He was a shortstop, sure.

A three-sport standout at Buckingham, Brown & Nichols—a high school one errant cut-off throw away from Harvard Stadium—and won league MVP as a junior, hitting .478 to beat out teammate Zak Farkes.

But for the baseball player, the real story wouldn’t begin on the diamond.

It would start, in fact, right after his best season ended; right after scouts and schools tried pulling him in half.

It began with a football game, of all things. With a sport he wouldn’t play in college, and an innocent-looking kick-off he was fatefully asked to defend.

Why?

Blame chance. Blame luck and the odds, if you have to.

Up until this point, the baseball player had done everything but line up on special teams, playing middle linebacker, tight end, running back, and fullback, depending on the set.

But more than anything, this story starts there because today, nearly four years later, Josh Klimkiewicz can smile when he tells you what happened next.

THE PRESSURE OF PAIN

Talking to junior Josh Klimkiewicz about his baseball career is something like reading a textbook on the human anatomy.

Or, alternatively, Harvard baseball’s version of the Book of Job—albeit with a title somewhat harder to pronounce.

On Oct. 27, 2001, just two months into his senior year of high school, Klimkiewicz stepped into a hole—“a freak divot”—on the first kickoff he’d ever been asked to defend in his life.

In one motion, his cleats caught, and the momentum of attempting a simple cut shoved him sideways. Suddenly, he found the outside of his ankle touching his hip.

“My knee collapsed,” Klimkiewicz recalls, casually. “It hit the ground in the middle, between my hip and ankle, completely tearing my ACL, stretching out my LCL and MCL, partially tearing my MCL and LCL, tearing my cartilage.”