Chaminade's Jack Moran steps down after 45 seasons as boys lacrosse coach

For 45 seasons, Chaminade lacrosse and Jack Moran have been synonymous.

So it’s going to be different next year when the Flyers open their schedule.

“Everybody knows when it’s time,” Moran said Tuesday.

His monumentally successful run is over. Moran has stepped down as the coach with 629 victories, 28 NSCHSAA regular-season titles and 21 state CHSAA championships behind him.

Greg Kay, a former midfielder for Moran, an assistant under him for the last eight seasons and a coach in the program dating to 2002, is taking over. Thomas O’Connell is moving up from assistant to associate coach.

“I’m blessed to have been there with great kids all these years,” Moran said. “I can’t tell you like it was a bolt of lightning hit me and [I] said, ‘Time to get out.’ It was just a culmination of starting to want to do other things, which never really entered my mind the last 45 years.”

Those other things are family things.

“Listen, 45 years is a really good run,” Moran said. “I have four children and eight grandchildren, with one on the way, and my son [Ryan] is a Division I coach [at the Maryland-Baltimore County]. I’ve only seen five [of his] games in eight years. I’m 73 and it’s time for me to put a little bit more time toward my grandkids and my wife [Kathryne] and children.

“I’m one of those guys I’m either a hundred percent in or I’ve got to be a hundred percent out. I’m starting to miss the kids. My granddaughters are both excellent players. I’ve got two grandsons that are in middle school and are very good. And I don’t see them play. I’m going to spend time with them and try and catch a few of my son’s lacrosse games.”

But Moran isn’t going to be quite 100% out at Chaminade.

“I’ll be like player development,” he said, “where maybe we get an athlete that doesn’t have a lot of lacrosse experience and I work with him and see if we can get him on the field type of thing.”

Kay, the school’s chief academic officer, learned a lot from Moran and will try to apply that.

“You can’t replace Jack Moran,” Kay said. “He’s incredible. More importantly than wins and losses, he’s just an unbelievable builder of men . . . I’m really thankful for the opportunity. I hope to do half as good a job as Jack Moran.”

Moran played midfield for Division, Nassau CCC and UMass. He took over the varsity at Chaminade in 1979.

“I’ve always been big on hard work,” Moran said. “ . . . I just think our greatest accomplishment or the thing I’m most proud of is we develop kids totally — academically, athletically and spiritually.”