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Summer 2003

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When I first met Tommy Grace four years ago, I didn’t think much of him. Athletically, anyway. Academically, I thought he was insane. He spent most of his time on his lower-bunk, studying like a maniac, even though it was the first week of school, freshman year. He was a scrawny 5’11”, 150 lbs soaking wet, and hadn’t demonstrated the slightest inclination toward athletic pursuits. I was surprised he could even carry around his enormous blue JanSport backpack, home of every school book he owned.

Needless to say, I was surprised when he decided to play pick-up basketball one night when a few of us from Simpson Hall headed out to play at a nearby court.

Grace started shooting warm-up shots and sinking them. All of them. From everywhere on the court, especially when he moved outside the three-point arc. My jaw dropped. I was convinced it had to be luck.

After warming up, two captains chose up sides. Grace fell somewhere in the middle of picks, and we ended up on opposite teams. Since I was about the same height as Grace, I marked him. Well, I tried to mark him. He made me look foolish.

He was surprisingly strong for his thin frame and easily drove towards the hoop, past me, and up against guys that were five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. He’d take a few dribbles towards the key, lower his head, pick up the ball, take another step and leap, finally releasing the ball in mid-air and in traffic. Somehow, it always, always went in. And his slashing paled in comparison to his jump shot. His jumper is the best I’ve ever seen on a court in person.

We played a lot of basketball that year. Probably four nights a week, we’d be outside, playing pickup basketball on that small court near Delurey Hall. That court had character--the south side of the court was on the edge of the hill, which ran down towards Middleton Hall. The court was small and narrow, so we made the grass out of bounds. When the winter arrived, we still played. We stole a 5-gallon bucket of driveway salt, and would salt the court in the early afternoon under the weak sun. Usually, it was a Simpson only game, but sometimes we’d run against teams from Fedigan or Delurey Halls. And with Grace on our side, we’d win.

Four years later, Grace is on the Villanova bench, screaming his lungs out at the MCI Center in Washington, DC.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” he screams. “Take care of the ball!”

It’s the waning minutes of the second half, and the Wildcats are about to clinch a victory over the Georgetown Hoyas.

Grace refuses to shut up. “Watch out, double team!” He’s off the bench now, yelling encouragement and swinging his towel. A time-out, and Grace is the first to run out and give high-fives.

With under a minute left, Coach Jay Wright looks down his bench. His gaze slides over his sixth man, seventh man, eighth man, all the way down to the twelfth man. Wright gestures with his thumb and Grace pops off the bench, ripping off his warm-up jacket. He kneels by the officials’ table, checking in. The crowd erupts. Well, a small section of the crowd erupts—Grace’s own personal cheering section. Thirty friends and family members from home, nearby Catonsville, Maryland, have made the journey to DC, hoping to see Grace clock a few minutes. They’re in luck.

Grace dashes in. As the clock ticks away, Grace handles the ball briefly. He doesn’t shoot, despite the fans’ screams. Time expires and the game is over.

This is Grace’s third and final season as an undergraduate player for the men’s basketball team. When other students went home for fall break back in 2001, Grace stuck around and impressed newly hired coach Wright with his shooting and on-court intelligence.

“We’re very selective in walk-ons,” says Wright, following a February practice. Wright is wearing basketball warm-ups, a refreshing change from his usual tightly-buttoned game-day suits. His hair is even a little mussed from his typical slicked back, Pat Riley look.

“We do a deep background check on all of them,” says Wright. “Tom Sullivan, a good friend of mine at UMBC called me and told me that Tommy would like to be a walk-on. So we took a look at him.”

Wright and his assistants liked what they saw, and asked Grace to join the squad. But first, they warned him of the commitment.

Go to every practice. Go to every team workout. Watch hours of film, go to every team meal. Take all your classes in the morning, because basketball will take up all of your afternoons and nights. Forget your social life, because we have early morning breakfasts.

Oh yeah, and rarely play.

