Impact Of A Scholarship: Jen Cugini

The former Jennifer Lovecchio, Jennifer Cugini, wasn't even supposed to come to the University of Maryland. But the former walk-on would fight and persevere to become a two-time team captain and help lead the Terps to a Sweet 16 appearance.

"I grew up in South Jersey," says Cugini. "I was supposed to go to Lehigh. So in my senior year of high school, I took official visits to Maryland, Lehigh, Rutgers, and American. But the head coaches at Lehigh and Rutgers were either fired or changed out that year.

"So, Maryland recruited me at the Jefferson Cup in the spring leading up to my senior year, which is kind of late. Kerry D[ziczkaniec] was at the tournament and came up to me after the game. I already thought I was going to Lehigh. But Lehigh's coach got fired, and my trainer for my club team told me, 'If Maryland comes up to you and wants you to go to Maryland, you go to Maryland.' And I'm like, 'OK, I know.'

"So, I changed my mind about Lehigh and chose Maryland."

However, that decision didn't come without one big hurdle for Lovecchio and her family.

"I was not offered a scholarship to come to Maryland," recalled Cugini. "So, my freshman year was an eye-opener. Because at Lehigh, a Patriot League school, I would have had a really high scholarship. At Maryland, not so much. 

"And when I came in my freshman year, I realized why. Because they had Val Lawrence, Carly Viher, Sally Harrison, Lindsay Givens … all four of them were freshmen my senior year of high school, so they weren't going to offer me money when I was also a defender coming in with the likes of them in the Maryland back line, which I didn't realize that. And they were Shannon's first class. She developed them into like a solid backline."

Cugini didn't let competition deter her. She did what she always did and still does - she put in the work. The results weren't immediate, and there were setbacks along the way, but in the end, everything was worth more than what she put in.

"So my freshman year, I didn't play much," said Cugini. "It was a hard freshman year. The whole hard reality of 'Holy crap, I did so well in high school and on my club team, and now I'm at Maryland, and I'm not seeing the field.'

"My sophomore year, I redshirted, and it just so happened that that season, unfortunately, all of those other defenders except for Givens went out with knee injuries.

"When I entered my junior year, there was a spot, and that's when the scholarship came. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was definitely not an easy road to get to a scholarship.

But when I earned the scholarship, obviously, it felt more like I had to work for it."

Cugini would start 17 of the 31 matches during the 2002 and 2003 seasons, but her redshirt senior season in 2004 stands out for multiple reasons.

"I had a couple of tears in my knee before the big one in the preseason of my fifth year," recalled Cugini. "We were in preseason, scrimmaging each other, and I slid into Anna Sheveland, and my PCL tore off of my shin. It was disgusting. It was an awful injury.

"And then when they did the MRI, they confirmed it was a torn PCL, which was not that common for soccer like the ACLs they see all the time. Doctor Bennett was the team doctor at the time, and he told me this isn't something that we fix, and you go back, and you play. 

"The PCL just keeps your knee from hyper-extending. So he said I can wear a brace that stopped my knee from hyper-extending. But, he also said, if I do that, I was most likely going to tear **** up by playing with the brace. But, if I want to play, it was an option."

After coming so far, Cugini wasn't about to let anything stand in her way, including advice from her head coach.

"I remember going to the Cirovski house for a preseason BBQ they used to have, and Shannon said to me, 'You know, J-Lo, you still have a life to live after soccer. And you can still serve as captain and just stay on our bench, and you don't have to do this.'

"And of course, I'm 21, going to be 22, and say 'No. I can do this.' So I played with it, and I knew when the season was over that Dr. Bennett was going to fix it all. Whatever I damaged, he was going to fix."

Not only did she play in 2004, but Cugini also played the most minutes of any Terrapin player, starting all 20 matches while playing 1,826 (the most on the team) of a possible 1,925 total minutes. Along the way, Cugini anchored a backline that posted seven shutouts, including a 1-0 blanking of No. 2-seed Penn State in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

"I was only a game player," said Cugini. "I didn't practice at all; I couldn't practice. I did walk-throughs, but I didn't really practice. I just played in the games, and somehow I made it through the season."

That magical season saw the Terps make the third round of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1996, but a 1-0 loss at Washington ended Maryland's run and Cugini's Terrapin career.

"It's a shame because I think we could have won," said Cugini. "We lost 1-0 and they only scored when they kicked the ball out of Nikki's [Resnick] hand. To the point where I believe it, she hurt her fingers after that kick."

Even though the season and her career ended in Seattle on November 20, Cugini still had more work to put in.

"Right after that, I remember getting the phone call from Dr. Bennett that the cadaver with the PCL replacement was ready," said Cugini. "They scheduled my surgery for December 8. It was awful and the rehab was just brutal."

