The Remarkable Story of Rodney Lavard
The Remarkable Story of Rodney Lavard - Rodney Lavard thought he’d heard it all before. The 19-year-old clubhouse attendant at the only golf course in the Turks and Caicos Islands was used to hearing “resort talk” from vacationers. But what Lavard heard on this day was different. This felt almost cruel.
Natives of Providenciales, the most inhabited of the Turks and Caicos Islands, know they shouldn’t take too seriously what a vacationer says while staying for even the shortest period of time near Grace Bay Beach. This stunning 12-mile stretch of white sand and turquoise water can make one a little giddy. Caught up in the sheer beauty of one’s surroundings, an island newcomer tends to say things one normally wouldn’t promise.
When a golfer from the states said he was going to send Lavard a scholarship application, Lavard flinched. Then he did what he had always done in the past—he smiled and nodded. The vacationer had no way of knowing that this extreme form of resort talk would hit Lavard like a thunderbolt. The singular thought of going to college was at the very heart of Lavard’s hopes, dreams and aspirations to get ahead.
What if...
But what if the vacationer was telling the truth? What if this resort talk could change Lavard’s life forever?Lavard would soon learn that this lingering exchange was more than just talk. Mere weeks after the scholarship conversation occurred, Lavard was summoned to the Provo (short for Providenciales) Golf Club office. Lavard’s boss handed him a Federal Express package with his name on it. Lavard wasn’t used to receiving mail, let alone a package. On the day his life would reach a tipping point, Lavard opened the package with the potential to unleash his dreams.
“Inside the envelope was a golf scholarship application for Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Lavard said. “The first thing I did was look for a map. I had never been to the United States and had no idea where Louisiana was.”
The whole idea of a scholarship and going to college came at Lavard like a rush. He wasn’t like every other college kid. If he were to pursue college, there was some unraveling he needed to do. The history of his tumultuous life would need to be sorted out. Would college even be possible or was he kidding himself?
Rodney Kenny Lavard was born in Haiti’s capital city of Port au Prince in 1976. With an average annual household income of approximately $1,000 per year, the people of Haiti toil in an economy that is ranked annually as one of the poorest in the world. The financial status of the Lavard family leaned toward the low end of this scale.
A family torn apart
At the age of four, Lavard’s family was literally fractured in half. In search of work, his father moved his wife and four boys with him to Providenciales. Shortly thereafter, Lavard’s parents divorced. After living for a brief period back in Haiti with his mom and brothers, Lavard’s grandfather sent him, and his older brother Bobby, back to Providenciales. He would never see his mother again.
The Lavards spent the next several years scratching out an existence in Providenciales. During this time, Lavard’s already tough childhood took yet another wicked turn. “We woke up one morning to learn my Dad had left,” Lavard said. “He moved to Miami in search of construction work. I was 10 years old and Bobby was 12. My dad’s girlfriend was in charge of taking care of us,” he continued.
Six months into this arrangement, his father’s girlfriend changed her mind regarding caring for the boys and decided to leave them. Lavard and his brother were now left to fend for themselves.
Lavard’s father left two thought-provoking legacies ingrained in his boys’ minds. The most important was: “You have to go to school.” The other was to recognize the value of hard work. So, the two boys survived in Providenciales while leading what could be considered a dual life. By day, they attended school. After school, they worked construction.
The Lavard boys earned $3 per hour in jobs ranging from mixing concrete, to plastering walls and laying tiles. This work generated enough cash to pay for what Lavard refers to as a “four-by-four shack” in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Providenciales. Minus electricity and plumbing, this shack was sturdy enough to withstand Hurricane Kate’s 110-mph winds in the mid 1980s.
Eventually, Lavard encountered a problem at school when one of his teachers asked him why his father never attended parent conference meetings. A classmate of Lavard’s blurted out, “That’s because Rodney’s father abandoned him two years ago.” The Lavard boys’ situation was forwarded to the Turks and Caicos government, but the island didn’t have foster care at the time. This problem was temporarily averted when Roy Chadband, one of Lavard’s teachers, offered the boys room and board in his apartment.
Aside from their new address, not much changed for the boys. They attended school each day and worked construction in the evening. This routine continued until Lavard graduated from Clement Howell High School at the age of 16 in 1992.
A life changing choice
In 1993, Lavard began applying for jobs throughout Providenciales. He eventually narrowed his job choices to two—a clubhouse job at the brand new Provo Golf Club and a job at an insurance company.
