{"id":47522,"date":"2024-03-28T14:17:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T14:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=47522"},"modified":"2024-03-28T14:17:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T14:17:06","slug":"down-but-not-out-for-multi-sport-mulroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2024\/03\/28\/down-but-not-out-for-multi-sport-mulroy\/","title":{"rendered":"Down, but not out, for multi-sport Mulroy"},"content":{"rendered":"
By John Orrell<\/em>
\nLandmark Correspondent<\/em><\/div>\n

HOLDEN \u2014 When high school student-athletes sustain season-ending injuries, it can be devastating. In many cases, playbooks are returned, team meetings become irrelevant, and sometimes a deep depression can result.<\/p>\n

For Wachusett Regional High\u2019s Sam Mulroy, not so much.<\/p>\n

Mulroy, of Holden, suffered a broken elbow during a Mountaineer football practice in his sophomore season (he is currently a junior), and knew from the resulting pain that football season was over. But what of his even more beloved basketball? WRHS varsity basketball head coach Tom Gibbons explains it best.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreshman year he played on the JV 2 team, and then played football last year where he broke his elbow,\u201d said Gibbons. \u201cHe was out for the entire season but came to practice, watched film and learned from watching. He gradually got better, and losing that sophomore year obviously hurt, but he\u2019s gotten better. He\u2019s in the starting line now, and that\u2019s from working so hard.<\/p>\n

\"\"
HOLDEN – Junior Sam Mulroy was back on the court for Wachusett for the 2023-2024 season. Photo Credit: Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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When Sam Mulroy isn’t playing football or basketball, his favorite pastime is fishing. Photo Credit: Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done a great job. He\u2019s a great kid. His teammates love him, and he has everything in balance. We like having multisport kids, and Sam\u2019s just another in a long line of multisport kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the game had started, we were walking through game play for the game,\u201d Mulroy, who comes across as instantly likeable, humble and mature beyond his years, explained. \u201cI was running out to cover a kid and I tripped over my own feet, I tried to stop myself with the ground and caught myself, but I was a little too hard on my arm and it broke. It was pretty devastating. I remember I was on the ground, and I saw the trainer and the coach there, and I kept asking them if I was going to be OK for basketball. They told me that things would be good. Once the adrenaline wore off, I knew I wasn\u2019t going to recover in time. That was pretty hard. There were some rough days during that stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I still came to all the team events because I love the sport and being around it. I knew there wasn\u2019t much I could do with a broken arm, so I tried to make the best of it, like hanging around the team and learning from an outside perspective almost. There were days that it was hard because I was just sitting there and couldn\u2019t do anything, but I think it really helped me for this year. It was worth it going to every practice and game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another setback for Mulroy and his teammates of this recently concluded 2023-2024 season was the shortage of victories, but still there was full effort and a play-for-pride attitude from players and coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew as a team that we were better than what our record showed, and it made it look like we lost a lot of games,\u201d he continued. \u201cSome of the games we were losing by 10 or less points, and we knew we had to finish it out. We were in most of these games, and we were competing hard, and that\u2019s what drove us, especially when we knew we weren\u2019t going to make playoffs. We knew we had to play for pride. Having that Wachusett jersey on and playing gave us pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to spread leadership characteristics even though I wasn\u2019t the best player on the team. I feel like I\u2019m respected by my teammates, and I respect them, too, by being as positive and as kind as I can towards all of them and all my coaches. That gave me some respect from my teammates, and it puts me in a good position to be a leader and listen to me even if I\u2019m not the one scoring all the points.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just sports that Mulroy takes pride in. He excels in the classroom as well, having made consistently high honors, and has earned membership in the National Honor Society. He is an avid fisherman and loves the outdoors. One program that he leads at school, Young Life, is a support group for students that meets Mondays for get-togethers that involve exploring Christianity and other topics.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can just come and be themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cWe dive somewhat into the Bible, but it\u2019s not too religious because we don\u2019t want to scare new people who aren\u2019t super-religious by doing too much of that. I\u2019m a leader in that so I can help a lot of the kids come to their clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulroy is quick to admit that putting on the Wachusett uniform for two of the school\u2019s most recognized sports is special, and there is no other place he would rather be than contributing to Wachusett games.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepresenting my school makes me proud, but not in an arrogant sense, and that\u2019s pretty special,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember as a kid when I would watch some of the big high school games, and now it\u2019s really a cool thing that I can represent my school and community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Orrell Landmark Correspondent HOLDEN \u2014 When high school student-athletes sustain season-ending injuries, it can be devastating. In many cases, playbooks are returned, team meetings become irrelevant, and sometimes a deep depression can result. For Wachusett Regional High\u2019s Sam Mulroy, not so much. Mulroy, of Holden, suffered a broken elbow during a Mountaineer football […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}