When Paul Lariviere, a running back on the Terrapin football team, tore his ACL last year, his rehabilitation plan included an unusual remedy — a steady dose of magic card tricks.
Before the junior government and politics major’s surgery to repair his injured knee, Lariviere was in the Gossett Team House training room where he saw a teammate doing card tricks. With months of bed rest ahead of him, Lariviere realized he had just found a challenge to replace football during his upcoming recovery.
“I was bedridden for six months,” Lariviere said. “I needed something I could do with just my hands, so it was sort of natural.”
His teammate taught him a few basic tricks to start off with, and Lariviere turned to YouTube to learn more. He said he has watched some of illusionist David Blaine’s tricks and figured out how to do them in fewer than five minutes.
“I’m still learning stuff. It’s not that you can do something that matters, it’s how well you can do it,” he said. “It’s fun because the possibilities are unlimited: I can use stuff I know to make my own tricks and improvise.”
Lariviere performs on Washington Quad a few times a week for groups of students whenever he has some free time.
“The people I like to perform for are the crazy reactions,” he said. “I’ll do stuff on [Washington] Quad and people freak out — they’re really amazed.”
Though the running back also plays guitar and has one of the highest GPAs on the football team, he is now widely known among students as “the magician.”
Junior English and secondary education major Melissa McNicholas was sitting on the quad last week when Lariviere started performing.
“His tricks literally blew my mind,” McNicholas said. “He was able to make whatever card he wanted be wherever he wanted it to be. He could stick a card in the middle of the deck, and it should show up on top. He even got all four aces to show up on the top of four random piles.”
Although his teammates enjoy giving him a hard time, Lariviere said they are nevertheless entertained by his unconventional pastime.
“A good amount of my teammates will crack jokes,” Lariviere said. “But a lot of times their reactions are crazy and the best.”
Lariviere is not the only athlete with a magic touch. Lariviere said he has a friend on the wrestling team who he plans to join up with to perform magic tricks together.
As for the future, Lariviere isn’t planning on trading in his football pads and cleats for a magician’s traditional top hat and tails. Lariviere said he one day hopes to coach high school football, though he could see himself performing magic on the side.
Lariviere has not played in a game since his injury, but he said he hopes to return in the future.
“I just do my best. It sounds corny, but that’s what it is — whatever happens, happens.”
farrell at umdbk dot com
