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Princeton University Athletics
Lacrosse As The Family Business: Richie Moran And Pat Moran
April 28, 2022 | Men's Lacrosse
There’s a rare sadness in the voice of a man whom Princeton head men’s lacrosse coach Matt Madalon refers to as “this calming wonderful presence around our team.” Today, under these circumstances, that Pat Moran isn’t his usual upbeat self is understandable and forgiveable.
There are families extended, such as the Cornell men’s lacrosse family and the college lacrosse family in general. That family is suffering from losing one of its most cherished.
Then there are smaller family units, in this case, with the last name of “Moran.” This family is feeling the hurt even more so.
Richie Moran, the great Richie Moran, one of the absolute unquestioned giants in the history of the sport of lacrosse, passed away earlier this week at the age of 85. Moran coached Cornell to three NCAA championships in the 1970s and took his Big Red teams to the championship game on three other occasions. Any discussion of the greatest coaches who ever led collegiate men’s lacrosse teams starts with three names – Simmons (as in Roy Simmons Jr., the longtime Syracuse coach), Tierney (as in Bill Tierney, who led Princeton to six NCAA titles and then Denver to his seventh) and Moran (as in Richie).
If you’re a former player or Cornell fan, you feel the loss deeply. If your last name is also Moran, it hits closer to home.
“He was a wonderful man,” Pat Moran says. “He was a larger-than-life figure, and I was in awe of him. He had a great sense of humor, a very quick wit. He cared about all of his players. He was always looking out for all of them. When you walked around Ithaca with Uncle Richie, he knew everyone and everyone knew him.”
Richie Moran is Pat Moran’s grandfather’s brother. The Morans are a lacrosse family, especially Pat’s father Jack, who has spent more than 40 years as the head coach at Long Island power Chaminade High School, and brother Ryan, the current head coach at UMBC.
Richie Moran played lacrosse at Maryland, graduating in 1960 after helping the Terps to the 1959 national championship. He then was a United States Marine before starting his career as a high school coach on Long Island, taking over the Cornell program in 1969.
He’d stay with the Big Red for 29 years, compiling a record of 257-121 and 124-50 in Ivy League games. His 1971 team won the first NCAA tournament, and he won again in 1976 and 1977 before reaching championship games in 1978, 1987 and 1988. He won 15 Ivy League championships, including 10 straight from 1974-83. His teams won 42 straight games from 1976-78, which is still the NCAA record, and he coached some of the greatest players the sport has known.
To Pat Moran, his uncle wasn’t the famous lacrosse coach. He was just Uncle Richie.
“One of my earliest memories of him is how he used to make duck noises when I was really little,” Pat says. “You know, like Daffy Duck. He’d make me laugh with them. When I got older, I’d go visit him in Ithaca in the summer when my dad worked at his lacrosse camps. He’d take us for ice cream, and he was just a celebrity there.”
Pat Moran was a very good lacrosse player in high school, and he played for a year at Wesleyan before transferring to Cornell – “I’d really romanticized the school, especially with my experiences there with my uncle." Once in Ithaca, he spent one year on the lacrosse team before focusing on his passion for English and Irish literature, graduating from Cornell in 2001 and then earning his Ph.D. at Boston College.
He connected with the men’s lacrosse team at Princeton during his time as a writing instructor there, when he became an Athletic Fellow. He left briefly to teach at Columbia, but he’s returned to teach at Princeton, and to the Princeton men’s lacrosse sideline, where he is a regular at practices and games.
“Pat is a such a wonderfully kind-hearted person, and that comes across every time you talk to him,” Madalon says. “The day he said he’s coming back to Princeton was one of my favorite days since I’ve been here. I love all my interactions with him. He has such a level-headed approach to everything. I love the relationship he provides for our guys. He’s a resource for them, and he’s truly looking out for their best interests. We’re so lucky to have him.”
When Pat’s lacrosse career at Cornell ended, his relationship with his uncle went in a different direction.
“He knew everything about me and what I was doing,” Pat says. “He kept tabs on everything. When I told him I was pursuing English and Irish literature, he sent me a book his friend had written about William Butler Yeats. I became friends with a Cornell professor named Dan Schwarz, who taught me ‘Ulysses,’ and he told me he’d run into Richie and that Richie was bragging about me to him.”
Richie Moran’s death hit the lacrosse world hard. In addition to his overwhelming success as the Cornell coach, he was also one of the sport’s greatest ambassadors on the national and international level. He was, without overstating anything, lacrosse royalty.
Cornell’s first game after his death matches the Big Red and Princeton Saturday on Sherrerd Field (noon face-off). It’s a huge game, with a share of the Ivy League championship to the winner and a spot in the league tournament on the line as well. The game will be preceded by a moment of silence in Richie Moran’s memory.
Pat Moran will be there. He’ll be rooting for Princeton.
“I hate to say it, especially this weekend, but I do bleed orange and black now,” Pat says. “In my own small way, I feel like I’m a part of the Princeton team. But my second team will always be Cornell.”
When your last name is Moran, it sort of goes with the territory.
“There’ve been so many wonderful things written about him since his passing,” Pat says. “For me, I knew he was in poor health and had been declining. The last time I saw him, my mother and I were walking through the stands at a Chaminade game, and he was there. He called out my name and I turned around and said ‘Uncle Richie, what are you doing here?’ We went out afterwards. He knew everything about me, as always. He knew where I worked, where I lived, that I’d gotten married, that I was a Faculty Fellow at Princeton. I thought about that day when I first heard the news. And I thought about what he said to me.”
Which was?
“He told me he was really proud of me.
— by Jerry Price
