Nassir Edwards, a senior at Elmont Memorial High School, is on his way to becoming a college football player after signing a letter of intent with Wagner College to join their team, the Seahawks.
The letter of intent, Nassir explained, is a contract to play football at the Division 1 and Division 2 level. It reads a player’s NCAA rights and details their scholarship opportunities. Nassir will be attending the Staten Island-based college with a full scholarship beginning the 2025 fall semester.
“Football has been my first love, my first sport,” he said.
Nassir said he started playing football for the Elmont Cardinals Youth Sports Club, a peewee organization offered through the town, when he was just five years old. He started as a running back, but as he got taller, he became a quarterback.
He played for the league during his time attending Dutch Broadway Elementary School. Once he entered the high school, which serves students from grades seven to 12, he became a Spartan. He said his coaches wanted him play quarterback, a role he accepted despite having aspirations to be a receiver.
However, his ability to play was suddenly halted when Nassir injured himself playing football with his friends in 2020. They were playing without pads, he remembered, and he fell hard on his shoulder, breaking the bone and tearing a few ligaments. After getting surgery, he was in recovery for the rest of the year.
But, there was a silver lining. Nassir said he had to change positions on the team, switching from playing quarterback to the role he’d always wanted receiver.
Beyond his transition to new roles on the team, Nassir underwent a transformation in his character.
Kareem Agoro, a social studies teacher at the high school, and a mentor to Nassir, has known him since he was in seventh grade. He remembered Nassir was an annoyance to him at first, he laughed, but he saw a lot of talent in him.
Agoro runs one of the mentor programs at the school, the Men of Elmont. When Nassir was young, he would often attend their meetings. Agoro said he took a liking to Nassir and tried to guide him not only in sports, but also in life decisions.
“When we look at our students, we see ourselves,” Agoro said. “We kind of all wish we had somebody who cared for us in that way.”
This mentorship is important, he asserted, because it helps students learn to be part of a team, overcome adversity, handle failure and become a leader.
Members of the Spartans didn’t call Nassir by his name at first, Agoro recounted, often referring to him as “sophomore.” But, he continued, Nassir made a name for himself.
Nassir is a two-time Nassau County football champion, an all-state player, captain of the Long Island team in the 2024 National Football Foundation All-Star Classic, and a key player that has helped the Spartans win many of their games.
During all of Nassir’s football successes, he was also undergoing a lengthy recruitment process through colleges interested in his athletic performance.
Nassir said the process began when he was a sophomore in 2023. Around the end of the school year, he started making introductions with college coaches.
When he returned to school for his junior year, he was on top of his game, performing in what he described as a breakout season. College coaches began following his Twitter account and reaching out to him with interest.
In November, he submitted footage of his athletic performance during games to coaches at Wagner College, and was eventually invited to their campus. That’s when he realized he really could play football on the collegiate level.
After some conversations, the college began analyzing his footage. Nassir said he had to maintain constant contact with the recruiters to make sure they didn’t lose interest.
According to Tommie Innes, the head football coach at Elmont, there wasn’t much Nassir could do after submitting his videos. At that point, it was a waiting game.
Nassir’s high school coaches, including Innes, had a meeting with the Wagner coaches, where they discussed Nassir’s work ethic and performance in school. When asked about Nassir’s character, Innes said he answered honestly.
“He’s a person of high moral character,” he said. “He’s a kid that gets it done in the classroom, and somebody that kids can look up to and emulate.”
Innes, who has been coaching Nassir since he was in eighth grade, said he is everything a college could want in an athlete. He plays strong on the field, he asserted, and still makes time for his academic studies.
In January, after nearly two months of waiting, the Wagner coaches decided they wanted Nassir on their team and sent him an offer letter. It was a huge weight off his shoulders, Nassir said, and he was ready to sign it.
Agoro said he knows Nassir will be a standout player on the field and a successful student in the classroom. Nassir has intentions to pay his success forward, Agoro added, and hopes Nassir never forgets his roots in Elmont.
Innes said his message for Nassir is to finish what he started, which he already knows he will. He said he hopes Nassir accepts whatever opportunities present themselves to him after he graduates.
As for Nassir, one of the biggest lessons he learned from his mentors over the years is to stay focused and follow through on his commitments. His proudest moment, he said, was committing to college. And, he added, he is following through on the promise he made to his family when he was young that his college career would be paid in full.
Nassir’s goal is to obtain a four-year engineering degree, leave college with no debt and eventually buy a house for his family to live in. And, he said, maybe he could try making it to the NFL.
Regardless of his career trajectory, football would always be part of Nassir’s life because, he said, “it never gets old.”
