By Georgia East
CORAL SPRINGS – He was taunted and teased growing up in Haiti, in part because Adler Volmar wasn’t Haitian enough.
Born in Miami and raised in Cap Haitien, the other boys made fun of his Haitian Creole, which sounded different with an American lilt.
At 13, a group of classmates attacked Volmar with a knife, leaving him with a deep gash in his forehead.
His mother said enough was enough. She signed him up for judo.
“My mom told him, ‘You’re going to learn to defend yourself,’” said his sister Samantha Volmar, who saw her brother make a transformation. “It was in his blood, in his veins. He was just waiting for it.”
