Aaron Allen-Murdock wont let a little knee injury discourage his hoop dreams.
The 19-year-old Marion native was all ready to run the fast break right into the Old Rochester Regional High School gymnasium to retrieve his Class of 2020 yearbook when he was whistled for a three-second lane violation.
Allen-Murdocks momentary miscue amused the faculty and staff charged with managing the arrival of up to 175 graduating seniors who on May 27 participated in an organized campus drive-through arranged by homeroom for safe-spacing purposes.
A big reason for the smiles and laughter was the positive energy exuded by a student whose goals have dimensionally expanded thanks to a dramatic loss of weight from 250 to 170 pounds. Eager to make his mentors proud, the 5-foot-7 guard is essentially paying forward the support he received from classmates who noticed he was on a mission.
Ive been losing weight since the beginning of last (school) year. I started lifting (weights), going to the gym and I started boosting everything. And they noticed it, said Allen-Murdock, who had his heart set on playing varsity basketball for ORR when he tore the anterior-cruciate ligament in his right knee while playing basketball last fall at the Gleason Family YMCA in Wareham.
During recovery, he gained back 15-20 of the 60 pounds he had lost from habits and the injury part because I was down. The thing is, when youre down, you want to eat because you feel bad so you just do it, he explained. The thing is I wanted to work out, and youve got to remember I just lost 50-something pounds, and Im injured and I cant go to the gym at all now. It was hard on me.
Along the way back to full mobility, Allen-Murdock righted his ship, resumed what he calls the 16-8 diet (i.e. 16 hours of fasting and an eight-hour window to eat) and got his weight down to 170 pounds. Now he wants to add muscle mass while continuing to lose fat.
My goal is to get in the best shape of my life, he said. I think Im capable of walking on. At a very healthy weight with muscle mass, I think I am capable of playing for a (Division III) college basketball team.
Allen-Murdock plans to attend Cape Cod Community College for the next two academic years before transferring.
His dream job is to someday call play-by-play for an NBA team. To that end, he studied in Mike Besons sports-media class. Allen-Murdock has an Instagram page on which he posts Celtics analysis and NBA-related notes.
Beson says Allen-Murdock was always a hard worker in high school. Anything that sports came into it, he was so excited about it.
The value in a sports-media class, says Beson, is in exposing students to what really goes on and whats required on a daily basis.
To have to write and do something for hours at a time and not just love it when youre watching it, is a true test, one that Beson said Allen-Murdock passes with flying colors. Aaron loves doing anything and everything with sports. (For him its) pure excitement.
Allen-Murdock participated in his high schools fledgling Unified sports program, impressing former ORR basketball player and future superintendent Mike Nelson, who was on hand for the May 27 graduation-related event.
His personality and the way he went about it, in terms of the care he brought and the attitude to make everyone feel included; it was contagious, said Nelson. I feel that anyone who would watch any of the games would be proud of him I think he really set the stage for future years.
Led by Principal Mike Devoll who was at curbside with clipboard in hand, several members of the ORR faculty and staff gave the arriving seniors in their cars a memorable sendoff. Students returned textbooks and received COVID-19 kits and a Bulldog Quarantine long-sleeve t-shirt.
The first to arrive was Rochester native Abby Aldworth, 18. A former Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School student, Aldworth changed course and attended ORR for her senior year. She plans a gap year for 2020-21 and will take online courses at Bristol Community College while plotting a new direction.
I wanted to be a nurse initially, and then I kind of figured out that that wasnt the path I wanted to take, said Aldworth, who did become a certified nursing assistant and works at Sippican School.
Aldworth, who drove up with her mother Donna, graduates the same year as older sister Lindsay Aldworth, a Bristol Aggie alumna who just graduated with Bridgewater State Universitys Class of 2020.
By Mick Colageo
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