SHAPED BY EXPECTATIONS: Yorktown made Austin Fusco Syracuse’s “foxhole guy”

Fusco, who wore Frank’s No. 13, was expected to live up not only to the mantle of Yorktown but his own family. From the pressure emerged a ferocious player, loyal teammate and an emotional leader. Just like his father, brother and sister, Yorktown made Fusco.

He’s now a redshirt senior for No. 10 Syracuse, a two-time captain and wears No. 11, symbolically worn by a defender who exemplifies the leadership and dedication Fusco does. The number comes with expectations of its own, like those that have been constant in Fusco’s life.

“I really just try and stay humble with the whole thing and just not take in pressures that let it kind of crumble,” he said.

“Because it can.”

• • •

Ask about Yorktown lacrosse and you’re certain to hear about Charlie Murphy.

A former Princeton lacrosse player, Murphy, or “Mr. Murph,” moved to Yorktown in 1963, funding a lacrosse program that played its first season in 1966.

Murphy opened his home to the town, letting kids play lacrosse in the apple orchard he owned. A net fashioned from iron pipes and fittings sat near the plywood-covered back of Mr. Murph’s two-car garage for kids to play wall ball on. Quickly, the lacrosse haven became the center of the community.

The culture fostered there gives Yorktown a distinct advantage. In 53 years of existence, the Cornhuskers have won seven state championships, 40 sectional titles and fed college rosters around the country.

Murphy died in 2003 at the age of 93. Fusco and Frankie met him, though neither remembers much of the man. The house serves as a reminder of glories past. Plaques meant for the high school — state championships, All-Americans — line the walls at Mr. Murph’s house. Fusco still wears a piece of athletic tape with the initials “CM” on the facemask of his helmet.

“To Yorktown lacrosse, that’s like our church,” Frankie said. “There are guys that are just feeling weird some days or going through a tough time, they’ll come back to town, and they’ll go to Murph’s house and just hang out for a little bit and sit in the yard by themselves. And it brings them closure to sit there. It’s like a safe home for a lot of people.”

The Fusco’s moved back to Yorktown for the kids to go to high school there, Frank said. In the spring of 2010, Frankie enrolled at Yorktown for the second half of his sophomore year. Fusco began as a freshman that fall.

Now, Fusco downplays the pressure or expectations on Frankie, himself and their younger sister, Rilea, in high school. He rightly points out that the pressure didn’t come from parents.

But everyone knew Frank’s kids were coming to play lacrosse at Yorktown.

“Do I feel that Austin felt a lot of pressure and had a lot of pressure?” Frank asked rhetorically. “Yeah.”

The game of mini lacrosse ended abruptly, as the two Fusco brothers tussled on their teammate’s back lawn.

At Joey Raniolo’s house for a team dinner in 2012, the game broke out as usual. Intensity built up until Frankie ripped a shot directly at Fusco. The brothers rolled around on the back lawn. Inside, someone announced “Frankie and Austin are at it!” Pauline, the boys’ mother, stormed outside and quick as it started, the scrap ceased.

“There are plenty of times that I’ve seen the Fusco’s fight,” former SU attack and Yorktown alum Nick Mariano said. “They love each other, that’s what makes it so fun. But it’s the brotherly love. Growing up, you’re always going to butt heads, especially for those types of families where they’re so close, they’re always with each other.”

Fusco refers to the times he loses control or is feeling flustered or rattled as getting “jammed.” He’s gotten jammed plenty in his life. Fusco and Frank share the same temperament: intensely loyal, kind hearted and a long fuse.

“They simmer,” Pauline said. “They’ll take a lot before it gets to the point, but once the cap has come off, it’s blind anger. It’s scary.”

Rob Doerr, the Cornhuskers’ defensive coordinator, spent years trying to “tap into” Fusco’s emotions. They shared emotional defense-only meetings with the team. Sometimes the group cried, sometimes they raged.

Pauline remembered asking her son why he chose to play defense. “Because I like the feeling that I can dominate (the opponent) in my own way and get my job done,” he told her. “I don’t need the glory. It’s satisfying when you’re on your man and you get your job done.”

“That’s when I said to Rob Doerr,” Pauline said, “’What did you do to this kid?’”

By his junior year, Fusco mastered his emotions, in tune with himself and his team. Doerr showed Fusco to use his fervor to connect with teammates and unleash himself on the field.

When the Fusco’s German Shepherd, Polly, died in the spring of Fusco’s junior year, Fusco wouldn’t enter the house, knowing she wasn’t there, Pauline said. The grief took a toll on his play. He knew it, so he gathered his teammates in the locker room.

He apologized for not playing up to par and asked his teammates to understand, to help him through the loss. He cried. Teammates cried. The way Fusco connected is something Doerr’s never seen before.

“I wasn’t saying that at 17,” he said. “Admitting fault, admitting this, help me get through this, I’ll help you. It was — it’s an amazing thing to see.”

• • •

Everyone remembers how fast Fusco ran that day at Hofstra University. Straight up the middle of the field, stick jutting straight out, defenders hacking at his arms.

Everyone will tell you how his legs blurred as he churned upfield. And that the prior game, on a near identical play, Fusco passed to Connor Vercruysse for a goal. And about the goosebumps they get thinking about the fact he didn’t.

Seemingly the whole town of Yorktown came to see the 2014 Class B state championship game against Jamesville-DeWitt.

Pauline watched Fusco immediately get off the bus and hug Frank. Frankie tapped the keg and raised a block “Y” flag for the alumni tailgate by 9 a.m. Rilea sat down in the student section amid the celebration after Fusco’s goal, overwhelmed. Fusco tackled Doerr immediately after the game. Everyone shares some small piece of the day that team and that play became immortal. It is Yorktown canon, like the name Fusco.

Doerr calls Fusco a “foxhole guy.” He led one historic lacrosse program to a championship and, now at SU, is trying to lead another one to the promised land. The pressure that could’ve made him crumble pushed him to become all he is today. Looking back, it was inevitable.

“It kind of feels like it now,” Fusco said. “That’s where I was meant to be.”

Main photo by TJ Shaw | Staff Photographer