To give you an idea of how little he plays, Grace has only clocked 20 minutes total this season. Freshman point guard Mike Nardi plays over 32 minutes, every game. Grace has taken only two shots this year, both beyond three-point arc. He made one of them, against the University of the Redlands on November 22. He’s scored a total of 4 points this year, with the addition of one free throw against Temple on November 21. Nardi takes about four three point-shots a game, and has made fifty-two of them this season. He’s scored a total of 319 points this year.

When Grace does get to play, the game is already over, with either Villanova winning—or losing—big. The 27 games he’s played in the past three years were decided by an average of 17 points—a sizable margin.

Despite his lack of court time, Grace is at every team event. In season (mid-October to mid-March), basketball is a full-time job, consuming a minimum of 40 hours a week of games, practices, traveling, workouts, film, and meals. Out of season (mid-April to mid-October), the team cuts it down to just over twenty hours a week. All in all, the team requires over 1400 hours of commitment, every year, and that’s outside of class. Class, for an average student, takes up only 450 hours over a full year.

Another way to look at it: Grace has practiced over 70 hours for every minute of playing time he clocked during the 2003-2004 campaign. It’s a mind-boggling dedication, without the tangible reward of playing time.

“It’s not easy to be a walk-on,” admits Wright. “You do all the dirty work and you know you’re not going to play.”

Wright pauses, watching Grace and freshman point guard Mike Nardi taking shots after practice.

“I couldn’t do it,” Wright admits.

“His role is extremely hard,” says Nardi, the 6-foot, Linden, New Jersey native recently elected to the Big East All-Rookie Team. Nardi scratches his scraggly chinstrap beard. “He’s dedicated. He’s not on scholarship, but does everything he’s supposed to do.”

Actually, Grace is on scholarship. An academic one. Graduating first in his class at private Cardinal Gibbons High School in Baltimore, Maryland, Grace came to Villanova on a Presidential Scholarship, which awards full-tuition to a few top incoming freshmen.

Grace quickly settled into the academic rigors of the university honors program. His discipline is multifaceted, appearing on the basketball court and the classroom. He set himself a strict schedule, often completing reading assignments two weeks in advance, and writing seven, eight, or nine rough drafts for his essays.

“I worked too hard my first two years,” admits Grace. “It takes me a while to get adjusted, to know what teachers want. It’ll be the same way in law school.”

Law school, indeed. He’s already received acceptance letters from University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland, University of Baltimore and Villanova Law, and is waiting to hear from two more: College of William & Mary and Washington and Lee University.

“Ideally, I want to be a sports agent and run my own law firm,” says Grace.

Despite Grace’s plans for law schools, he was nearly side-tracked by a two year trip to England, after being selected as one of 100 Rhodes Scholarship Finalists, and one of five from Villanova. Although Grace wasn’t selected as a Rhodes Scholar (none of the Villanova finalists were), he’s content to have gone through the process.

“It would have been nice,” says Grace, chowing down on teriyaki stir fry in Villanova’s Belle Aire terrace. “But in one way, I’m kind of glad I’m not a Rhodes Scholar. I wouldn’t have been able to play in the Redlands game (where he clocked a personal best 14 minutes, due to suspensions from last year’s phone scandal). And I don’t have to go to England for two years.”

Although many would love a chance to live in England for two years, Grace wouldn’t count himself among them. England is far, far away from his Maryland home—the center of his universe. Grace loves Maryland and he gives no thought to a life in any other state.

“I don’t feel a need for change,” says Grace. “I’m a creature of habit. I want to be close to my family.”

His family—a huge, Catholic bunch that looks like they were stamped from the same mold, live in Catonsville, Maryland. His extended family all live nearby, and it’s a tight, close-knit group.
“We’re born and bred Marylanders,” explains Grace’s mother, Terri. Terri, an attractive 47-year-old blonde, is a former nurse who met her husband, Tom, at Harbor Hospital in Maryland while the two were nursing assistants in college. Tom Sr., 49, (who bears a striking resemblance to a young Richard Gere), went on to medical school at the University of Maryland and became a plastic surgeon.

“In fact,” continues Terri, “when we went to Richmond for two years for my husband’s residency, we were the first ones from either of our families to leave Maryland.”