But the work she put in on the training field with the 120s and extra fitness paid off, not just in the physical rehab, but with the mental side. But that didn't mean it was easy sailing for Cugini from there.

"I wanted to go to the police academy," said Cugini, who majored in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Maryland. "I had my knee surgery in December, and I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the Academy when I can't even walk. 

"Dr. Bennett had to do another surgery in February to bend my knee because I was non-weight bearing straight legs for two months. So he did another surgery to bend it and then we did another surgery to clean it up."

After three surgeries, Cugini was finally ready to take the next step. She just wasn't sure what that next step was precisely.

"I knew I wanted to do something with law enforcement, but I really didn't know what," said Cugini. "I really did not think I wanted to be a uniformed police officer. But when I graduated, I really wanted to stay in Maryland because I fell in love with Maryland. I felt at home in Maryland. So the only way to stay in Maryland to me, which was kind of crazy, was to be a Baltimore City police officer. So, that's what I did.

"Exactly one year after my big surgery where I could not even walk, and I credit Maryland and my experience with sports there for being able to get through the rehab because that was just brutal, I graduated from the police academy. I didn't think I was going to do that."

Cugini credits her experiences as a Terrapin student-athlete for getting her through.

"The mental toughness that Maryland gives its athletes can't even be explained. You want to explain what playing a sport at Maryland does for you, but it's not really possible unless you've gone through it."

Cugini would spend a year with the Baltimore City Police Department before taking the next step in her journey. After that, she started thinking of other possibilities in the law enforcement industry, including working in the federal government or a prosecutor's office.

"After that year I went to graduate school to get my Master of Science in criminal intelligence at St. Joseph's in Philadelphia, because once I was on patrol in Baltimore I wasn't sure that was right for me."

While at St. Joe's, Cugini met her husband, Edward, who owns a construction company in New Jersey, and her life "flipped upside down."

But, around that time, Cugini also got a call to interview at the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office. "It all fell into place."

Or it would seem.

"When I got the job with Atlantic County, they wouldn't take my out-of-state police waiver, so I had to go through another Academy," said Cugini. "So Dr. Bennett had to do another surgery, because that Academy was on the beach, and I didn't know how I was going to run on soft sand. So when Dr. Bennett did another surgery for me, it felt like my life at Maryland still knocks at my door every once in a while as a reminder."

After starting as an agent, Cugini went into intelligence, then crimes against children and was on a task force with the FBI, and now is a sergeant in litigation.

"I'm responsible for a number of detectives and clerical staff to make sure they are able to do their jobs," Cugini explained to southjersey.com. "We answer to a chief assistant prosecutor and grand jury prosecutors. We make sure files are ready for indictment and trials. So, whatever they need from the police departments in the county to have files ready for trials and grand juries. I'm in the position of selecting detectives under me to go handle investigations."

Cugini's life with her family, including two daughters, seems distant at times from the one she knew in College Park.

"The people that I'm surrounded by in my home life and my husband's friends, none of them have any idea those 24 years of Jen before they knew Jen," she said. "So, when I talk about it's almost like a whole other life. It's like this is take two and that helped me with this life, but it's like two separate lives by two separate people."

But going back and revisiting her previous life is as easy as looking at a photo on her desk for Cugini.

"You know, for me, my teammates were and are everything. At my desk at work, I have a photo from my wedding, which was 13 years ago, and my Bridal Party was Audra Poulin, Jen Biscoe, Simone Dekker, Mel Anderson, Katie Ludwig, Danielle Malagari, Mallory Mahar, and Courtney Beirne."

More than wins or losses, those relationships mean everything to Cugini.

"The soccer part was great, but the friendships and the people mean the most. We all still keep in touch, which is not as easy because we all have kids," said Cugini. "The friendships, by far, are what mean the most. There's nothing like that because of what we all went through together. We can sit there and tell stories of the 120s and the beep test like it was yesterday because it was all stuff we went through as a unit together. That's the bond."

The other thing Cugini is most grateful for is her scholarship because of not only what it meant to her but to her parents.

"I felt bad for my parents," she said. "We were very middle class. It's not like my parents couldn't have used any help financially that I could get, and I carried a little bit of guilt.

"They were paying for everything, and I could have chosen another school where they wouldn't have had to pay so much, but I wanted to go to Maryland, so getting the scholarship wasn't even just for me. I couldn't wait to make the phone call to my parents and say, 'Guess what? …'

"We have spoken about it since, and it's the same thing for them. They know how hard I had to work to earn a scholarship, so they appreciated it more too, but I was so happy to call my parents and tell them because I have a sister who's three years older, and they were paying for both of us to go to school."

But there was something else that earning the scholarship meant to Cugini.

"There was the feeling of, 'OK, thankfully all of it paid off.' Working as hard as I did paid off, literally. And I couldn't be more grateful."