THE
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MAROON
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2007
Faranda: Globetrotter finds role in Big Easy Continued from page 6 “Hey, you played a really good game the other night. Maybe we should talk sometime.” So they did, and Faranda was hers. “We talked on the phone everyday. On weekends, I’d stay at Philman’s house in Kiln (Miss.) so I could spend time with her. She made me completely forget about homesickness.” Crawfish boils. Jet-skiing on the Jordan River. Barbecues in the Mississippi spring with his arm around his dream girl. Prep basketball stardom. Stanford, then No. 1 in the NCAA, seeking his services as a post-player via telephone. A letter, personally written and signed by Penn State assistant coach Hilliary Scott, wishing him a Merry Christmas and concluding: “ Good luck with the season and we will talk soon.” “Man, for a while, I remember thinking that my life was perfect,” he said. PLOT TWIST Mario Faranda recorded a perfect start against Gulfport High School his senior year. Two minutes into the second quarter, he’d amassed 11 points and five rebounds against Stanislaus’ fiercest rivals. Inspired, he zealously chased a rebound from a missed Gulfport shot. “My ankles were taped really tight, so when I landed, my knee gave out,” he said. His spill silenced the gym and sickened him. “It was the worst thing I’d ever seen. It was disgusting. My knee was destroyed.”It made the homesickness seem like a breeze.
So, cutting to the next scene, Faranda found himself mired in rehab, thoughts of a senior season ending in a nightmare haunting him. He wanted his movie about the American Dream, about prep school in a whole new world, to end just right — so he turned down No. 1 Stanford’s courtiers and respectfully denied Penn State’s offer. He was going to return to Stanislaus for a second senior season — an administrative error enrolled him as a sophomore instead of a freshman when he transferred from his school in Italy, so he opted for another year in Bay St. Louis. Faranda was going to end it right — by winning a Mississippi state championship as a thank-you for everyone who made his presence in America possible. “That killed my chances for a scholarship,” Faranda admitted. The problem was, Stanislaus athletics regretfully told him he couldn’t play two senior seasons. THE BIG EASY BECKONS Faranda flew home to Italy for the summer after his senior year, uncertain of the future. He knew he still cared about Ashley and that he still needed to play basketball, both of which were in America. But he’d turned away marquee NCAA suitors, and they’d long since filled their vacancies. His parents had the mind to enroll him in Italy, thus waking Faranda up from his American Dream prematurely. Until a gentleman by the name of Michael Giorlando, in charge of a tiny NAIA program for a small school in New Orleans, phoned Chiavari.
“I didn’t want to live in Italy after living here, and I was still with Ashley, so I absolutely wanted to come back,” Faranda remembers. “Coach (Giorlando) said he was new at Loyola and that he had one scholarship left. And I took it right away.” Anything to end the movie right. He implored Giorlando to fax his commitment papers to his mother’s restaurant, residence of the only fax machine the Farandas owned in Italy. Giorlando, eager to lock up a post player of Faranda’s caliber, concurred. “I signed the papers in the kitchen of my mom’s restaurant. My mom’s cooking in the background, and I’m filling out the paperwork. I had never even visited Loyola.” And the rest, he says, “is history.” Faranda flew from Chiavari once more — to a suite in Cabra Hall with teammates Luke Zumo (who drives Mario to the movies in his car) and Bear Wurts (who says Mario loves movies so much he knows what trailers will run beforehand from what studio and grows irate whenever they miss them) to taking classes in Miller Hall and playing basketball in The Den. THE PERFECT ENDING Mario Faranda’s filmed some trying scenes since he’s been here: He sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament his freshman season the very first time he scrimmaged his new teammates, thus undergoing a grueling six-month rehab — leg presses, lunges, medicine balls. On top of rehab, the struggles of adjusting to freshman year in college (new people, an overwhelming course load and no transportation out of the city) drove him and his leading lady apart.
Forward Mario Faranda, finance junior, wrestles for a rebound against a SUNO defender Jan. 4. He signed his papers to play for the Wolfpack in his mother’s restaurant’s kitchen in Italy, never even having visited Loyola’s campus. STEVE KASHISHIAN / MAROON FILE PHOTO
And Faranda admits he’s undecided on the ending. “Ideally, I want the Wolfpack to win a national championship,” he professed in a tone of utmost sincerity and intent. When Faranda talks about filming the alternate one, however, he does so in the same tone. He’d live somewhere in an Italian villa on a lake, like the one he just saw in “Casino Royale,” the husband of someone he loves and the patriarch of another generation of Farandas. “It was always amazing to me that because I could put a rubber ball in a hoop, it’s gotten me to high school in America, to college here, opportunities
all over the world and probably my first girlfriend,” he reflected. Putting a rubber ball in a hoop, he hopes, might give him one more opportunity: “As soon as the goal of making my parents proud is done, whenever that is, I want to make my sons or my daughters proud. “You know how, if your dad can do something, you thought he was the greatest thing? I hope that if my son saw me dunk it just one time, one time,” he said, before he paused. “He’d be like, ‘Oh God. My dad’s friggin’ amazing.’” Fade to black and roll credits. Ramon Vargas can be reached at ravarga1@loyno.edu.