Grace calls home nearly everyday to speak to his parents, or his flock of younger siblings still at home—Maggie, 17, Sally, 15, Annie, 13, and Denny, 8.

“I have great relationships with my sisters,” he says. “And Denny, well, he looks just like me. I am his idol. Everything I do, he does, everything I think, he thinks. He used to like ketchup, but over Christmas break, he found out that I don’t like ketchup.”

Grace laughs. “Now he refuses to eat it. It’s great.”

At Villanova, Grace spends a good deal of his free time with his sister Molly, an 18-year-old freshman. They grab lunch together, go the library to study (she, like him, is a maniac when it comes to school and also a Presidential Scholar), and attend each other’s games (Molly plays for the women’s lacrosse team). The two also meet up and head to Sunday masses at St. Thomas of Villanova church.

I have a Sunday brunch with Grace, Molly, and Molly’s roommate Jen Ellis. Grace and his sister’s resemblance is stunning. The only difference is their eyes—Molly a soft blue, Tommy an intense brown. The two exchange playful jabs about their respective love lives—or as Grace claims, the lack thereof.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” he says, smiling roguishly. “Not right now anyway.”

Light conversation drifts to the upcoming weeks and games, but I feel like an intruder. Molly and Tommy’s relationship runs deeper than the average brother-sister bond. It’s a deep, intimate link of family and faith, cemented during Grace’s childhood bout with cancer.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) struck Grace at nine years old, hospitalizing him before his third day of fourth grade. NHL, a cancer of the lymphatic system, occurs when lymph cells begin dividing out of control, and can quickly spread to organs.

Grace was diagnosed fairly early, and placed in intensive care. Shocked with heavy doses of chemotherapy, he dropped from a healthy 80 pounds to a gaunt 45 pounds.

“He looked like a little chicken,” says his mother, Terri, over the phone. “He had a ton of chemotherapy and was extremely sick since his body was getting rid of all the chemo byproducts.”

She begins to tear up, thirteen years after facing a mother’s worst nightmare.
“It was horrible,” she says. “I can’t even begin to explain how horrible it was.”

After a month and a half in the hospital, Grace was well enough to return home to recover and gain back strength, while still going for weekly doses of radiation.

“I was sick as a dog,” he says. “When I got home, I tried to shoot a basketball, but I couldn’t even hit the rim.”

Grace stayed out of school for the remainder of fall term, returning to class wearing a baseball cap to cover his hairless scalp.

“I trusted in God,” says Grace. “We’ve always been a religious Catholic family and gone to mass. But I was only nine at the time, so I put my faith in my family, and by extension, in God.”

The weekly treatments of chemo continued for two more years before the cancer had retreated. Five years later, in 1998, Grace was considered cancer-free after five years of no recurrence.

Today, he is remarkably detached when speaking about the cancer. He keeps the secret to himself, and none of his friends at college found out about it until the Rhodes process, when Grace discussed it in a personal essay.

“I asked my friend to read [the essay], and forgot to tell her about that major detail,” he says. “She had to leave the room because she got upset when she read [about the lymphoma].”
He pauses, reflecting. “I look back now and it seems like a bad dream.”

His Rhodes essay sheds another light on ordeal.

“As my Mom has always told me, I have to believe that having survived that nightmare, I can do anything,” he writes. “Therefore, once I got to college after a successful high school career, it was only natural that I, a slow, scrawny 150 pound kid, put aside any fears and hesitations and try out for the Villanova basketball team.”

“I get no glory on game day, or from the public. I rarely appear in our games. In fact, if I play, the game has already been decided. And yet I love it with all my heart; I would not trade it for the world.”

I arrive 35 minutes before a February practice to scope out the Pavilion. Grace is already there, warming up with Ted Monaco, ’76. He’s taking 18 foot jump shots. He takes slight jump and just leaves his toes. Swish. He begins shooting “around the world,” moving in an arc around the basket. He sinks a dozen shots, an finally misses the last corner shot. He goes back two places and sinks both shots.

