosse’s William C. Schmeisser Defensive Player of the Year. Across his last two years, he helped lead the Big Red to the 2022 NCAA championship game, two regular-season Ivy League titles and another NCAA berth.
Despite all those accolades, there were still questions about Adler’s size during the PLL College Draft process in the spring of 2023. Could a 5-foot-9 defender survive in today’s era with goliaths like Zed Williams and Brennan O’Neill at attack?
Like DeNapoli did, Atlas head coach and general manager Mike Pressler saw through hysterics about Adler’s size. He understood what makes Adler great and surprised the lacrosse world by taking Adler first overall.
“Everybody continues to talk about his height. That ended for me after my first phone call with the guy,” Pressler said after taking Adler. “He plays like he’s 6-foot-9.”
Adler became the second defenseman ever drafted with the No. 1 overall pick and the first since Ryan Mollett in the first MLL college draft in 2001. That set high expectations for the rookie from the jump, but he passed them with flying colors
The No. 1 pick’s attention to detail stood out to the Atlas veterans in training camp. Adler had become a defensive lacrosse savant and dedicated student of the game from when he started playing with a pole in middle school to when he arrived in Albany for his first camp in 2023.
“The first thing that jumped out to me right away was how he sees the game,” Danny Logan said. “It was pretty clear that he is incredibly smart when it comes to visualizing the game. … The way he sees the game and is able to break down offenses is pretty special.”
“He’ll spend every waking moment watching film,” DeNapoli said. “He probably watches more film than anybody.”
Adler has been as advertised in his three seasons with New York. He was a first-team All-Pro in his second season in 2024 and has established himself as one of the best true cover defenders in the sport.
His performance against O’Neill in Boston last July was just the latest chapter in the book of Adler proving that he should never be overlooked. Despite giving up six inches and 50 pounds to his fellow No. 1 pick, Adler held O’Neill without a point for the first time since 2022, O’Neill’s sophomore year at Duke.
Adler’s build suggests he’d specialize in the matchups against jitterbugs like Michael Sowers and Grant Ament, or at least smaller bruisers like Ryder Garnsey and Connor Fields. While he can win battles against those players, he’s also New York’s go-to stopper against the biggest and baddest attackmen in the league.
“Being a smaller guy, he can hang with the speedier types like Sowers and [TJ] Malone,” Logan said. “But he has the strength to hang with anybody. So, he’s kind of the perfect defender, even though he’s a little bit short.”
“He understands the game,” DeNapoli added. “If he’s playing Michael Sowers, he’s not gonna crowd Mikey Sowers and try to play him in a phone booth because he knows the quickness of Sowers.
“If he’s playing someone like Brennan O’Neill, he knows that, when they catch the ball, he’s going to be right in their hip and he knows he can’t give those guys a running start. He is able to transform how he plays from player to player. That is such an incredible ability that he has.”
O’Neill didn’t only go scoreless against Adler last summer. He didn’t even register 10 touches, finishing with what are still career lows in touches (seven) and shots (two). That’s O’Neill’s only game with fewer than 22 touches in his 19-game pro career.
Adler accomplished that by pressing O’Neill all over the field. He practically never left O’Neill’s hip, always keeping himself in the passing lane between No. 42 and the ball. Watch how Alder pressed all the way out to O’Neill the moment the ball crossed midfield and then stayed planted in the passing lane when Graham Bundy Jr. dodged down the right alley.
