If there is any one player on the Penn State women's basketball team that embodies a survivor, it would be Chrissy Falcone.

Five years ago, when she was a senior at Trinity High School in Independence, Ohio, Falcone looked forward to leading the nationally ranked Lady Trojans back to the state semifinals for the third year in a row.

That's when the injuries began.

Before the season even started, Falcone tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, causing her to miss the final year of her outstanding high school career.

The severity of a torn ACL is enough to make most basketball players hang up their sneakers, but the daughter of Russ and Sue Falcone was not about to let the opportunity to fulfill a dream pass her by.

"Chrissy wanted to play for Penn State since she was little and watched (former Lady Lion great) Susie McConnell-Serio on TV," said Sue. "All she ever wanted to do was play basketball for Penn State. She ate and slept basketball because she found love for it in her heart, and I think you have to have that love to come back like she did."

During her junior year at Trinity, Falcone received offers from Michigan, UCLA, Arizona, and South Carolina. The Wolverines even offered to build their whole offense around her. But Falcone's heart had already been stolen by Penn State.

"She didn't even visit another school," Russ said.

The interest was mutual, and fortunately, Falcone had already been given a full scholarship to Penn State at the time of the injury. She was not ready to throw in the towel on her collegiate career before it even started, however, so she gritted her teeth and set to work rehabilitating her knee so that she would be ready to take the floor the next fall.

The rehab was successful, and Falcone arrived in Happy Valley in 1996 with high expectations, hoping to make a big splash in her first season with the Lady Lions.

It was not to be.

On her very first day of practice, Falcone tore the ACL in her other knee, and again was sidelined for an entire season. She must have thought she was snake-bitten, but she went through the trying rehabilitation process for the second time.

To add insult to injury, Falcone and her teammates were involved in a car accident just weeks before the second knee operation. Chrissy was sitting between the seats when the accident occurred, and she bumped her knee on the dashboard. According to Russ Falcone, Chrissy suffered further damage to her knee in the accident, but once again, doctors were able to perform successful surgery.

Her efforts slowly began to pay off, as Falcone became a key contributor for the Lions off the bench during both the 1997-98 and 98-99 seasons. She took her game to the next level last year, taking over the starting shooting guard position six games into the season. Falcone finished with 70 three-pointers, setting a single-season team record. More importantly, she had stayed healthy, seeing action in every game and growing more comfortable on the court.

"During her junior year, you just started to see the real Chrissy Falcone," Russ said. "I thought she'd really turned a corner."

And then, three years after the last injury, came the knockout blow.

In last Thursday's practice, Falcone was guarding a teammate, and tried to steal the ball from behind. When she missed the ball and attempted to plant and change direction, "I heard a pop," she said. "And I pretty much knew that it was torn."

It was the right knee again, and it was the same injury that had started it all five years before.

"I haven't heard of anyone who's had three of them," said Falcone's teammate, senior Maren Walseth, who also had to overcome a torn ACL early in her career. "You couldn't do anything bad enough in your life to go through three of these."

The Falcones were (and to a certain extent, are still) equally devastated.

"Chrissy's handling it better than I am," Russ said. "She's keeping us up though. . .but that's just Chrissy."

"I think she's handled it as well as anyone else would handle it," said senior Lisa Shepherd, who has lived with Falcone and Walseth since their freshman year. "You think, 'Wow, it's her senior year. . .this is it.' It's hard, but you just try to be there for her, and help her get through it."

Falcone's good spirits throughout the past week have served as an inspiration to those around her, as has her decision to stay with the team as a student assistant coach. She insists that inspiration is a two-way street.

"I need them as much as they need me," Falcone said. "For me to isolate myself from the team would really be bad."

For an intense competitor like Falcone, the decision to hang it up and not return for a sixth season at Penn State (the NCAA grants medical redshirts for players in such cases) could not have been easy. But there are few if any athletes who have an understanding of such injuries, and what goes along with them, as thorough as hers.

"In her heart she felt that if it happened again, that would be it," Russ said.

"She'd like to be able to go for a casual jog in five years," Walseth said. "And that's more important to her and the rest of her life than killing herself rehabbing to possibly not even being productive the rest of the year."

Falcone said she is a firm believer that things happen for a reason, and feels this last injury is no exception. She will now devote a large portion of her energies to coaching, and those around her feel she will be just as successful from the bench as she was on the floor.

"I think she can help a lot," Walseth said. "The five (Penn State) freshmen have looked up to her since they've gotten here. She'll still be a presence, she knows the plays, and the plays haven't changed, so people can still go to her for those kinds of things."

Shepherd feels that the much-needed senior leadership Falcone was expected to provide this season will not be absent.

"Chrissy's still going to be a leader off the court," she said. "She's going to be there on the bench, helping the other players when they come out of the game."

Not that Falcone is a novice in the coaching department. The AAU team she coached last summer won the state championship and wound up finishing fourth nationally, even though Falcone hadn't started coaching until midway through the season.

"There were all these AAU coaches watching Chrissy and taking notes," her father said proudly.

Falcone has also used her extensive knowledge of rehabilitating knees to help others who have sustained ACL injuries, including former Nittany Lion basketball players Dan Earl and Jarrett Stephens and Philadelphia 76er Matt Geiger.

"Chrissy worked (Earl) right through that whole process with the knee because she'd been there before," Russ said.

And, of course, Falcone has also found plenty of time to study in her five plus years in Happy Valley. She will earn her degree in recreation and park management in May.

"She not only played, she's gotten good grades," Sue said. "She's just a good kid and we are so proud of her. She's just really matured over this whole process."

"We've been really fortunate to have her as a daughter," added Russ. "She's been an inspiration with what she's accomplished. Most people wouldn't come back."

Even fewer would come back twice. And not only did Falcone come all the way back from surgery in both knees, she did so with a flourish, helping the Lady Lions all the way to the NCAA Women's Final Four in Philadelphia last year. It was only after the Final Four that Chrissy and her family realized just how far she had come.

"Chrissy told me, 'Dad, you told me to give it up, but it's all worth it. All the hard work was worth it. No one realizes what it means to me'," Russ said. "I think she thought, justifiably so, that she was a big part of the history at Penn State, and that's something you can't take away from her."

Falcone's place in Lady Lion history will not soon be forgotten, nor is her work at Penn State done. She will undertake coaching this season with the same enthusiasm and dedication that enabled her to overcome a series of injuries and reach the summit of women's college basketball.

"It's hard anymore to find role models for the young girls," Russ said.

For anyone who is aware of the trials and tribulations of Chrissy Falcone, it's nice to know that there are still at least a few role models out there.