First he had to fight for his life. Then he had to fight for his dream.
It wasn’t meant to be that way for Stony Brook native and Malverne-born punter Anthony Pecorella. The 2018 Newsday draft pick of Long Island, the Chaminade native graduated from Maryland and longed to return to the island, joining the Seawolves for the 2023 season. But those plans were quickly halted by a devastating cancer diagnosis in July and the agonizing months of chemotherapy that followed.
Pecorella felt a triumph like no other when he was declared cancer-free in late November. He cried with emotion as he rang the ceremonial bell at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. But shortly afterward, he faced a difficult road back to football.
In just over a week, Pecorella and the Stony Brook team will be dressing in the visitors’ locker room at Edwards Stadium in Huntington, West Virginia, for a game at Marshall. And he will be back playing college football, a place he’s been desperate to get to for over a year.
“When I got the diagnosis, the first thing my dad told me was to mark the calendar for August 31, 2024, when we play Marshall,” Pecorella said. “When I wake up that morning in West Virginia, that will be the surreal moment … when you (accomplish something) that seemed so far away when you set out to do it.”
Reconnecting
Stony Brook hired Western Michigan football coach Billy Cosh on Dec. 13. He soon began meeting with each player, in person or virtually. When the meeting began, he knew only bits and pieces of Pecorella’s story.
In it, he learned about his diagnosis of Burkitt’s lymphoma, an aggressive blood cancer, how Pecorella told his new teammates that he would miss the season, and how some who barely knew him had given him constant support. At the end, Pecorella asked Cosh if he could address the entire team when it met for the first time for winter training in January.
“He wanted to share his story with his new teammates,” Cosh said. “It was a no-brainer to let him do that.”
Pecorella captioned his message simply: “Thank you all for being there for me. Even though you have known me for a while, I was touched by how you have stood behind me the whole time.”
Cosh had never experienced anything like this before when Pecorella stood in front of the team and spoke.
“It was incredible, earth-shattering,” he said. “The guys had their mouths open and their eyes wide open… It really humiliated everyone in the room.”
“This is the most emotional part of my return to the team,” Pecorella said. “I had just started to rebuild myself … but being connected to the team means so much of everything to me.”
“Your body recovers faster than your mind”
While Pecorella had to undergo severe chemotherapy and therefore sometimes had to spend several nights in the hospital, he also struggled with a kind of psychological conflict.
“I had so much support and love around me (telling me), ‘You’re going to make it, you’re going to be OK, you’re going to play again,’ and I want to believe it so badly,” Pecorella said. “(But) there’s still that part of me that wonders, ‘Is this really going to happen?’ Your mind can drift off into that dark place … wondering, ‘Am I ever going to be the same again?'”
The goal of regaining his skills in Division I came with physical and mental obstacles.
“My body was destroyed by the end of my treatment – just destroyed,” Pecorella said. “I was basically starting over. Everything I had ever done to be fit and physically compete in Division I football was at least 80 percent gone. My conditioning was gone because all I could do was run.”
Looking back, Pecorella praised Stony Brook’s athletic training staff for their dedication. The first few days were tough, but he made a steady climb.
“Believe it or not, your body recovers faster than your mind,” Pecorella said. “It was around June when I felt comfortable in my body again. But as far as my belief that I could actually play in a game again? That was at the end of July.”
Since the start of camp, Pecorella has been in open competition with two-year starter Clayton Taylor and Valparaiso transfer Jackson Dorr.
When asked to evaluate Pecorella, Cosh replied, “When he’s on form, the ball flies – I mean, it flies. You can see why he played at Maryland. You can see he’s a Division I punter. Now it’s just a matter of consistency.”
Goals achieved
Pecorella’s health will be closely monitored by his team at Weill Cornell during his first year after graduation. There are monthly blood tests, quarterly scans and consultations with his doctors. He said none of it – not the trips back to the hospital, not the waiting for the results – gives him cause for concern.
“I know my mom worries every time we go back, but I feel like I can’t live my life (fearing) of stepping on a (crack),” he said. “I should just go full throttle until I’m told otherwise, because what I’ve learned from my diagnosis is that nothing is promised, so why not make the best of the current situation I’m in? And, God forbid, it comes back, then I’ll deal with it.”
Pecorella is on the verge of a second life milestone he has achieved in the 13 months since his diagnosis. The first goal was to beat Burkitt lymphoma. The second was to play Division I football again.
“There is no doubt that there are parallels between achieving goals. One is playing football, the other is overcoming a life-threatening illness,” Pecorella said. “Both are achievements, but they will never be the same again.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 after 20 years at the Daily News to cover high schools, colleges and baseball. He has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame since 2011 and has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
