Javier Bosque ’14
Javier Bosque started his athletics career at St. Joseph’s College in September of 2009 in a very promising fashion. In his very first collegiate cross country meet, running a distance longer than that he normally ran in high school, Javier posted a then SJC-record 8K time of 33:47. In his second outing, he set another school record with a 4K time of 14:54 and second straight top 25 finish. Bosque earned back-to-back Hudson Valley Men’s Athletic Conference (HVMAC) Rookie of the Week honors and was poised to be one of the top harriers in SJC history. No one could have predicted that these would be the final two races of Javier’s college career.
Four days after his second collegiate meet and just days after his 18th birthday, Javier suffered sudden cardiac arrest while on a training run at nearby Fort Greene Park. With the assistance of his teammates calling 911 and a passer-by performing CPR until EMTs arrived on the scene, Javier was taken to a nearby hospital and within hours was placed in a medically induced coma. Three days later, Javier emerged from the coma.
While fortunate to survive the near-fatal incident, Bosque’s collegiate athletic career was in limbo as he was not able to receive the necessary medical clearance from his team of doctors to participate in his two favorite sports - cross country and soccer - the following season. But as is the case for most student-athletes at the Division III level, sports were Javier’s passion and he opted to take another course of action to pursue his athletic interests - he decided to join another sport he never competed in competitively, tennis, just months after doctors questioned whether he’d ever regain consciousness or reach his full physical capacities again. So Javier grabbed a racquet and became a member of the varsity Men’s Tennis team !
This past spring, Bosque, eager for another challenge, took up another new sport by joining the men’s volleyball team and it didn’t take long for him to make an impact. After just five matches played, Bosque became a regular starter, starting in the final 12 matches, and helped the team to the most wins in their five-year history and a second-place regular-season finish in the Hudson Valley Men’s Athletic Conference.
While his tennis and volleyball statistics might be overshadowed by those who have been playing the respective sports longer, Javier is the epitome of the student-athlete on the Brooklyn campus, playing for the love of the game while still fully engrained in SJC life outside of athletics. He has served on the Student Government Association executive board as Parliamentarian and will begin his second term this fall on the Campus Activities Board. Javier has held co-lead roles in several Chapel Players performances and is also an active member of the Choral Society and Dance Club.
Javier still manages to find the time to maintain his full S. Joseph Damien Hanlon Scholarship as a member of the honors program, majoring in biology with a dual minor in chemistry and theater. He was recently named to the United States Collegiate Athletic Association National All-Academic Team and is a member of the Gamma Sigma Epsilon chemistry honor society.
Mr. Bosque lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. with his parents, Concepcion and Javier Sr., and sister Theresa, 22, who was valedictorian for SJC’s Class of 2012.