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Next in the Tremendous 24 is someone I’d describe as the life of the party of the group. The first soccer player I ever interviewed back in January 2021, who I’ve known since seventh grade, has a deep love for soccer and its history and was a member of the U17 Haitian National Soccer team. Amiable, Gregarious, and Ambitious are some adjectives I’d use to describe him, and that is my good friend and former Ramapo Gryphons and Dominican College soccer player Nicholas Julien.
It was a sunny day on January 11, 2021, at the height of COVID-19, when everyone was still locked in their houses, staying quarantined. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, I was determined to continue my work. I was off from work that day, having been a part-time KFC worker then, and I was at my former partner's house the day I interviewed Nicholas.
I had planned to conduct the interview indoors, but noise from the dogs made it impossible. So, I had to adapt and find an alternative quickly. I recorded the interview in my old 2006 Infiniti G35x, my first car, which provided a quiet and comfortable space.
We were both in the midst of our winter break after our first semester of junior year of college. He was at Dominican, and I am at New Paltz, respectively. We talked about getting him on the show about a month or two before the episode happened due to his busy schedule.
Until Julien, I had not had the opportunity to interview a soccer player, which was a unique experience. I had previously interviewed our mutual friend Anthony Simon (basketball) and a few football players, such as the Caldwell trio of Airion Scarlett, Vinnie Crisafi, and Colin Williams. By this time, you could hear I was getting more comfortable interviewing. The audio sounded crisp since I was in a nice, quiet spot with no inclement weather, such as rain, interfering with the sound.
With each interview, I am more confident in asking insightful questions and conducting thorough research. We started the interview with a warm exchange, checking in on each other's well-being during the challenging times of the pandemic. We then learned how growing up in Spring Valley helped cultivate him into becoming a more formidable, stronger soccer player mentally and physically.
Julien started playing soccer at the age of four, and he credits legendary Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho with inspiring him to get into the game.
“I started at believing at, I believe, four years old, and the first player that caught my eye was a Brazilian player named Ronaldinho… I just see the joy that he plays with… He just always has a smile on his face.”
Julien also played baseball growing up and swam as a hobby before ultimately focusing solely on soccer, as he had a more profound love for the game. He played for the North Rockland Soccer Association from 7 to around 12-13 years old. Julien’s dad eventually started a local soccer club called the East Ramapo Soccer Association (ERSA) to allow kids to play soccer without charging them because most clubs are expensive.
He attended Pomona Middle School (where we met) after St.Pauls and Ramapo High School, where he starred for the school's soccer team. While at middle school, he played one year in seventh grade due to budget cuts in the district his eighth-grade year. Julien played JV early on for the Ramapo Gryphons, which helped get him engrained from middle to high school.
At Ramapo High School, his journey was not without its challenges. Starting with no games early on in his high school career, the school eventually became one of the best in the section by his senior year. Julien's resilience shone through when the people he grew up playing with all moved up to varsity his sophomore year, leaving him as the lone wolf on JV. This setback only fueled his determination to improve his game.
“Everybody from my class… He put all of them on varsity, and I was the only one on JV, sophomore year; I’ll never forget that.”
This snub fueled Julien's desire to improve his game, especially after being suspended for a red card he received in his final JV game before finding out he got called up to varsity. His experience in Haiti with the U17 Haitian National Soccer team was a turning point. It transformed Julien from a timid player to a more aggressive, confident one. This transformation was evident when he returned home that summer in 2016.
Julien played scrimmages against clubs but never got to play official games because he was in school then and had to focus on his grades. He’s not the biggest guy, standing 5-foot-7 and around 130 lbs, soak and wet. However, that didn’t deter him from elevating his play. He went on to win the 2017 Most Improved Player Of The Year and was an All-League selection his junior year. It's not bad for someone initially left off the varsity team.
The team struggled his junior year, going (4-8-2) overall and (3-6-1) in league play, good for fifth in the Conference 1 C League. Julien claimed their season took the wrong turn that year after that 5-4 loss to Suffern, where they were up on them 4-1 before allowing them to score four consecutive goals in a game where he was playing with a cramp. However, Julien and the Gryphons propelled from his junior year growing pains to improve to a (9-3-3) overall record and (7-1-2) for second in the league his senior season in 2017-18 behind their rivals, Spring Valley, who went on to take the League title that season. Upon completing his senior season, Julien had to make his college decision of where he wanted to continue his academic and athletic career.
