This column was originally printed in the Dec. 25, 2012 edition of The Mercury.

FAIRVIEW VILLAGE — A.J. Maida is just like every other coach when it comes to keeping an eye on his area’s youth programs and an ear open for any talk about an up-and-coming wrestling wonder.

The veteran Methacton coach never really saw nor heard anything special about Dan Damato other than his first love was baseball. So he didn’t exactly roll out any special welcome mat when the freshman lightweight strolled into his practice room three years ago.

Sure enough, Damato’s contributions — at least in the win-loss column — were few and far between that first season as his 1-10 record obviously revealed. Improving to a modest 9-24 — including a quick exit from the Section Three Tournament the following season — surely didn’t convince Maida he had a very resourceful starter for another two years, either.

Especially after Damato went down with an injury to begin his junior year.

But Maida wouldn’t rid his wrestling room of Damato, or exchange or trade his now senior middleweight — and his .500 record — for anyone else.

“Dan is the guy you want out front in your program,” Maida explained. “He works extremely hard.

“He’s also part of our Leadership Program here at Methacton, part of a select group. He has so many positives, has such a great influence on his peers. He has such a great influence on kids on our team, too, and everyone enjoys having him around because of that.”

Whatever natural skills Damato lacks on the wrestling mat he certainly makes up for with those leadership skills … and his perfect if not exemplary 4.0 grade-point average off the mat.

It’s the dedication, and the commitment, that separates him from so many.

“It doesn’t matter what he is doing, he gives you everything he has,” Maida said. “He hasn’t wrestled all his life like a lot of the other wrestlers we have. But he’s continued to work at it, and now he’s had a better start than he’s ever had.”

And even though it’s a ho-hum sort of start — an even split of his 10 bouts going into the Christmas break — it speaks volumes about his work ethic that was undermined a year ago by not just one but two potentially career-ending injuries.

During the second day of practice, while working out with teammate Paul Russo, Damato was taken down to the mat and felt pain in his shoulder.

“I was told I had a subluxation (partial dislocation) of my collarbone,” Damato explained. “I had a gap between my collarbone and shoulder. It definitely hurt at first, but I thought it was getting better.”

Not quite as fast as he would’ve liked. And the only fix was rest, a lot of it.

“I missed a month,” Damato said. “All I could do was ride the bike, that’s it. I kept thinking I was OK, but I couldn’t get clearance (to return to wrestling).”

Damato got back on the mats the first week of January, participated in a junior varsity tournament, then returned to the starting lineup a few days later. Like a year earlier, though, he hardly broke a sweat before being eliminated from the sectional.

But Damato was back in the practice room immediately, even with the spring baseball season all but ready to open.

And that’s when he felt some pain in his back.

“It was killing me,” he recalled.

Back he went to the doctors, who scheduled X-rays and an MRI and gave him a diagnosis he didn’t want to hear — he had a pars fracture in his lower back.

According to a medical source, the most common cause of lower back pain in young athletes is a stress fracture in one of the bones (vertebrae) that make up the spinal column. The condition is called spondylolysis, and if the stress fracture weakens the bone so much that it is unable to maintain its proper position, the vertebra can begin to shift out of place, creating a condition called spondylolisthesis. And if the slippage occurs, bones begin to press on nerves, and surgery may be necessary.

Again, rest … and a lot of it.
“I missed the whole PAC-10 baseball season until the playoffs,” Damato said. “I still wasn’t 100 percent, and then I had to wear a brace to play baseball during the summer.

“I wasn’t thinking about my shoulder anymore, but maybe my back a little bit. My shoulder was completely fine and my back eventually was OK, it’s just that it was on my mind sometimes.”

Damato got a lot of support from his parents, Dan and Shawna Damato, from his teammates and especially from Maida.

And he was back in the wrestling room, as physically and mentally ready, as anyone when the current season opened back in November.

“Dan would’ve wrestled with (the back injury last year) if it wasn’t medically serious,” Maida remarked. “He just never complains. You’d never know about (any injury) because he always says he’s good to go.

“Like I said, he gives you everything he has. Our wrestling program is better today because he’s been part of it.”