Taste Flav’s grandson goes to his personal beat.
Freeport’s Matthew Drayton is shining on the lacrosse discipline and not using a want for any household name-dropping, however he shares comparable larger-than-life goals that his Lengthy Island-born grandpa achieved whereas rapping with Public Enemy and past.
“He does put on a clock — and I’m lucky for him to be my grandfather,” the midfielder for Hampton College informed The Submit.
“However I’m making my very own legacy…and I need to play professionally,” Drayton added earlier than flying to Las Vegas to occasion with Taste Flav and the gold medal-winning U.S. ladies’s Olympic hockey workforce.
The 20-year-old honed his present for lax in highschool, setting a single-season factors file for the Crimson Devils with 74 throughout his senior yr in 2023.
Grandpa Flav — a fellow Freeport alum and soccer participant who was then often known as William Jonathan Drayton Jr. — got here again to see Matthew rating his crowning aim.
“He’s very grateful that I’m enjoying lacrosse, and he’s seeing the journey that I’m on. However he at all times noticed me as a soccer participant,” laughed Matthew, who was additionally a proficient extensive receiver in highschool.
Tougher than you suppose
Drayton retains his lineage secret and hardly speaks about who his grandfather is as a manner of constructing his personal, nepotism-free mark on the athletic world.
“He’s a hype man, he’s a rock star, however that’s one thing proper now I’m not making an attempt to attain,” mentioned Drayton, who emphasised his drive to play professionally.
He didn’t even point out the connection to the Hampton workforce employees, who solely discovered when one in all Drayton’s former coaches referred to as them.
Attending to the Virginia faculty has been fairly the journey, as Hampton is Drayton’s third workforce since graduating from Freeport.
He began at St. Thomas Aquinas Faculty, then returned to Nassau Neighborhood Faculty earlier than transferring on scholarship to his present HBCU for the 2026 season.
Taking part in with the Lions again on Lengthy Island helped unleash the beast in Drayton, who was a part of their nationwide title run in 2025.
It nonetheless frustrates Drayton that Nassau misplaced 20-10 to Harford Neighborhood Faculty (Md.) in that contest, as he was enjoying at a restricted capability.
“Through the week of [the game], I bought lower with a knife in each of my fingers,” he mentioned. “I had 16 stitches in each of my fingers, and I wasn’t cleared by a health care provider till the day of the nationwide championship…the physician mentioned if I took a slap test to a finger, I might lose it.”
Drayton has channeled that into a brand new aim along with his new workforce — snapping a frightening 70-game shedding streak that’s rendered Hampton winless since 2019.
“I’m actually on this mission of surprising the world. I stay by ‘shock the world,’ ” mentioned Drayton, who’s hopeful of being named captain subsequent season.
“And we’re happening a mission of profitable our first Division I sport in 13 years too.”
Yeah BOYS!
Drayton will get by with slightly assist from his shut pal — latest Alfred State grad and fellow middie Ryan Baston.
The childhood friends who performed collectively at Freeport spend their summers coaching on Lengthy Island at native parks and in leagues a number of days per week.
“I’m defensive-minded, he’s offensive-minded,” mentioned Baston, the Pioneers’ former captain.
“Iron sharpens iron,” the 22-year-old added.
Simply as Drayton is seeking to make historical past at Hampton, Baston is in search of one final dance in lacrosse as a grad scholar at one other faculty — ought to he have to attend a yr for an academy class task with the NYPD, that’s.
“He needs to be higher,” Drayton mentioned. “He needs to return out right here and work.”
Baston, who plans to educate at Freeport after the NYPD, credit the coaching he’s had with Drayton for incomes second-team all-conference defensive midfielder final season.
“I’m extraordinarily grateful,” added Baston, who confessed he’s too younger to know Taste Flav.
Regardless, Drayton mentioned that his grandfather is all in on his kin’s success and needs to assist in fundraising efforts for HBCUs like Hampton. That’s along with “lifting the tradition” with movie star standing.
“He’s pleased with me. He says, ‘Maintain going.’ He sees I’m working,” Drayton mentioned. “He is aware of the mission. He understands I’m making an attempt to shock the world. He needs to shock the world too.”
