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Rice, 24, grew up in the town of Newburgh and was an all-state offensive lineman at Cornwall High School. He was recruited and offered scholarships by several schools, but he chose to stay close to home at Marist.
“The coaches were great; I liked the smaller classes, and I wasn’t sure my 18-year-old self was responsible enough to go to class,” he said with a laugh. “So I ended up 20 miles from my house.”
In 2016, he reinjured an injury to his right shoulder while lifting weights. He had an operation at a local hospital that he thought would fix the problem. But then, during a football practice in his senior year at Marist, he was hit in the arm.
“I knew right away it was hurt again,” he recalled. “I tried to play through the pain, but I made it through just a game and a half. I was almost playing with one arm,” he says. As a left tackle, trying to stop very big men from crushing his quarterback, one arm wasn’t enough, even for the 6-foot-5, 300-pound Rice.
He went to see his team physician, Dr. Jeremy Mangion, an orthopedic surgeon at MidHudson Regional Hospital, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network. Mangion holds a sub-specialty certification in orthopedic surgery sports medicine and serves as the team physician for the athletic department at Marist, as well as other area colleges.
Continue reading how Rice transitioned from the football field to a career in law enforcement via Advancing Care in the Hudson Valley.
