Larry Fonacier’s hard road back

January 29. Saturday, 10 p.m. In a gloomy Blue Eagle Gym, with its newly refurbished court, there were no big crowds chanting his name, no throngs of screaming young women. In fact, he even had to borrow a jersey, because he was joining his team mid-tournament. This was how Larry Fonacier returned to basketball, among friends in an Ateneo Basketball League elimination game.

July 25, 2004. In a throbbing Araneta Coliseum, against defending champion Far Eastern University, Larry dribbles into the paint, tries to spin, then collapses to the hardwood. Two pops in his left knee. He knew, instantly, that his Blue Eagle days were over.

I asked him what he remembered about that moment.

"A lot of things were going on through my mind. There was fear, there was worry," he recalled to The STAR. "It was really a shock. The timing was really bad. I just prayed and held on to what God promised. I knew right away. I heard two pops. I was sort of prepared that my UAAP season was over."

Larry was strapped up, his leg rendered immobile, and rushed to the hospital. For all intents and purposes, Ateneo’s championship hopes ended right then and there. Along with his college eligibility. But for Larry, the struggle to continue playing the game he has loved since childhood was just starting anew.

Since the surgery, he has spent eight hours a day — as much time as we spend sleeping — in rehab, at the Moro Lorenzo Sports Center, under the strict supervision of Dr. Jose Raul Canlas. Among the other injured athletes and non-athletes, Larry would spend excruciating, exhausting days in pain and discomfort, simply trying to be the man he once was. Stretching, strengthening, balance, all had to be restored. Luckily, he had already graduated, and was taking master’s classes in communications. One Friday, this writer caught him just sitting there, spent, with ice on his knee, too tired to even be stretched.

"I compared myself with Bugs and Magnum (teammates Paolo Bugia and Magnum Membrere, who were similarly injured)," he explained. "After six months, they were okay. I asked them, were you going through eight hours a day in the clinic, was it this hard? They said no. So I saw that my situation was harder."

As if that weren’t burdensome enough, he faced the exterior agony of watching his team go down in flames, especially against their perennial rival, De La Salle, whom he had helped dispatch in 2002, en route to the school’s first UAAP championship in 14 years.

"It was a different kind of frustration, really a deeper level of pain," he confesses. "Especially against La Salle, when they were beating us by big margins. No matter how much I motivated my teammates, what they could give was limited without me. I knew it was coming, that we would lose."

Now that he will no longer be playing against La Salle, Larry has tried to move on, making the best of his rehabilitation. Finally, last Saturday, he took to the hardwood again.

"Surprisingly, no fear. I was just trying to get the feel of the game, like I was in the UAAP. It was a natural feeling."

Though Fonacier scored 26 points, his team lost in overtime, and he blew up in frustration a handful of times. The exasperation was more with how far he realized he still was from the player he wanted to be, and how quickly his energy left him.

"That was the most frustrating part, not being able to do the things I used to, my conditioning, not being able to do the moves, being slow," he admitted. "I didn’t get scared about being hurt. I’m at 30 percent or 40 percent now. It’s a long way back."

I asked him if, in all this suffering, he ever thought of quitting basketball.

"No. Never," was his quick and firm reply.

So now he goes back to his rehab, waiting for the chance to join Addict Mobile-Ateneo in the next PBL conference in March, and hopes for a shot at the PBA Rookie Draft in August. Though no team has talked to him yet, with his warrior’s fighting spirit and tremendous will, it would be no surprise to see him finally make it big in the pros.

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Catch the full interview with Larry Fonacier will be on this week’s episode of The Basketball Show, on ABC 5 at 3 p.m. today.