He was considering Dominican, Saint Rose in Albany, and New Haven. Julien emailed the Dominican Soccer coach Colin Hodge and sent him his soccer highlights; the coach took a chance on him. Julien said that Dominican came at the last minute since everything came so fast.
“I was late with my recruiting process, so I wanted things to go faster in a way… Dominican gave me more definitive answers faster…I felt like I had talent, but I just wasn’t necessarily heavily recruited… It was like a thank you for giving me this chance; now I’m going to go prove myself to everybody else.”
I then asked Julien about the adjustment from high school to college, and he said the speed of play was the most significant thing he had to adapt to. He mentioned how everyone called him " Crampy " because he constantly got cramps during games. Julien confessed that he didn’t drink as much water as he should or eat the best, which may have been the leading cause of his cramps. It reached its pinnacle when he had to get carried to the trainers for an ice bath due to being unable to walk because of cramping.
“I feel my body continuously cramping… I try to get up, someone tried to help me up, I couldn’t even walk straight to the point someone had to drive a car down the field and they had to carry me down the field.”
Julien cramped from neck to toe in the ice bath, and from that day, they called him “Crampy.” That experience taught him to change his diet and start eating healthier, from eating fruits like bananas to caring for his body better. The Chargers struggled to find wins where they went (6-12) in his first year in 2018-19 and (8-11) in his sophomore year in 2019-20.
After I interviewed Julien that day in January 2021, unfortunately, COVID-19 impacted Julien’s junior season for the team, shortening the season to five games as they looked on pace to have their best season yet, starting 4-1. However, they built off that shortened season into his senior year to go (12-6-2) overall and (7-2-2) in league play. They would make it to the CACC championship final against Post University but lost 3-2 in overtime in a heartbreaking loss.
During that period, he created the T!meOut Podcast, which now has over 10,000 subscribers, with his co-host, Steeve Cadet, in April 2021 due to his love for sports and considering himself argumentative as someone who loved debating in the classroom growing up. They record it in the comfort of his living room, discussing sports such as soccer and basketball. From there, Julien graduated from Dominican College in 2022 with his Bachelor's in Communications and pursued his MBA at New Haven, where he also played another year of soccer.
He mentioned he left for the New Haven Chargers to have a more prominent role on the soccer team since Dominican was so deep, and he felt he could contribute more. However, a toe injury in the preseason and his disconnection with the coach didn’t turn out the way he wanted. Despite not having the soccer experience he wanted for New Haven, he graduated with his Master's from the university.
Julien also loves music; his favorite artists are Young Thug, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Nipsey Hussle, and Haitian music, to name a few. He named his five greatest soccer players: Pele, Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi. We then transitioned to basketball, and he named his top five all-time players as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Magic Johnson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Julien’s favorite athlete was Bryant, who got him into basketball and embodies his mentality in his approach to things. I then asked Julien about his all-time starting five, and he named the following players for each position:
PG- Magic
SG- Jordan
SF- LeBron
PF- Duncan
C- Shaq
We agreed on every position except center, where I had Kareem over Shaq. Outside of sports, Julien is very social and loves hanging with people, reading books to enhance his mind, having time for himself, and relaxing. Julien aspires to be in sports media as an analyst or television personality whose ultimate goal is to inspire people to be their best selves.
“ My ultimate goal in life is to… hopefully inspire people to be better version of themselves. I want to invest, I want to own things, but I want to promote through that community health… build generational wealth… I just want people to feel better about themselves… That’s why I always like to walk around with a smile on my face and always like to be positive.”
I then asked him the legacy question I have asked all my great guests over the years. Julien had a great response about how he wanted to be remembered.
“I want my legacy to be… I want people to remember me as someone who worked hard in whatever aspect of life they were in… Never quit, dealt with everything that came their way… Never made excuses and someone who stayed down for his people. No matter, I always want to be someone you can lean on… I want people to feel like I was a positive light on their lives.”
Julien's heart of a lion, relentlessness toward success, and amiable gravitational pull with people make him unique. He might be the “life of the part” of the group, as I mentioned in the beginning, but don’t get it twisted, his drive to succeed from his days as a member of the U17 Haitian National soccer team to reinventing himself creating his podcast shows he’s never satisfied as he pursues his goals as he embodies that Greatness Within.
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