Soccer, Basketball
Favorite athlete: Megan Rapinoe
Favorite team: USWNT
Favorite memory competing in sports: Junior year of basketball when we beat CR South in double overtime on a buzzer beater.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Basically, every soccer game is embarrassing because I have to wear a head gear, and my family calls me a power ranger.
Music on iPod: Mostly country and some pop.
Future plans: Find a job out of college and create a back brace to help my parents.
Words to live by: “Life is in the details.”
One goal before turning 30: Own a beach house somewhere with my sister.
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m obsessed with Nike sneakers.
By Mary Jane Souder
Madison Attanasio is one of those special players, according to her coach, who’s going to make any team better simply by her presence.
“Whether it’s on the basketball court, on the soccer field or just making the group of kids become a little bit closer because she does something off the field – she’s going to find a way to make that team better,” Rock North soccer coach Wendell Beres said.
Beres apparently knows what he’s talking about.
Attanasio returned to the basketball court on Jan. 15 for her first game action of the season after suffering a concussion in an automobile accident on her way to school Dec. 8. The Indians have won seven of eight games since then.
“She’s such a great story in the fact that she hasn’t played two thirds of the year,” Rock North basketball coach Lou Palkovics said. “She’s always coming from soccer, and it always takes her three or four weeks to really get her basketball legs.
“I said, ‘Oh Maddie, what are we going to do this year? It’s going to take you a while to get your basketball legs.’ I think maybe she played three games before I decided, ‘Oh my god, it’s time to get her back in the starting lineup because she brings a whole new dimension to our team.”
Attanasio, according to Palkovics, brings a toughness to the hardwood.
“I know it’s kind of chauvinistic when I say that one of the best compliments I can give to a girl after coaching boys for seven years is to say she plays like a boy,” the Indians’ coach said. “She really does.
“She has moves like a boy, she can stop on a dime and shoot over people, and she’s tough in a non-dirty way.”
The fact that Attanasio is playing basketball at all is in itself pretty remarkable since she is first and foremost a soccer player. And a very good one.
A first team all-league selection, the Rock North senior will take her talents to The College of New Jersey next year. It would have been easy for her to walk away from basketball, especially after being sidelined the better part of the regular season.
That was never a consideration.
“I love playing basketball,” Attanasio said. “Not so much that I would play in college, but it’s one of my favorite things to do.
“The players on the team are my absolute best friends, so I love spending time with them. Basically, I’m just trying to get in as much basketball as I can before I’m forced to quit.”
The concussion Attanasio suffered in December was her third.
“It was the second one that was really bad,” she said. “I was actually out of school for a month, so I wasn’t allowed to go to any of the practices.
“I basically sat home, and I couldn’t really do anything there because stimulation gave me headaches. So I would sit at home and color all day, and it drove me crazy. They said I could watch TV, but it hurt my eyes. I slept a lot.
“In the beginning, I went to the games, but I was in a neck brace, so that was hard. Once my concussion wasn’t getting better, my doctor said I should stop going to those, so I missed a few games because I couldn’t even watch. It was just a whole emotional wreck.”
She returned to school on Jan. 8. A week later, Attanasio was back on the court.
“As a senior, I knew this would be my last time playing, so just knowing I was able to play again and knowing this concussion didn’t completely take me out of sports altogether – it just gave me a whole new appreciation for everything,” she said.
***
Attanasio grew up playing soccer.
That’s hardly a surprise since her older brother (Bryan) and sister (Casey) both played as did her parents before them.
“When my sister was little, my parents became coaches for the intramural team, so I was just constantly around soccer since I would always go to the field with them,” she said. “I just kind of grew up on the soccer field.
“I tried playing softball for a year, and I hated it. I also tried ballet, and I also hated that. Then I started playing basketball when I was in second grade, and I played for the Upper Makefield intramural league, and I just loved it.”
Two passions were more than enough to keep Attanasio busy. A veteran of the club soccer circuit – she plays for YMS. Attanasio added AAU basketball to her schedule when she was in sixth grade.
“There were times where I was actually on a school team, an AAU basketball team and a club soccer team, so I was basically at two practices every day,” she said.
As a freshman, Attanasio found herself playing on the jayvee soccer team. Until it mattered most.
“We had a unique situation,” she said. “We got a new coach, and he didn’t really know any of us, so he split us up – underclassmen were jayvee and upperclassmen were varsity, but then when playoffs came, me and two other people from the jayvee were pulled up to varsity.
“What was unusual was we actually played. Our first time in a varsity game our freshman year was playoffs.”
Once she found her way into the varsity lineup, Attanasio never left.
This year, with the Indians in dire need of a coach, Beres took over the helm the day before the first game.
“It was a unique situation, not an easy one for anybody,” said Beres, who was not with the team the entire preseason. “Fortunately, I’ve known Madison since she was probably 10 or 11 years old because her older brother played for me when I was on the boys’ side.
“Just having that little familiarity, I relied on her heavily to help in the transition, and she was true to form. This year’s senior class – we had seven leaders, and Madison was certainly the leader of the leaders, if you will. She’s a kid everybody looks up to, and she leads by example.”
Beres didn’t name captains immediately, but as the season progressed, he chose Attanasio and Michaela Finneyfrock to serve as co-captains.
“Madison is the center back on the soccer field, and she’s obviously the anchor of the defense,” Beres said. “This year one of our surprise stories was when freshman Mia Scalamandre came up and ended up playing next to Madison.
“She made a couple of freshman mistakes, but aside from physically being there to support Mia and clean up the mistakes, Madison also was there mentally to whisper some words of encouragement and kind of guide her along. Mia turned out to be a second team all-league player, and I’m not sure you can do that as a freshman without somebody like Madison playing next to you.”
When it came time to make a college choice, Attanasio never waivered.
“I knew right away that I wanted to play Division III (soccer) because both my brother and sister played Division III, and they absolutely loved it,” she said. “One of the biggest things I want out of college is studying abroad, and you can’t really do that with Division One, so I knew I wanted a Division III school.”
Attanasio had her share of options, but when TCNJ coach Joe Russo came calling, the senior standout knew she’d found a perfect fit.
“I just fell in love with it as soon as I was there,” she said.
An honors student who is taking a pair of AP classes, Attanasio plans to major in biomedical engineering. She will have opportunity to make her dream of studying abroad in Australia a reality.
“I don’t really know why, but I just really want to go to Australia,” I love to travel and I don’t get to do that because I’m always busy.
“Plus, both my brother and my sister said it was something they wish they could have done.”
In what little spare time she has, Attanasio has volunteered with Athletes Helping Athletes, and she has participated in the Susan G Komen three-day breast cancer walk.
Most of her time has been occupied with school and playing sports.
“She’s a great kid,” Palkovics said. “My concern has always been that Michaela (Finneyfrock) and Madison aren’t going to play basketball because they’re going to school for soccer.
“Michaela and Madison are like, ‘We never thought twice about it.’”
It’s an opportunity Attanasio wouldn’t have wanted to miss.
