Headline:  With goals in mind
      McKersie fights hard for a future
 
By Bill Brophy
 
     J.P. McKersie tugged on his white turtleneck right about at the spot
where the Boston University hockey logo is located.  A friend suggested to
him that he get that BU paraphernalia washed so he could show it off for the
television crew that was coming to talk to him the next day.
 
     McKersie smiled broadly.  It's a smile the TV crew will like.  It's a
smile his friends and family in Madison have welcomed these past few weeks.
 
     "I'm from Wisconsin, but BU's my schoo now," McKersie said.  "That's
where I played hockey and that's where I want to go back to school and play
hockey again."
 
     McKersie looked nothing like you would expect, given that he was in
intensive care three months ago after his bicycle collided with a car.  If
you expected to see someone who speaks softly and carries a big cane,
instead you got a fresh face with an attitude, not much different from the
upbeat, eager University of Wisconsin hockey players he skated with Wednesday.
 
     It is hockey that keeps J.P. McKersie going through rehabilitation to
work his way back from a serious brain injury.  Five weeks ago, he checked
into Meriter Hospital's day rehabilitation center and couldn't stand on one
foot.  Next Sunday, McKersie plans to be on the ice with his BU teammates
when they raise the Hockey East championship banner in Boston.
 
     I've gone through some bad things the last few months," said McKersie,
a former Madison West High School athlete who became an all-America
goaltender in Boston.  "Five weeks ago I came in here and couldn't lift a
dumbbell with my right hand.  Now I'm doing curls.  I couldn't balance
myself.  Now I'm jumping up and down.  I feel I only have blue skies in
front of me.:
 
     Sue Schmitt is McKersie's physical therapist.  She is impressed with
his attitude and his sense of humor.  She is one of a lot folks at Meriter
and at University Hospital, where McKersie had rehab earlier in the summer,
who is pulling for the 21-year-old to put the goalie pads on again.
 
     "He has a ways to go, but it would be great for a lot of us around here
to see him make it back too," Schmitt  said.
 
     She is one of many hard workers who teach people in rehabilitation
speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy.  They help people
train the brain again to do things like shut the refrigerator door or tuck
in their shirt.  Those are things that McKersie is learning now, not four
months after he was making kick saves as one of the best goaltenders at the
U.S. Olympic Festival.
 
     "I think he has progressed further and faster than we thought he
would," Schmitt said.  "In the back of your mind, you want him to get back,
because he wants it so bad.  But he had so much balance and coordination
defecits, I had to wonder if that was really going to happen.  We had to
tell him the possibilty exists that he won't make it back.  So he knows."
 
     But McKersie is strong-willed.  He has done things that folks told him
he wouldn't be able to do after the accident.  He went to the Badgers hockey
game with Denver as a spectator Friday.  His next goal is to get back to
classes at BU in January and complete the two semesters needed for a degree
in business administration.  With doctor's permission, he also would like to
be on the ice regularly by then.
 
     "That's my biggest goal - to put the pads on and feel the leather
against my skin," McKersie said.  "I know I won't be able to start where I
left off because everyone tells me I had a good junior year.  But I want to
get i there and have people fire their hardest shots at me.  The doctors say
I can't be expected to practice full-go until July.  But I want to be ready
to go."
 
     McKersie says he doesn't remember a thing about the accident that
occurred in the early morning of July 28.  He was riding his bike home from
Cheers, a bar near the BU campus where he worked as a bouncer.  He was a
cyclist, without a helment, that night because someone had stolen his car
earlier in the summer.  And when a motorist collided with McKersie's bike,
his plans for the summer and dreams for a future National Hockey League
career with the Dallas Stars were detoured.
 
     The call came to Marie McKersie in Madison around 4 a.m.  The message
was that her son was about to undergo brain surgery and that things didn't
look good.  He had a fractured skull and damage to his lungs.
 
     He spent a week in intensive care in a Boston hospital.  Thanks to the
financial support of many people in Madison and New England - including ESPN
announcer Sean McDonough - McKersie was flown back to University Hospital to
start rehabilitation.  He has spent the last five weeks at Meriter.
 
     Mark Strobel, a UW player who played with McKersie on a high school
all-star team, saw the goalie in August.
 
     "At that time he was having trouble remembering much of anything;  he
was almost in a vegative stage,"  Strobel said.  "We just talked hockey and
tried to get his spirits up.
 
     But now he's positive he's going to play again.  He showed what a real
fighter he is."
 
     Today, McKersie talks about his life with a scar over and under his
right eye and a plate in his left arm.  His physical therapy discovered a
weakness in his right knee that was not discovered after the accident.  But
McKersie still needs surgery to repair a posterior cruciate ligament.  After
what he has been through, that's not a big deal.
 
     Before that night I took a lot of things for granted," McKersie said.
"I thought I had life by the throat.  I thought I had an answer for
everything and had no problems.  But a lot of that was taken away from me by
being in the wrong place at the wrong second of my life.
 
     "I have learned to take nothing for granted, because things can be
taken away in a second.  I'm positive I'm going to get those things back.
It's just going to take more time."
 
     McKersie won 19 games last season and was named to the second-team all
America team for a BU squad that made it to the National Championship game.
McKersie remembers little of this.  Slowly his memory is coming back.  When
he started his day rehabilitation five weeks ago, he scored 28 percent on a
memory test.  He said it was up to 80 percent last week.
 
     McKersie said, "It's frustrating because there are parts of my life I
don't remember and those parts are the things that make me who I am."
 
     They come via stories from friends and family.  They come from watching
a videotape of BU teammates - a gift from a Boston television crew that
visited Madison last week to do a three-part series on McKersie's rehab.
And they come from watching tapes of past games.
 
     One of McKersie's favorites was the night two winters ago at the
Bradley Center in Milwaukee, when he played the key role in BU's win over
Wisconsin in the championship game of the Badger Showdown before more than
18,000 fans.
 
     "I didn't remember it right away, but when I saw a tape everything came
back to me - the fans, the crowd, saves," McKersie said.  "It was like a
flash of lightning hit me in the head.  It was one of the best games I've
played.  To defeat the Badgers, the team I watched growing up, was a dream
for me."
 
     McKersie's dream has changed.  He has little goals.  This week's
milestone will be returning to Boston Thursday.  Then it's meeting with his
old coaches and teammates.
 
     "I can hardly wait to show them I'm at 11 percent body fat, because
they used to always tell me how fat I was," said McKersie, a 185-pounder who
has regained 15 of the 45 pounds he lost after the accident.  He also plans
to buy another bike - and a helmet.
 
     "You bet, I've learned that," McKersie said.  "I see people now riding
around without a helmet and I'll roll down the car window and yell at them
to get a helmet.  If they have time, I'll tell them what happened to me."
 
     McKersie laughs when he says he was lucky to be a goalie, a guy used to
getting shots to the head.  He talks a lot about hockey and never
acknowledges that he won't be able to wear a Terriers uniform again.
 
     "I have a lot of time to get my life in order.  I've got support from
people I don't even know, which is overwhelming to me.  When I'm down, I
think of all the support and I know I don't want to fail them or myself.
 
     "My body hasn't failed me yet.  I don't plan on letting it fail me now."
 
---------------------------------------------------------
 
Good Luck J.P.!!!