Anthony Pecorella is cancer-free and ready to punt again for Stony Brook
First he had to fight for his life. Then he had to fight for his dream.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way for Stony Brook punter and Malverne native Anthony Pecorella.
The 2018 Newsday All-Long Island selection out of Chaminade graduated from Maryland and yearned to come back to the Island, transferring to Stony Brook for the 2023 season. Those plans were halted by a devastating July cancer diagnosis and the wrenching months of chemotherapy that followed.
Pecorella felt a triumph unlike any other when he was declared cancer-free in late November, weeping with emotion while ringing the ceremonial bell at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.
But just on the other side of that, a hard road back to football appeared before him.
On the final day of August, Pecorella and the Stony Brook team will dress in the visitors’ locker room at Edwards Stadium in Huntington, West Virginia, for a game at Marshall. And he will be back in college football, a place he’s longed to be for more than a year.
“When I got diagnosed, the first thing my father told me was to circle Aug. 31, 2024, on the calendar, when we play Marshall,” Pecorella said. “When I get 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.”
Restoring a connection
Stony Brook hired football coach Billy Cosh from Western Michigan on Dec. 13. He soon met with every player, in person or virtually. He knew only bits of Pecorella’s story when their session started.
In it, he learned about the diagnosis of Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive blood cancer, how Pecorella addressed his new teammates with the news that he’d miss the 2023 season and how some who barely knew him had provided constant support. At the end, Pecorella asked Cosh if he could address the entire team when it first met in January for winter workouts.
“It was [inspired] to want to share his story with his new teammates,” Cosh said. “It was a no-brainer to let him.”
Pecorella described his message as simply “thank you for all being there for me — even though you’d known me a little, I was touched [by] the way you were all in my corner the whole way.”
Cosh had not seen anything quite like it when Pecorella stood before the team and spoke.
“It was unbelievable, earth-shattering,” he said. “Guys had their mouths [agape] and eyes wide . . . It really humbled everybody in the room.”
“It stands out as the most emotional part of getting back with the team,” Pecorella said. “I’d only begun to build myself back . . . but being connected to the team is so much of everything.”
‘Your body comes back faster than your mind’
While Pecorella underwent ravaging courses of chemotherapy that sometimes kept him hospitalized overnight, there also was a sort of mental conflict he battled to overcome.
“I had so much support and love around me [telling me], ‘You’re going to make it through, you’re going to be fine, you’re going to be back to playing,’ and you want so badly to believe it,” Pecorella said. “[But] there’s still that part inside asking, ‘Is this really going to happen?’ Your mind can go to that dark place . . . wondering ‘am I ever going to be what I was?’ ”
The quest to do that — regain his Division I capabilities — was filled with obstacles physical and mental.
“My body was destroyed — just destroyed — at the end of my treatment,” Pecorella said. “It was basically starting from scratch. Everything I had ever done to be conditioned and physically compete in Division I football was at least 80% gone. My conditioning was shot because I’d only been permitted to walk.”
Looking back over the process, Pecorella showered great praise on Stony Brook’s athletic training staff for its commitment to him. The first days were exhausting, but he made a steady ascent.
“Believe it or not, your body comes back faster than your mind,” Pecorella said. “It was around June when I felt comfortable with my body again. But as far as my belief that I would really be able to play in a game again? That was late July.”
Since camp started, Pecorella has been in an open competition with two-year starter Clayton Taylor and Valparaiso transfer Jackson Dorr.
Asked for an assessment of Pecorella, Cosh replied: “When he’s ‘on,’ that ball travels — I mean it travels. You can tell why he was playing at Maryland. You can see this is a Division I punter. Now it’s just about consistency.”
Goals achieved
Pecorella’s health will be strictly monitored by his team at Weill Cornell for the first year out. There are monthly blood tests, quarterly scans and consultations with his doctors. He said none of it — the trips back to the hospital or waiting for the results — causes apprehension.
“While I know my mother worries each time we go back, I feel I can’t live my life [afraid] of stepping on a [crack],” he said. “I should just go full gas until told otherwise because, what I’ve learned from getting diagnosed, is nothing’s ever promised. So why not make the most of the current situation I’m in? And God forbid, it does come back, then I’ll deal with it.”
Pecorella stands at the precipice of a second life milestone accomplished in the 13 months since he was diagnosed. The first goal was to beat Burkitt lymphoma. The second was to again play Division I football.
“There’s no question [you] can see a parallel with goals being achieved, but one is playing football and the other is beating a life-threatening disease,” Pecorella said. “Both are accomplishments, but they are never going to be the same.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.