Oftentimes the sports stories told with themes of resilience and perseverance have fairytale endings, highlighted by victories and celebrations, or at the very least a moral victory in a competitive situation. Think Hoosiers or anything produced by Disney. That is not the story of Maegan Moriarty and the 2019-20 Holy Cross women’s rowing team, but the conclusion is no less a definition in showing strength through adversity.
One of two recipients of the 2019-20 Patriot League Award for Outstanding Leadership and Character, Moriarty served as strong, natural leader for her teammates and the Holy Cross community through a 2020 season that began in tragedy and ended in heartbreak.
Moriarty grew up in Old Lyme, Conn. before attending prep school at the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire to begin her sophomore year. There, the former two-sport athlete made the difficult decision to give up lacrosse in favor of rowing.
“Ultimately, I found passion in being on the water and being part of a team sport that so many people put the joint effort in to produce one great accomplishment of winning a race or beating a time,” Moriarty said. “I just really fell in love with the synchrony of it.”
Her high school team experienced success, capturing third-place as a junior and first-place as a senior at the New England Interscholastic Rowing Association (NEIRA) Championships. Moriarty’s talent was noticed, as Holy Cross successfully recruited her and brought her to Worcester, Mass. in the fall of 2016.
Collegiate rowing teams are unique. Typically, rosters are full of athletic, non-recruited walk-ons, who are experiencing the gritty, team-oriented sport for the first time. Moriarty’s foundation in the sport proved to be an asset early on.
“You’re really able to almost immediately become a good leader because you know how to compete and how to row, and you’re able to set the tone for the team,” Moriarty said.
As a freshman, she rowed on a Crusaders’ second varsity eight boat that captured the bronze medal at the Patriot League Championships. During her sophomore season, with the graduation of several key seniors, Moriarty took on more of a leadership role while competing in a team-high 11 races in the varsity eight boat. What set this experience apart from any other athletic experience was the Holy Cross program’s culture.
“I found my teammates at Holy Cross shared the same values of being a team and a family beyond the team, and just supporting one another, being friends with one another and looking out for one another no matter where and when we saw each other,” Moriarty said. “I do think I was constantly challenged to be my better self at Holy Cross and frequently felt that I could get better, and there wasn’t a boundary to what I could achieve.”
The junior team captain competed in 10 races on the varsity eight boat, including two with then-freshman Grace Rett, a decorated high school rower, with a similar competitive spirit. Rett and Moriarty scheduled extra training sessions in the erg room three days a week. The following year, Rett would join Moriarty, who was entering her second season as a team captain, in Holy Cross’s first varsity eight boat to start the 2019-20 season. The two competed in all four races in the fall, before Rett made headlines of her own in December. The sophomore broke the 19 and under women’s world record for rowing continuously for 62 hours and three seconds on an erg machine. During her time on the erg, Rett, an aspiring sports psychologist, completed 237.55 miles, with only 10 minutes each hour for bathroom breaks.
Less than a month after the celebratory occasion, tragedy struck the Holy Cross women’s rowing program. On Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020, during their winter training trip in Vero Beach, Fla., the Crusaders’ van was involved in a devastating accident where the 20-year old Rett passed away, and six student-athletes and coaches, including Moriarty, were seriously injured.
A few days later, Moriarty was able to return to campus and rejoin a team and campus community still in shock over the events that had transpired. Despite the hours of oral surgery required or the cognitive trauma she was facing, the senior was able to intrinsically step into the protector’s role to help guide her teammates through the grieving process.
“Upon returning to campus and attending a number of wakes, funerals and memorials for their fallen teammate, everyone looked to Maegan to be their rock, and she was,” observed Aaron Dashiell, the Assistant Director of Athletics for Student-Athlete Development. “Maegan, missing teeth due to the accident, was the first one to coordinate a team meeting with the counseling centers. She organized a weekly meeting for her and her teammates to meet with counseling. Recognizing the trauma her team had been through, she could be viewed as the team mom.”
“It was so important to try to show my teammates that I was being strong so that they could do the same for themselves,” said Moriarty on her return to campus. “But at the same time, being careful to show them that I too was vulnerable, that I have moments that I was weak and I was having a bad day. I didn’t sleep for months because of grief, sadness, and anxiety and trauma, so I sometimes had to share that so they could feel validated if they felt similar, very normal feelings.”
The outpouring of support and love from the campus and rowing communities became an essential part of the recovery process.
“It was so clear that the other teams were going to do anything and everything to show that they had our backs,” recalled Moriarty. “Whether it was physical items, like the bracelets that our sister team, the track team, made with one of Grace’s favorite sayings, the field hockey team giving us baskets of card games and candy or just to go watch other games and feel the support from everyone was so vital and heartwarming.”
Returning to practice in preparation for a season that was just months away was also not an easy task but was aided by the spirit and memories of their fallen teammate.
“I did feel a calling to be strong for my teammates and embody the strength that Grace always brought each day,” Moriarty said. “She just so clearly knew how to lead, even as a sophomore. Her ultimate goals were to get faster and put the team first. I always looked toward her, so whenever I was unsure, I just thought, what would Grace be telling me to do right now?”
The team experienced good and bad days in the weeks that followed, as the tragedy solidified an already familial-like bond and made the team members to confront the pain caused by the situation.
“I knew my girls on the team were really struggling, and I was struggling too,” Moriarty said. “I just felt that if we recognized our mutual struggles together, hopefully, we could lean on each other and become stronger together and move forward. And if we fell down, we would have one another to lift each other.”
In a fictional account of a 2020 Crusaders’ team, this might have been where the team dedicated the season to their beloved teammate before going on to capture the program’s first Patriot League Championship or give the League’s predicted favorite all it could handle at the championship regatta. Instead, on Thursday, Mar. 12, less than two months after the tragedy and just three weeks before opening their spring schedule with Boston College and Boston University, the season was canceled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Her genuine humanity and care for others was on display again as Athletics Director, Marcus Blossom, delivered the awful news to the spring sports that their seasons would be canceled,” Dashiell said. “Sitting among her peers, each of her teammates, recognizing their lone senior had lost her season, they lined up to express how much they appreciated her. She smiled through each hug and sent everyone off with her lasting words of encouragement.”
“It was a shock, and at times it still doesn’t feel real,” Moriarty said of the lost season. “It does bring sadness, but we’re still always connected with the internet, with Zoom and Instagram. We’ve taken a liking to it and just to be there to talk to one another if we need it. It is sad not having the girls around and not having them motivating my workouts, but I’m always thinking of them.”
Moriarty graduated virtually from Holy Cross on May 22 with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Latin American, Latinx and Caribbean Studies. There was no triumphant finish on the Cooper River for the Holy Cross women’s rowing team. Still, the leadership and character Moriarty displayed during the worst of times, and the lessons on resilience, teamwork, and grit she taught through her example provide for an inspiring story just the same.