In the heart of Dyker Heights at the Poly Prep campus, Head Coach Louis Candel sits in his black office chair in his blue corner office. Paperwork, jerseys, trophies, and plaques take from Lacrosse up the space of the room, along with a couch, a TV, and his desk. As he sits in his chair, Candel gets ready for his day by greeting his co-workers as they walk by. Once he gets comfortable and settled in, he checks his Google Calendar to see today’s agenda. He gets to work managing all the sports teams, ensuring everything is running smoothly so the season can be as easy as possible for the coaches.
Candel always knew that he wanted to become a coach at some point, just like his father, but he didn’t know when that time would come. Candel said he liked seeing his father’s former players come back and visit him. He admired how they would tell him how enjoyable it was to have been coached by him.
Candel’s journey to where he is now started when he attended Amherst College after transferring from Yale University. At Amherst, he majored in economics and political science. During his time at Amherst, he was also a two-sport athlete, playing both Basketball and Lacrosse. He was a highly regarded player by his teammates, coaches, and league directors. After his time at Amherst, he got his first job on Wall Street, according to Poly Prep’s faculty directory.
During his time on Wall Street, Candel learned many life lessons, such as learning “in the stock market, sometimes you’re wrong, and you have to change directions and make adjustments.” Candel used this lesson as a guide when working at Wall Street. Candel liked his job at Wall Street because it reminded him of his time as an athlete. “It was new and different every day. The market opened up each morning, and it was a battle.”
As the years went on, Candel knew that his future at Wall Street was uncertain, and he didn’t know if he would work there for the rest of his career. “I turned 40 years old, I was getting a little older, and I knew that I wanted to work with kids, either as a teacher or a coach,” explained Candel.
The time came a few years later when Candel finally moved on from Wall Street and became a business owner for an event venue in Long Island. Candel noted that the stock market set him up for this new journey. “When you’re working on Wall Street in general, you work for a company, and you’re trying to help the company do well and make money, and you’re trying to do the same thing when you’re in private business,” Candel added. “I learned a lot because we built it from scratch, we had to do the construction, and we had to get all the permits. We had to get all the licenses and all the approvals. So that was really interesting and a great learning experience for me.”
As time went on, Candel realized how scary it was to open a business and how hard it was to operate it. He enjoyed owning a business and said that it was one of the best times of his life. “At the end of the month, if the bills have to be paid, then you have to pay them. I would say there was more stress being a business owner than from when I worked at the stock market,” remarked Candel.
Candel stresses that being a business owner comes with having to utilize your connections. “I didn’t like to lean on my network of people that I knew, I wanted to be able to succeed and achieve on my own,” he admitted. Later, he realized, “The way you really succeed and achieve is to lean on your support network. Now, I’m connecting everywhere. I connect with people all the time.”
As the years went by and Candel settled into his new job, he had to learn how to manage his time better. “I had to organize my time and say, ‘Okay, here’s time for my business, here’s time for my coaching, here’s time for my family, here’s time for my decompressing and refreshing myself,’” Candel recalled.
It all changed when Candel felt it was time to move on and start a new chapter. He wanted to become a full-time coach for either basketball or lacrosse. As he began looking for jobs, none stuck out like the one at Poly Prep, whose lacrosse head coach position had just had a job opening. Candel got the job at Poly as interim head coach in 2017. The next year, he got the title of permanent boys’ varsity lacrosse coach and he hasn’t looked back since.
One of Candel’s closest friends, Bill McNally, who has been working at Poly for 35 years, described Candel as “A very kind person who’s a lot of fun to work with and has a great way with people, whether it’s players or colleagues.” McNally recalled that he got to know Candel when they were both assigned to coach the boys middle school basketball team together. Since then, they’ve had an unbreakable bond. McNally added that his fondest memory with Candel is when Poly celebrated 100 years of lacrosse at the school, where the players wore throwback uniforms. Candel helped organize the event and made sure that it was enjoyable for the current players, their families, and former players. “That was a nice event that he really was a big part of,” noted McNally. This is when McNally realized how lucky he was to be working with Candel and how genuine of a person he was.
Fast forward to now, and Candel just took over the position of Athletic Director at Poly Prep. He will still remain as the boys’ varsity lacrosse coach, but he is also getting used to the amount of administrative work he has to do, but he approaches it with a positive attitude.
Candel says his focus is to instill as many life lessons in the student athletes at Poly as much as he can. “They have academics, they have clubs, they have all kinds of things. And I really try to be sensitive to that, and so that, you know, I don’t want the kids to have additional stress in their lives because they’re playing lacrosse.”
Candel has built up quite a list of accomplishments during his time as the boys’ varsity lacrosse coach. In 2022, the team got their first 10-win season under Candel but ultimately lost in the first round of the NYSAIS playoffs. In 2023, the team made it back to the playoffs but yet again came up short on the NYSAIS Championship. In 2024 the team finally got over the hump, winning the Ivy Prep League title with an 18-9 win over Fieldston, The first win in 13 years. The triumph doesn’t end there as the boys also secured the NYSAIS championship title with a 9-8 win over Hackley. According to USA Lacrosse Magazine, Candel also won the 2024 NYSAIS Coach of the Year Award.
As he stands in his office, he gets ready for a new day with the same vision that will give everyone an equal voice in the athletics department and encourage more students to step outside of their comfort zone and join a sports team or club. As Candel settles into his new position, he values taking the process “one day at a time.” He claims the phrase as his life motto, knowing that there will always be issues, but you have to evaluate each problem and solve them one at a time, and that is how you will succeed in life.
