"Had we given up on him like they told us to, he'd have been in a wheelchair to this day," she said. "I said 'I don't want you working with Alex any more because, if you don't have hope and faith he won't have it, so don't come back.'  The next day I hired new doctors."

Now, a little under two decades later, Cocoziello manages the Cornell men's lacrosse team, stalking the sidelines in Ithaca, unable to play but unwilling to walk away. He played last year, after spending two years on the field for Penn State and transferring to Cornell after his sophomore year, only to have to sit out this year due to injury. On Saturday, he'll pace the sidelines as the Big Red - the only team of the four at Gillette to not have appeared here last year - looks to advance to its first national championship game since 1988.

"This really is a dream come true," he said. "Looking back at my college career I never thought I'd have the chance to be at a final four."

Cocoziello appeared in a few games for the Big Red last year. Playing with a subtle limp - his right side still falls behind his left side a little - that doesn't articulate itself much in daily life, the impediment is enough to keep him a step behind lacrosse at its highest level. But he played. And he battled.

Then, at the end of last season, Cocoziello took a shot fired at 85 miles per hour to the neck.

He collapsed on the field. But he walked off under his own power and, for weeks, seemed normal. Then, one day, his arm started tingling. He couldn't hold a cup anymore. He and Sharon went that week to see a doctor in New York City who told him, in short, his playing career was done. The damage to his spine, his neck, his nerves, it was all too vast, too violent.

And last summer, faced with the decision to leave lacrosse forever or stay with a team that looked, in so many ways, like the one to bring Cornell back to the national championship game for the first time in two decades, he didn't waver. He approached Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni and said that he couldn't play anymore, but that he wanted to do everything he could to stay on and help.

"I said 'Alex, geez, you wanna be part of the team, you can go one of two ways: you either go like your teammates, where you invest 100 percent all day, every day, or you become a distraction,'" Tambroni said.  "He said, 'Coach, I'm in', and I'm not sure anyone's worked harder this year. ... He's meant everything to us."

"I don't think I was prepared for that," Cocoziello said of his career-ending injury. "It's very humbling to be in that position. ... But this is a great group of guys, and I just didn't want to leave that behind."

It wasn't an unusual move for a kid who wasn't used to giving up. Those nine months, his cranium mending and his brain swollen, he slowly got better, his mom by his side in the chair.

Then one day - Sharon tries to not think of it as a miracle, as more of just a product of the swelling in his brain subsiding - Alex was sitting on her lap at a family picnic. His brothers - both of them successful lacrosse players - were rolling a soccer ball back and forth to each other.

He stood up and chased after it.

"I jumped up - I was afraid he was gonna fall," she said. "I ran into the hospital and said 'where is the doctor?' I didn't know what to do with it, like 'is temporary? What just happened?'"

That began 12 years of extensive physical and occupational therapy. His cognitive facilities largely unharmed, he began working his body back into order - and blowing through any of the expectations that his family, let alone his first set of doctors, set for him.

He started playing sports. A lot of them. And he got good. And if he wasn't good from the start, he's make sure he got there.

"Even when he was a small boy, you had to be ready to play several games until he won," Sharon said. "That's just the way he's always been since he was a little guy. He brings that to the table, whether in his personal life, business life or athletics."

Over time, he came to lacrosse. Not to mention a few other sports - he was the captain of the squash team in high school, at the Delbarton School in New Jersey.

"After [the hospital], I had a pretty normal childhood," he said. "I picked up a lacrosse stick, started playing in ninth grade, and the rest is history. ... Looking back my accident, I feel it has defined me as a person that I am today. A lot of people could have been like 'Why me?' I really see it as a blessing, shaped me into the person I am today."

And that person is a loud, impossibly eloquent college senior who's set up with a job with Merrill Lynch when this is all over. He's also a person that can be found, if you're looking, always on the sidelines, cheering and yelling; or in the video room, dissecting; or anywhere he's needed, doing whatever he can.  

"His sacrifice and time commitment are unmatched by everyone," said Cornell face-off man John Glynn. "He has the same commitment as everyone else and he knows he's not gonna be on the field."

"You see him on the sidelines, he's the first guy in the huddle," Glynn continued. "He gets so fired up."

So on Saturday at 2 p.m., when the Big Red meet the Tournament's No. 1 seed, look for him. He'll be the guy with the limp, but the guy with the smile that more than compensates.

"I was victim of this, too - you jog out to practice and you think tomorrow's just gonna be another day," Cocoziello said. "You have a bad day, the next day you just come out and do better. When we lost to Ohio State last year, I didn't think that was gonna be my last game wearing a Cornell uniform.

"You just have to seize the day," he continued. "You never know what's gonna happen."