Boys Basketball: Multiple injuries, death of a loved one, but Elia Malara stays resilient

HOLMDEL - No one will ever question Elia Malara’s resiliency.

Then again, not everyone has endured a whirlwind of chaos over the last couple years as Malara has gone through.

There was the right ACL injury that robbed Malara of his 2017 high school boys basketball season at St. John Vianney. He didn’t get cleared to play again until last July and was ready to have a breakout season this year for the Lancers, only to be hobbled by a torn left labrum.

But for Malara, 18, the ordeal with injuries was relatively insignificant compared to the loss he suffered last Christmas.

LOSING A LOVE ONE

Malara’s father, Elia Sr., passed away at the age of 59 on Dec. 26, the day after he suffered a heart attack at home on Christmas morning surrounded by his wife and several of his four children. He was a property manager for condos and co-ops in Brooklyn.

“It was a very traumatic day for us all,” said Elia Malara, who learned CPR in a high school class, and followed instructions from a 911 operator to try and revive his father. “I just remember everyone, the police officers and the paramedics coming in and out and then going to the hospital.''

The healing process

St. John Vianney boys basketball coach Ryan Finch said he had known Elia Malara for many years because he played in the many AAU camps that Finch ran for the Neptune-based Hoop Group.

Finch got the St. John Vianney boys basketball job in 2016, and Malara transferred from Marlboro to St. John Vianney that school year.

“I didn’t know he transferred to St. John Vianney until the day of my interview, and I saw him in the hallway,” Finch said. “Unfortunately, he tore his (right) ACL about two weeks before the 2016-2017 season and missed that entire basketball season.”

Malara's bond with his teammates grew. They turned out en masse to his father's funeral.

“I had no clue they were coming and that meant a lot to me to have them there. I had my team, family and friends to support me,” Malara said. “I had taken the week off after my father died. I took it day by day. I didn’t look too far forward in the future. I tried not to dwell too much on it. My best memories of my dad are him watching me play basketball and going up to him after the game and listening to him tell me how I did.”

Getting back on the basketball court

Malara, a 6-foot-4 senior forward, would return to the St. John Vianney basketball team for much of the 2018 portion of the Lancers' basketball schedule.

He would finished the season averaging 6.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.4 steals per game. Finch said he knew Malara was a fighter in the inspirational sense, and he got his confirmation rather quickly.

“Elia Malara had shown up to our third game in the 2017 Neptune Holiday Jubilee (one day after his father was buried). He had on a shirt and tie and was there to support his teammates,” Finch said. “Elia Malara was then back in action a little bit after the new year.”

Elia would finish the 2017-2018 season with a torn left labrum and had surgery following the season to repair it. If a torn ACL and his father’s death hadn’t stop his ability to bounce back, this shoulder injury wouldn’t either, according to his mother, Kathleen.

“He’s got determination. He’s got focus. He’s not afraid of a challenge,” said Kathleen Malara, 56, who worked with her husband. “He embraces it. He learns from it. He’s a fighter.”

Embracing the future

Elia Malara has three sisters — Kathleen, 33, Christine, 32, and Julia, 29 — and two nieces, Isabella, 4, and Victoria, who are the children of Christine and brother-in-law Aldo.

Although the patriarch of the Malara family has been laid to rest, the vibrant spirit of the Malara family remains, according to Kathleen Malara.

“His father had it and embodied that it in all of them. They (our children) are all fighters. They are all contenders. They all will not give up,” Kathleen Malara said. “They all accept their faults and they embrace them and they learn from them.”

As Malara now focuses on finishing up his senior year at St. John Vianney and graduating on June 2, he’s got a lot of life ahead of him, including preparing to play basketball in college.

He said he often reflects on how much stronger of a person he’s become through the multiple injuries he has suffered and the loss of his father.

“I have a lot of memories still. I was very close with him. In car rides we would talk, listen to music or joke around with each other. We were both very comical and had good sense of humors with each other. My mom will say she sees some of him in me,” Malara said. “At first it was hard to look back on memories.

"My message to others going through similar obstacles is this: At the beginning it is going to seem impossible. But have people there to support you because you have to continue on.”

Staff Writer Sherlon Christie: schristie@gannettnj.com

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