‘Il Sindaco’ takes it to the hoop for Eldo Napoli

But to his surprise, when Chapman looked over his shoulder, he saw six-foot, nine-inch sophomore center Mason Rocca ’00 closing in fast. The charging Rocca successfully blocked the shot, but broke his own wrist in the resulting collision. Nevertheless, Rocca got up, brushed himself off and finished practice without a complaint. None of his teammates even realized the star center had suffered an injury until he showed up at practice the next day with a cast.

“I think any other guy who had broken his wrist would have been sitting in the training room immediately, in some sort of visible pain,” Chapman said.

Injuries plagued Rocca for the remainder of his collegiate career, but since graduating from Princeton in 2000, he has found success in Italy Serie A, one of Europe’s top basketball leagues.

Since moving to Italy six years ago, the Evanston, Ill., native — who plays for Naples’ Eldo Napoli — has acquired unexpected fame. A quick internet search reveals 17 videos of him on youtube.com and two Wikipedia entries under his name — one in English, the other in Italian.

Last April, Rocca, or “Il Sindaco” — “The Mayor” — as his fans call him, appeared on the popular Italian daytime cooking show “La Prova del Cuoco,” where he competed with another Italian basketball player to see who could prepare the better dish.

Rocca’s circuitous route to Italian celebrity began in the fall of 1996, when he arrived on campus as a freshman. Back then, Princeton’s basketball team was a true powerhouse, consistently ranked in the top 20 in nationwide polls. The Tigers were the envy of their Ivy League competition, which they routinely beat.

When Rocca wasn’t on the sidelines nursing injuries, the lanky center showed spurts of extraordinary athleticism. In a February 1999 game against Penn, Rocca led the Tigers to an incredible comeback victory — now dubbed “The Miracle at the Palestra” — in which he scored 13 second-half points to help erase a 20-point halftime deficit. In the National Invitation Tournament the same year, he recorded an extraordinary 18 rebounds to lift Princeton past Georgetown.

Overall, Rocca shot just under 50 percent from the field in his collegiate career and was arguably the best rebounder in Princeton history. Still, incessant injuries — including two broken wrists, a strained groin, and ankle problem that required surgery his senior year and several stress fractures — prevented Rocca from ever realizing his true potential as a college center.

“I do wish I had more luck with my health at Princeton,” Rocca said. “I especially think back to my sophomore and senior years. My senior year was extremely frustrating because we had a good team, and I finally felt I was reaching my potential as a player, when I had to have ankle surgery.”

Rocca’s luck improved after graduation. In September 2000, the International Basketball League’s (IBL) Trenton Shooting Stars awarded him the last spot on their roster. Rocca excelled in the fast-paced IBL, and after a year there he was able to fulfill his dream of playing basketball in Italy, where he has family, when he was signed by Aurora Jesi, a team in Italy’s LegaDue — one step below Serie A. The American quickly adapted to European basketball, despite its different regulations and style of play. The hardest part of the transition for Rocca was getting used to the referees.

“Italian refs have a unique way of interpreting the game,” Rocca said. “Traveling, low-post defense, offensive fouls, goal-tending and intentional fouls are all called in a much different way then in the States.”

Three injury-free seasons with Jesi, combined with Rocca’s steely determination, attracted the attention of Serie A’s Eldo Napoli team, which signed him in 2004. That same year, Rocca gained Italian citizenship, making him eligible to play for the Italian National Team. He played with the national team in the 2006 World Cup in Japan, an event he considers the highlight of his basketball career so far.

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“It was an amazing experience to be representing an entire country in such a large-scale event,” Rocca said. “Italians take a lot of pride in their national teams, no matter what the sport. For such a small country, sports play a huge part in their culture. I realized that when I returned from Japan to Italy and was showered with praise from random people who said that I made them proud to be Italian by how I played.”

Though Rocca said he would jump at the chance to play in the NBA, for now, “Il Sindaco” is happy playing in Italy.