His cell phone buzzed around 2 p.m. Friday, and Chuck Wilbur finally heard the news he had waited months for.

‘Hey coach,’ said Cody Jamieson, a former standout attack for Wilbur at Onondaga Community College and a top recruit for the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team. ‘You promised me that you’d go to my first practice.’

About two hours later, Wilbur pulled into a Carrier Dome parking lot to do just that. On Friday, Jamieson enrolled as a full-time Syracuse student and was cleared to practice with the team. However, he is not yet game-eligible. The Syracuse athletics department must file a waiver to ensure some of Jamieson’s credits transfer properly.

If cleared, he will have two years of eligibility. Jamieson’s full-time enrollment signals the final steps of a recruiting process that began after SU’s disastrous 5-8 season in 2007. The Orange recruited Jamieson, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound lefty from Six Nations, Ontario, along with OCC teammates Sid Smith and Kent Squires-Hill. All three players hailed from the Six Nations Territory.

Smith enrolled last year and anchored SU’s defense as the Orange won its 10th national title. Squires-Hill did not have enough credits to enroll. Last April, Squires-Hill was charged with second-degree murder in the strangling death of 21-year-old Tashina General on Six Nations territory.

In two seasons at OCC (2006 and 2007), Jamieson scored 237 points as the Lazers cruised to a 33-0 record. He was named National Male Junior College Athlete of the Year in 2007, the only lacrosse player ever to win the award.

Jamieson’s on-campus arrival came in baby steps. He graduated from OCC last August and enrolled part time last semester. On Friday, he called Wilbur to announce the latest hurdle he’d leaped over.

‘It was a phone call that we were hoping, keeping our fingers crossed for,’ Wilbur said via telephone, ‘And it finally came.’

The Syracuse season opens Feb. 15 against Providence at the Carrier Dome. The team has a few weeks for Jamieson to get acclimated with head coach John Desko’s offense and for the necessary paperwork to be completed.

So the coming days are crucial, as the Orange looks to replace Tewaaraton Trophy-winning attack Mike Leveille, the team’s leading scorer the past two years. The Orange hopes Jamieson can replenish some of the production lost with Leveille’s graduation. He did not play lacrosse last spring. He finished up his classes at OCC, and graduated during the summer while playing indoor lacrosse in the Canadian Junior A circuit for the Six Nations Arrows. He scored 101 points in 21 games.

Jamieson took classes at SU part time last semester. In September, he told The Daily Orange he registered for 11 credits. He planned to major in communications and rhetorical studies.

By choosing college, Jamieson turned down a chance to be the No. 1 draft pick in the National Lacrosse League. ‘He could have easily just said, ‘Ah, I’m going to go play professional,” Wilbur said.

‘Growing up, you always dream of something,’ Jamieson said in September. ‘And my dream was always to go to college and get a degree. No one in my family’s ever gone to college. Well, a couple people have gone to college, but nobody’s got a degree.’ He has that chance now.

‘I’m so proud of him, just because I know how hard he worked for this,’ Wilbur said. ‘He never gave up. And he’s there, right now.’ ramccull@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm