When a freshman gets selected to play on the varsity basketball team, usually it’s a big deal. But by the time Margie was a freshman that was old hat; she had already played seven varsity games as an eighth grader. As a ninth grader,
Margie began her four year run as a starter on the varsity team. And what a run it was: she made a clean sweep of All league, All County, and All Section I accolades each of the four years. In her junior year Margie was named fourth team All State in Class C, and she capped her brilliant high school basketball career by garnering first team All State laurels her senior year.

Sophomore year brought Margie her first team MVP award, an honor she would receive in her junior and senior years as well. During her sophomore year, Margie attained her career high of 20.2 points per game. She averaged 13.8 as a freshman, 17.7 as a junior, and 16.8 as a senior. By the time Margie graduated from Nanuet, she was one of the top five scorers in Rockland County girls’ basketball history with 1,514 career points. She also topped Nanuet’s
charts in single season assists (150) and single game steals (13). Margie was named the Rockland County Small School Player of the Year and The Journal News Player of the year in 1992, her senior year. The 1991-92 team, of which Margie was the captain, finished the regular season undefeated and held the Number 1 ranking in New York State heading into the postseason playoffs.

Nanuet’s lone blemish that season was a loss in the Section I Class C championship game to Our Lady of Lourdes of Poughkeepsie, a perennial state power. Down by only 2 points at halftime, Nanuet started the thirdquarter with confidence when the unthinkable happened.

While going up for a layup, Margie went down with a serious knee injury, a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). For all intents and purposes, Nanuet’s hopes for a sectional title went down with it. “That was devastating,” says Dave Powers, who was Margie’s coach in both basketball and soccer. “We lost our best player. Psychologically the team couldn’t recover from that.”

After graduating from Nanuet, and following months of rehab for reconstructive knee surgery, Margie went on to play four years at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, where she was a 1,000 point scorer. Margie attributes her prowess on the court to playing with her older brothers and their friends in front of their house growing up. “My brothers and their friends never gave me any mercy,” she says. “I’d say they gave me my toughness, if I really have
any, and I learned how to really play.”

Basketball was a sport in which Margie made headlines, but she also enjoyed an outstanding soccer career at Nanuet with a pattern similar to her basketball achievements – playing varsity as an eighth grader, starting on the varsity team all four years of high school, and serving as captain her senior year. Margie played on the Golden Knight team that advanced to the Section I Class C championship game four straight years, including the 1988 team that made it to the New York State quarterfinals, where they lost in ashootout to Highland. Margie became only the second player in Nanuet girls’ soccer history to scoremorethan 100 points in her career.

Ironically, she tied her older sister, Susan (a star in her own right), with 74 goals, which at the time was a Rockland County record. She was named team MVP both her junior and senior years, All Conference B for four years, and All County and All Section I for three years. As a senior, Margie was named fourth team All State. Additionally, Margie had three career hat tricks. “I never knew any of my stats playing over four years, I just played,” Margie says. “When I scored my 74th goal to tie Susan, I didn’t even know until after the fact. People thought I was
aiming for it.”

“Margie always was a very classy player,” Dave Powers says. “She’s definitely one of the top five players I ever coached at Nanuet.” Today, Margie continues to stay active in a variety of activities including long distance training for half marathons and triathlons while maintaining her career with PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference). She resides in Congers with her husband, Kevin Jaxel, and their two children, Katie, 8, and Kevin, 5.