Grace’s shot makes the sweet, delicious sound of a ball tearing through the net. Swish. No backboard, ever. Not even a glance off the rim. Just straight in, nearly every time. Even the shots he misses are right on, off only by a few inches. Monaco kicks the ball back to him, deep behind the 3-point line. Swish.

As the rest of the team and managers begin filing in, Monaco retreats from the floor and joins me to watch Grace practice. Monaco, the former Norristown High School coach, knows a thing or two about basketball—he coached St. Bonaventure point guard Marques Green, a 5’7” wunderkind.

“Tommy’s a flat-out great shooter,” says Monaco, a middle-aged former Navy captain. “He, Nardi and Ray are the best shooters on the team. His mechanics are really good—pure fundamentals.”

Grace is precise. He passes with the seams, always hitting the intended teammate in the chest. His shot is impeccably fundamental. Fingers on the seams and eyes on the rim, he leaves the ground, his right hand snapping forward and down for the requisite backspin. His left hand on the side merely guides the ball. Swish. It’s a shot made perfect in the gym.

“Everything basketball, I learned from my Dad,” says Grace. “It’s all from him, in the countless hours in the gym. We’ve always had a hoop in the driveway, and he still plays 5 on 5 at home.”

On a visit to his Maryland home, I check out his hoop in the driveway. When Grace says “hoop in the driveway,” he means a regulation-sized full-court with all the trimmings—key, 3-point line, and a scoreboard. The court is a synthetic, all-weather surface that is used, and used often, year-round.

Near the center of the court, I notice covered holes for volleyball posts and ask if the Grace family plays volleyball.

“I don’t think we’ve ever set it up,” says Grace. “This court is only for basketball.”

Despite Grace’s shooting skills and dedication, he comes up short next to big-time Division 1 basketball players.

“These players are bigger, faster, and stronger,” says Monaco. “He’s playing against guys that are two to three inches taller, and faster. It makes it tough. There’s just such a difference in size. The bigger guys can take bumps.”

Grace is smaller. Although he’s added an inch since freshman year, pushing him over the threshold of six feet, and gained 20 pounds of muscle, finally filling out his skinny frame, he is still smaller than most of his competitors.

Watching Grace sink yet another three, Monaco shakes his head. “He would be deadly at a Division 2 or Division 3 school. He would play a lot and score.”

And yet, playing at a D-2 or D-3 school was something Grace had no interest in.

“I could have gone to other teams and played, but I wanted to be part of a Big East program like Villanova,” says Grace. “I don’t care about playing, or scoring. I just want to win.”

Winning, however, has remained elusive for the Wildcats during Grace’s tenure. The team finished the ’03-’04 regular season at 16-16, qualifying for the fifth consecutive season for the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). The NIT, widely considered a consolation tournament for teams falling short of the NCAA Tournament, is not good enough for Grace.

I get a phone-call from Grace a few weeks after our interviews. “I’m staying at ‘Nova next year,” he says. “Masters in liberal studies.”

I ask him why.

“Because I have another year of eligibility,” he says. “And this team is going to be great next year.”

NCAA rules dictate that athletes are eligible for four years of competition. Since Grace didn’t walk-on until his sophomore year, he has one year left, which he can use during graduate studies.

“Our team is so young,” Grace continues. “Not to use that as an excuse this year, but there’s just a maturation process that younger kids need to go through sometimes. All the stuff that we went through this year, we’ll be better for next year. We lost a lot of close games.”

I ask, “You’re really going to reject Maryland and Penn law schools?”

“I’m in no rush to go to law school,” Grace says. “I’ll have to reapply, because they don’t defer. But law school will always be there.”

He pauses, and I can hear the competition boiling in his blood. This kid’s intense. He’s not satisfied. He wants more from Villanova basketball.

“We’ll definitely be in the NCAA Tournament,” he says. “And once you get there, anything can happen.”

I challenge his desire to stick around for another year of playing basketball. Isn’t it time to grow up and go to law school?

“It’s not just about basketball,” Grace says fiercely. “Our program is more than that. I love my teammates. I love my coaches. I love what our program is about. And I think we can be great. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”