“The man at the insurance company said I would never succeed in golf,” Lavard recalled. “He said that golf is a white man’s sport. I never cared for someone telling me I couldn’t do something, so I chose the golf job.”
When Provo Golf Club opened in 1992, the course became a real source of curiosity on the island. Most of the island natives had barely heard of golf. Even most of the expatriate audience, who had found refuge along Grace Bay Beach, seemed to find the sport foreign. The course’s lush Bermuda grass is what really captivated the attention of many on Providenciales.
The Turks and Caicos Islands consist of 40 islands and cays, of which only eight are inhabited. The island terrain is mostly limestone and the arid Caribbean climate produces approximately 25 inches of rainfall annually. Because of the dry climate, green grass is in short supply in Providenciales. Therefore, the new golf club and its beautifully manicured lawn became a popular spot for weddings and family events.
The second curious aspect of Provo Golf Club was the sport of golf itself. Shortly after the course opened, golf balls began vanishing from the grounds and the pro shop shelves. Peter Boyce, Provo’s first golf professional, recalls, “I started seeing golf balls showing up on the end of key chains all around town.”
At approximately the same time Lavard began working at Provo Golf Club, he also secured another job at Grace Bay’s newest resort, Club Med. Lavard’s evening work at Club Med proved to be both a blessing and a curse for a young man with an eye for the ladies. Lavard’s disc jockey position at Club Med’s nightclub was the ultimate door opener for meeting female guests. However, the late nights on Club Med’s dance floor weren’t very compatible for someone who needed to start work at the golf course at 5 a.m. Boyce, Lavard’s boss at Provo Golf Club, told Rodney that if he didn’t start arriving on time, he would be fired. Lavard found a simple solution to this problem.
“After dancing all night at Club Med, I would drive across the street to Provo Golf Club and park my car,” Lavard said. “I would position myself next to where Peter Boyce always parked his vehicle in the morning. When Peter arrived for work, he would tap on my car window until I woke up.”
Lavard eventually gave up his extracurricular activities at Club Med and began dedicating himself entirely to his work at the golf course. “Rodney was a natural for greeting guests when they arrived at the course,” Boyce said. “His charm and easygoing personality made him the perfect person for welcoming newcomers and getting them set up prior to a round of golf. Rodney became one of our key people at Provo.”
Rough to fairway
The now 6-foot-4-inch Lavard took to the game of golf in a big way. “I gave Rodney some lessons and Tommy Coleman, one of our members, helped Rodney with his short game,” Boyce said. “After work, Rodney would play golf until dark. Rodney became very good, very fast.”
One day, Craig Owen, a vacationer from Louisiana, arrived at Provo looking for someone to join him in a round of golf. Lavard said he would be happy to accompany Owen. “Craig asked if I was interested in playing a match for money,” Lavard said. “I don’t know how to say this politely, but I handed him his ass.”
Owen suggested that with Lavard’s talent, he should consider playing college golf. Lavard replied that he would love to, but money was a problem. Owen countered that there was scholarship money out there and he had a friend who was a college golf coach. This conversation led to the eventual Federal Express package and concern over completing the appropriate paperwork.
Most college students have parents to assist with the volumes of paperwork associated with the financial aid process. Lavard didn’t have any parents, and there was the complicated matter of his legal residency.
Hugh G. O’Neill, an attorney who belonged to Provo Golf Club, took it upon himself to assist Lavard with the paperwork necessary to clear his citizenship and make his application as proper as it could be. O’Neill’s assistance included a polite tug on the arm of John Kelly, Providenciales’ governor and golf enthusiast.
In the meantime, Lavard received a phone call from the Southern University golf coach. “When are you coming up so I can watch you play?” Coach Clifton Johnson inquired. “When are you going to send me an air ticket?” the always straightforward Lavard replied.
Lavard then flew to Baton Rouge to play golf for Coach Johnson. “My knees were absolutely shaking when I stepped up to the first tee,” Lavard said. “Luckily, it was so hot that day, my mind started to focus on the heat, rather than being nervous. I ended up playing pretty well.”
News of Lavard’s scholarship and admission to Southern University soon became the talk of Providenciales. The beginning of Lavard’s college experience was quickly approaching; however, what had yet to be addressed was how Lavard would live while attending school.
Dave Douglas, a native of Sarnia, Ontario, took over the reigns as Director of Golf at Provo Golf Club when Boyce moved back to Canada. Douglas recalls the members of the golf club uniting to help Lavard get settled financially before his freshman year in college.
