{"id":13490,"date":"2025-04-22T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/lavie\/?p=13490"},"modified":"2025-06-06T00:31:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T00:31:52","slug":"parker-raham-the-road-to-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2025\/04\/22\/parker-raham-the-road-to-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Parker Raham: The road to recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

(By Liam McFarlane \u201927, special contributor) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlaying baseball at the next level wasn\u2019t always the plan,\u201d Parker Raham, the right-handed pitcher hailing from Scotch-Plains, New Jersey, said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a time when I didn\u2019t even think I could play this game again.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pain was as sudden as it was painful. As he let go of the ball, Raham felt what all pitchers fear in his right elbow, and he knew in his heart that something was off. However, like many pitchers before him, he made an effort to ignore it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A torn UCL is every pitcher\u2019s nightmare. For some, it\u2019s the end of their story. For Raham, it was just another challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew it was bad,\u201d Raham said. \u201cBut I also knew I wasn\u2019t done.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raham wasn’t well-known as a pitcher who had committed to play at Lebanon Valley College. He wasn’t prepared to leave the game, though. He decided to take the difficult route instead, enduring painful rehabilitation, surgery and countless hours spent retraining his arm to do what he had done for the past 14 years of his life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some questioned his decision. Why go through all this for a small-school baseball career? Raham had an answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love the game,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s given me everything. So, I owed it to myself to at least try.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rehab wasn\u2019t easy. There were days he doubted himself. Days when progress felt impossible. But he wasn\u2019t alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy coaches, teammates, my family\u2014everyone kept me going,\u201d Raham said. \u201cThey reminded me why I started in the first place.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He corrected his mechanics and regained his strength under the supervision of trainers. He strengthened his arm care techniques and learned to listen to his body. He began concentrating on conditioning, flexibility and pitching with less elbow strain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of injury is a barrier for many athletes. It became motivation for Raham. He wanted to prove that failures do not define a person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t control injuries,\u201d Raham said. \u201cBut you can control how you respond.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as he steps back onto the mound, he\u2019s pitching not just for himself, but for every athlete who\u2019s faced adversity. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(By Liam McFarlane \u201927, special contributor)  \u201cPlaying baseball at the next level wasn\u2019t always the plan,\u201d Parker Raham, the right-handed pitcher hailing from Scotch-Plains, New Jersey, said.  \u201cThere was a time when I didn\u2019t even […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-front-page","9":"category-homepage","10":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15227,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions\/15227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}