Word: pellegrini
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...might ask. Was he injured? On probation? No. The saga of Joe Pellegrini's layoff begins at the end of his junior year, when Pellegrini--who also competed in track and field at Harvard--started throwing the discus at a world-class standard. He was invited to work out under the tutelage of a German coach for the next year. Pellegrini began to entertain thoughts of making a trip to Moscow for the 1980 Olympics. He decided to accept the offer to train in Europe...
...Pellegrini first went to Coach Joe Restic, on whose team he had been a two-year starter, and explained his decision. He left thinking he had an understanding with the coach that he would be allowed back on the team when he returned...
...next two years helped form what it is now almost a motto with the lineman: politics should stay out of sports. Not only did President Carter end Pellegrini's Olympic dreams because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but Restic refused to invite his former starter back to training camp for the 1981 season because of a policy that prevents players who take a year off from returning to the football team...
...Olympic boycott did affect Pellegrini, who qualified for the U.S. trials, but he feels other athletes who had trained for years were the real sufferers "for a meaningless political show of strength." He had football to fall back on, or so he thought...
Restic didn't budge from his decision even when a delegation of Pellegrini's teammates went to the coach. "Mr. John P. Reardon [athletic director] told me to wait a couple of weeks for Restic to change his mind," Pellegrini remembers, "but by that time I was hurt and frustrated and just wouldn't have wanted to play...