Holy Spirit’s Pat D’Arcy didn’t stop until reaching ultimate goal of winning a state championship

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher When Pat D’Arcy won the Region 8 title at 126 pounds, he didn’t leap into the air or the arms of his coach, pointing his finger skyward. He didn’t even crack a smile. He simply gathered his warmup gear from coaches Ralph Paolone and Mtume Goodrum and trotted off the mat. He had work to do. Winning another region title was great, but not D’Arcy’s ultimate goal. He was focused on winning his first state championship the following weekend at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. D’Arcy, a senior at Holy Spirit High School, had spent the better part of his 18 years of life dreaming about winning a state title. In February, he said, doubts started creeping into those dreams. What if he finished second again, like he did last year when he lost the 113-pound title to Bergen Catholic’s Nick Suriano? Was the strict diet, all the hard work in the wrestling room, all the traveling to high-level tournaments, all the sacrifices he had to make, worth it? How would he be remembered if he didn’t win a state title? Would he be remembered? Or would it be more like, “Oh, yeah, Pat D’Arcy. Good wrestler, had a great career but never won the big one. It’s a shame, really.” He decided there was only one way to avoid that — go out and win a state title, no matter what the odds, no matter who was standing in his way. His confidence may have wavered slightly, but that lasted about as long as most of his regular-season matches. Pat D’Arcy knew he had what it took to become a state champion, and he had one last shot to prove it. Final countdown After the region tournament, the hours ticked down to D’Arcy’s final shot at a coveted state title. He and Paolone had a game plan, to take each match at states one at a time. It’s a time-honored cliche, but Paolone didn’t want D’Arcy looking ahead, especially in a weight class that was littered with state placewinners and featured a pair of nationally ranked wrestlers. D’Arcy, who finished third in the state as a sophomore and second as a junior, celebrates his state championship by leaping into the arms of Spartans head coach Ralph Paolone. “That was kind of a bitter pill to swallow. I made up my mind at the end of that season, I didn’t want to have that bitter taste in my mouth at the end of a season anymore. So I came back stronger the next couple of years,” D’Arcy said. “I wasn’t used to missing out on the state tournament. And the fact that I was sitting home watching wrestlers that I knew I could compete with, watching them go on and have success in Atlantic City, that really got me motivated and made me want to take my game to the next level. I did a lot of lifting. I wanted to make sure I was going to be a big 106-pounder the next year. I worked on my technique, went to different clubs and got a bunch of different training partners. I made sure I was ready going into my sophomore year.” “It’s great to see him just grow and mature,” Goodrum said. “His freshman year, he was about 90 pounds, so to see him physically grow and mentally grow, it’s a beautiful thing to have these guys develop from being 13 or 14 years old to seeing them develop into men and moving on to the next stage of their life.” Paolone said there is nobody who can out-work D’Arcy in the wrestling room. The coach even tore his bicep last year rolling around on the mats with D’Arcy trying to get his prize pupil prepared for the state tournament. “We get to the room every day and we run 20 minutes before practice, and he’s sprinting. I mean, flat-out sprinting the whole time,” Paolone said. “People can’t keep up with him, and that’s the way Mac was. He worked tirelessly in the room, and when he finished he lifted, he went to Shore Thing wrestling club. If you want to win a state title, you work harder than everybody else.” “Wrestling is a humbling sport. You always have to be working hard, you always have to be on your game and ready for the next match because someone is going to knock you off,” D’Arcy said. “You have to be ready to go the next match. That’s kind of the philosophy I’ve taken this whole season, and my whole career. I try to wrestle every match like it’s the state finals.” Staying humble What makes D’Arcy such a special student-athlete at the high school level is he sees the bigger picture. He knows the lessons he has learned about discipline and hard work from wrestling are the building blocks for his future. Those are the attributes that helped him get into Princeton University, where he plans to spend the next four years of his life. He also understands that in order to become a state champion, you have to have a ton of support from those around you. Following his state championship win, he was quick to heap praise not only on his coaches and everyone who trained him throughout his career, but also his parents, Pat and Pam D’Arcy. In a sense, they have dedicated their lives to him, dad making sure he stuck to his strict diet, mom making sure his laundry was done so that he would have the time he needed to dedicate to wrestling as well as his academics. “My coaches are so dedicated. I’ve known coach Ralph for such a long time and he’s always helping me out. Coach Mtume is a highly decorated wrestler from Absegami,” D’Arcy said. “Being able to wrestle for them, they are so supportive, they dedicate their time and put so much effort into it. That’s probably been the best part of my high school career. “They do everything for me,” D’Arcy said of his parents. “I have a great supporting cast. My dad is basically my nutritionist, makes me all my breakfasts and cooks me all my meals, he’s got it down to a T. My mom, she does my laundry, she cooks dinner. They pay to send me to Holy Spirit and all the extra training at clubs. And my coaches are so dedicated, so it’s all the supporting cast.” D’Arcy said it hasn’t been easy to be a highly competitive wrestler and also make the kinds of grades that get you into the Ivy League, but his mantra always has been that if you want it bad enough, it can be done. “It’s definitely a balancing act. You have to set a schedule and be disciplined enough to follow it. You have to know when to train, when to do your school work, and just take pride in everything you do. If you’re going to do something, do it to the best of your ability,” D’Arcy said. “It’s great to be able to parlay wrestling into an Ivy League education. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. “It’s not easy, but if you want to be the best you have to out-work everybody else. There’s just no other way to do it. You have to put the time in. You have to put in the extra lifts. When you’re in the practice room you have to work as hard as you can. At the end of the day, it’s only you who knows if you have worked your hardest.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]