“We organized a fundraising event called the Flamingo Ball,” Douglas said. “The ball was held at the Ocean Club resort here in Providenciales. People purchased tickets for a night that would include dinner, followed by music and dancing at the golf course. Rodney danced with everyone that night. I believe we raised $2,000 for his college fund,” he continued.
As fate would have it, once Lavard arrived in Baton Rouge, his life hurdles were far from over. There was a problem with his scholarship and tuition. Suddenly, it looked as though school might not be a reality. “I called the only people I knew living in the United States,” Lavard said.
Those people were his United States sponsors, Framingham, Mass., residents Irv and Dot Lyles. The Lyles began vacationing in Turks and Caicos in the late 1980s and had befriended Lavard. The Lyles resort talk was more than just talk. “The Lyles told me if I ever needed anything, to call them,” Lavard said.
The Lyles wrote a check for $5,000 to keep Lavard afloat until his scholarship paperwork was rectified. From that point on, Lavard and the Lyles never looked back. The always even-keeled Lavard chokes back emotion when discussing the Lyles. “I consider those two people to be my parents,” he said. “I love Irv and Dot.”
During the summer prior to Lavard’s sophomore year, he lived with the Lyles and worked at the Sandy Burr Country Club outside of Framingham. One morning, while he was driving to work, Lavard’s car was hit head-on by a drunk driver speeding down the wrong side of the highway. He remembers staggering from the car while covered in blood. The last thing he recalls is knocking on the door of the nearest neighbor before passing out. Lavard would need 188 stitches to close his wounds before fully recovering.
During his junior and senior years, Lavard was captain of the Southern University golf team. He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor in Computer Science in May of 2001. Following the unlikeliest of paths that began in Haiti, Lavard had moved onward to Turks and Caicos and then upward to Baton Rouge. During that time, he was just getting warmed up.
Make it anywhere
With his college success behind him, Lavard’s career aspirations turned big—as in New York City big. Lavard interviewed and was offered employment at Ziff Brothers Investments, a midtown Manhattan private investment firm. Lavard began work in August of 2001 as a computer programmer.
One month after beginning work at Ziff Brothers, Lavard remembers hearing a coworker make the strangest comment. “Someone said they heard that a plane was witnessed flying over Lexington Avenue in downtown New York,” Lavard said. “I went over to my 45th floor office window and looked out to see the second plane fly into the twin towers.”
From that point, Lavard remembers walking. He marched down 45 flights of stairs. He continued walking into the city streets of New York. “Normally, with all the people, you have to look straight ahead when you walk on a Manhattan sidewalk,” Lavard said. “On this day, everyone was looking straight up. It was like people were searching for another plane to fall from the sky.”
True to the legacy he learned from his father, Lavard came back to work the next day and has been working every day since. He is currently employed at Cerberus Capital Management as a software engineer/ project manager.
Life has been good to Lavard since he made the Big Apple his home. About eight years ago, he met Cassandre Jean, a woman whose grandparents’ roots also trace back to Haiti. He and Cassandre have been together ever since.
In 2007, Lavard brought Cassandre and her mother back with him to Providenciales. Cassandre was under the impression that Lavard simply wanted company while playing in the Turks and Caicos Amateur Championship. (Lavard has competed as one of the island’s top players dating back to 1996.) But on this particular occasion, he had more than golf on his mind.
“Rodney wasn’t acting like himself for the first several days that we were in Provo,” Cassandre said. “I thought it was because he was so focused on golf.” On the day before the Caribbean Amateur Competition, Lavard revealed why he seemed so preoccupied. He asked Cassandre to marry him at Provo Golf Club, the place where so much good had occurred in his life.
He and Cassandre were married in October of 2009. Their marriage took place on Grace Bay Beach on the boardwalk of the Gansevoort Hotel. In attendance were people from Lavard’s past and present life. These attendees were there to share in the wedded bliss of a man who managed to wring every ounce of good from what life had to offer.
Resort talk...it can happen
As the song says, regrets, Lavard’s had a few. But then, regrets or hard feelings were never something Lavard had much time for. When asked what he has learned from his incredible journey, he replied, “I don’t dwell too much on the past. I believe that whatever situation I’m put in, I can come out ahead. I have a lot to look forward to in my life.”
No matter what Lavard says, there is one thing you can be sure of—it’s the truth. Lavard was never one for resort talk. But then again, no one knows better than Lavard that some resort talk can change a life forever.
Thanks you verry much...
Komentar
Posting Komentar