Home for hoops star-A journey to the St. Francis Prep five

The words roll off Mike Cavataio's lips like everyday events. The hardships he's faced - from his mother, Joanne's, passing, to a pair of fractured ankles, to a broken wrist, to the Catholic Athletic League's unrelenting decision not to alter their transfer rule - would make weaker people bend, if not break. But for Cavataio, a 6-foot-4 basketball dynamo from Forest Hills, these obstacles have only strengthened his resolve. “You've just got to fight through it,” he says of the adversity. “People are a lot worse [off] than me.”