{"id":276065,"date":"2010-02-04T07:32:03","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T12:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=35239"},"modified":"2010-02-04T07:32:03","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T12:32:03","slug":"no-giving-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/276065","title":{"rendered":"No giving up"},"content":{"rendered":"

For senior Pat Magnarelli<\/a>, there\u2019s no sense of thinking about what could have been.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the Harvard men\u2019s basketball<\/a> team\u2019s talented big man took the court in Harvard\u2019s Ivy League opener against Dartmouth, dominant and on top of the world.<\/p>\n

First on the team in rebounding and second in scoring, Magnarelli was coming off the best game of his collegiate career \u2014 a 22-point, 12-rebound effort in an impressive win over Colgate.<\/p>\n

At the time he was averaging 10.8 points and 6.3 rebounds a game, ranking second and first on the team, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I hope I\u2019m not peaking right now because I don\u2019t want to stop playing like this,\u201d Magnarelli told The Harvard Crimson after the win. \u201cI\u2019m getting more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Extolling his sophomore forward, head coach Tommy Amaker<\/a> (in his first year at the time) says, \u201cHe\u2019s been really solid for us. \u2026 I think he\u2019s been consistent, we can rely on him, and he\u2019s been dependable. I\u2019m really proud of his play, his effort, and his leadership on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already a long, difficult journey for the Duxbury, Mass. native, Magnarelli hoped the 2007-08 season would be a redemption season after a stress-fractured vertebrae confined him to a back brace for most of his freshman season. In Magnarelli\u2019s first season, he only played nine games.<\/p>\n

In 2007, after just 17 starts, it was already beginning to look like his sophomore season would be his season.<\/p>\n

But fate intervened.<\/p>\n

In the opening minutes of Harvard\u2019s matchup at Dartmouth, Magnarelli went down with a knee injury.<\/p>\n

He spent the rest of the season in street clothes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really tough. My teammates were very supportive of me and they helped me though that time because they knew I was really down,\u201d says Magnarelli.<\/p>\n

The midseason injury was a crippling blow for Harvard, who lost all but two of their remaining games, finishing the season 8-22 (3-11 Ivy League) and tied for last-place in the conference.<\/p>\n

After a tough rehab in the offseason, Magnarelli was ready for his second comeback, but two days before the Crimson\u2019s first game he reinjured his knee, and two surgeries sidelined him for the entire 2008-09 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been a tough experience,\u201d says Magnarelli. \u201cComing in sophomore year looking to play, playing pretty well, and then getting injured and sitting out all junior year \u2014 it\u2019s really tough having to sit at the end of the bench and watch your team and realize there\u2019s nothing you can do about it. It\u2019s a little clich\u00e9, but it\u2019s definitely making me stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although no one would have blamed him for putting away his jersey, he wasn\u2019t ready just yet.<\/p>\n

Suiting up on Nov. 13, 2009 \u2014 his first game in nearly two years \u2014 Magnarelli put together a solid effort, leading the Crimson in rebounding in the return.<\/p>\n

With the Crimson off to its best start in a quarter century, a lot of well deserved attention has been given to fellow senior Jeremy Lin<\/a>, who\u2019s a lock for first-team All-Ivy League and is in a neck and neck race for Ivy Player of the Year. But with any team, Harvard not an exception, the Crimson\u2019s success is as much predicated on the contributions of its role players, as it is the starters.<\/p>\n

And the leadership Magnarelli has to offer to teammates, in addition to the screens and hustle plays won\u2019t show up in the box score, mean just as much to the team as the statline does.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have hidden leaders and hidden players within your team that are worth their weight in gold,\u201d says Amaker, \u201cPat is that for us in a lot of different ways. I refer to him as a stabilizer for us when he\u2019s out on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amaker adds, \u201cHe has a great understanding and basketball IQ and it\u2019s really been a neat thing for us because we have a lot of young kids. \u2026 I think the world of Pat because of all that he brings. His value to our team is great. There\u2019s no question about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI watch Pat a lot,\u201d says sophomore Keith Wright<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s a tremendous guy. Unfortunately his knees didn\u2019t allow him to play his full college career, but it\u2019s his senior year, he\u2019s playing a lot this year, and really able to step up for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he has yet to complete an entire season in his college career, Magnarelli has helped the Crimson to their first winning season in nine seasons. Looking for their first Ivy Championship ever, it would mean Harvard would reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1943.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou only get four years here, and when you miss two of them, the time goes by a lot quicker,\u201d says Magnarelli. \u201cTalking to some of these freshman and sophomores, they\u2019re young and they don\u2019t know how fast it goes yet. As a senior, I try to tell them to just enjoy every moment here because it goes by quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Magnarelli\u2019s career surely hasn\u2019t gone the way he would have liked, it is because of his indomitable spirit and perseverance, which has allowed him to help the Crimson to a 12-3 record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the world to have him with us,\u201d says sophomore Oliver McNally<\/a>, \u201cBut just to see him every day, working hard and see he\u2019s having some success, it\u2019s really motivational for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as the psychology major enters his last semester at Harvard, undecided about his future, one thing is certain \u2014 the big man is back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For senior Pat Magnarelli, there\u2019s no sense of thinking about what could have been. Two years ago, the Harvard men\u2019s basketball team\u2019s talented big man took the court in Harvard\u2019s Ivy League opener against Dartmouth, dominant and on top of the world. First on the team in rebounding and second in scoring, Magnarelli was coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}