Mazzucco Honored by Phillylacrosse.com
Swarthmore's Mazzucco has grown into key role
By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 4/11
Swarthmore College senior captain Frank Mazzucco said he began playing goalie as a fifth-grader because there wasn’t much else for someone who was pegged “too fat and slow to play anything else.”
“My friends always make fun of me,” he added. “I played defense and middie for 
a while, but I was awful and the coach made me move to goalie.
“But I definitely wouldn’t be playing in college if I played anything else.”
The chubby boy from Redding, Conn., has shed the pounds and staved off even a lot more shots for the Garnet.
Mazzucco, a four-year starter and two-year captain, recently was named Centennial Conference Defensive Player of the Week and leads the conference in save percentage (.631).
Mazzucco’s academic accomplishments are even more impressive. He earned The Inquirer Men’s Lacrosse Academic Performer of the Year and the ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District honors last year.
He sports a
3.8 GPA and is planning to teach English in Vietnam for a year after graduation. This has earned Mazzucco the Wapner Newman Collegiate Student-Athlete of the Week.
“I decided to do this to get some good international experience,” he said of teaching in Vietnam. “It will be great to live somewhere else.”
Right now his Swarthmore teammates are glad he lives in Media. Mazzucco is a major reason the team is 6-5 and he was brilliant in a recent 4-3 triumph over McDaniel when he turned aside 16 shots.
“Our defense played well overall and a lot of the shots they were taking were not that good,” Mazzucco said. “They made it very easy for me.”
“Playing in a league that has four of the top 25 teams in the nation (in Division III) is a challenge. The conference is really competitive.”
And they won’t be telling Frank Mazzucco he’s too fat to play.