NOTE: The Senior Close-Up is a frequent feature on the Bard Athletics web site, with the focus being the life of a student-athlete at Bard. Here, every student must complete a Senior Project to graduate. The Senior Project is an original, individual, focused project growing out of the student’s cumulative academic experiences. Preparation begins in the junior year, and one course each semester in the senior year is devoted entirely to the Senior Project. The student submits the completed project to a committee of three professors and participates with them in a Senior Project Review.
By Jim Sheahan
Bard College Sports Information Director
Christian Marghella has never been one to worry about academics.
By the time he was a junior at tiny St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Mass., his study habits were well established. Academics came first. They always have and they still do today.
Second on his list of priorities has always been basketball. In his youth, Marghella enjoyed nothing but success, including an undefeated season (27-0) he enjoyed as a member of the team at St. Mark’s in his junior year.
“One day I knew sports was going to end for me,” said Marghella, who made this realization while in high school. “Relying on brains is a much better plan.”
So it was academics – and basketball – that drew him to Bard. Historically, Bard has not been a successful basketball team, however, so his choice had specific intent.
“It was a new challenge, obviously,” said Marghella, referring to the basketball program. “I think it says something about you if you enter a struggling program and try to turn it around. You can say you were there at a crucial point in the athletic program when it changed; in the future when we’re winning, you can say you had a hand it changing it.”
“In the midst of four tough years Christian has continued to see and believe in the greatness that lies ahead,” Bard men’s basketball coach Adam Turner said. “He has been through it all in his four years here. The fact that he is the lone senior in a class that originally featured seven players says everything you need to know about his fortitude and persistence.”
In the first semester of his freshman year, Marghella learned an important lesson – one he tries to impart to freshmen members of the current basketball team.
“I started out as an economics major, and I was taking classes that really didn’t interest me,” Marghella said. “I didn’t think it would make a difference, but by second semester when I was choosing classes that had topics I was really interested in, it made it a lot easier to get the work done. It makes a huge difference.”
Now, he’s a history major. His Senior Project is a paper about how the United States is like the Roman Empire, and that a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for the rest of the world.
“There’s a lot of literature on it,” Marghella said. “Whether it’s political or military, there are plenty of angles to argue. I’ve not run into any road blocks or a shortage of material so far. They want a lot of primary sources.”
He plans to either enter law school or grad school in the future; in grad school he would pursue a degree in health care management.
“Everyone asks me if I’m going to become a teacher, and I am definitely not going to become a teacher,” Marghella said. “I just enjoy studying history.”
He is a starter on the Bard men’s basketball team for the fourth straight season, and he’s one of the captains. He finds that having to structure his studying time around the demands of being on the basketball team is actually good for his grade point average.
“I don’t know if it’s just me, but academically I’ve always done better in-season,” Marghella said. “In my sophomore year I was injured and missed almost the whole season. I had so much time on my hands I kind of struggled because I just didn’t balance things well.”
Marghella’s parents, Mario and Jane, never questioned their son’s desire to attend Bard and have supported his athletic endeavors as well. He grew up in Closter, N.J.
“They’ve been more than happy,” Marghella said. “They know I’m getting a great education, and the sports is a bonus.”
