 Last season, when Brett Moyer was a junior, the All-American defenseman from Hofstra University occasionally had difficulty getting up in the morning. By nature a late sleeper, Moyer struggled with Coach John Danowski’s requirement that his players roll out of bed for six o’clock running sessions every morning. “There are some days when you just don’t want to get up and practice,” he admits.
But Moyer found early-morning motivation right across the hallway, where teammate Nick Colleluori resided. A freshman longstick midfielder for the Pride, Nick grew up near Moyer’s hometown of Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, where the two became friends while playing high school football together and winning two state lacrosse championships. Two years after Moyer became the first Pennsylvanian to play lacrosse at Hofstra since the early 1980s, Nick had followed the path blazed by Moyer to Hempstead, New York. “We were pretty close,” Moyer says, “and our relationship only got better when he came to school up here.” So even when Moyer’s alarm clock beat the sunrise, he knew he had to meet Nick across the hall for their run. Returning to sleep wasn’t an option.
Sleep deprivation wasn’t the only reason Moyer had to search for sources of motivation to keep him going last season. After a deflating 2004 campaign that saw the Pride win four and lose ten, Hofstra was struggling through another disappointing season in 2005. On April 23rd, they dropped a barely contested 10-6 decision to Colonial conference rival Towson, their third straight loss to the Tigers. “There were definitely letdowns,” recalls Moyer. Hofstra’s losing ways were especially frustrating for Moyer after an impeccable high school career, during which his Ridley team won 37 games in a row. “Coming out of my senior year of high school I’d never really lost a game.”
Compounding the Pride’s problems, many of the team’s most talented athletes were jumping a ship they perceived to be sinking. In fact, by the end of 2005, four of the players in Moyer’s incoming class who had been listed by Inside Lacrosse as top recruits were no longer with the Pride. Moyer, on the other hand, never once considered Hofstra a mistake. He was arguably the most outstanding recruit in the history of Hofstra’s lacrosse program. Whereas other high school defensemen tagged as “Blue Chip” recruits in 2002 followed the traditional route to perennial lacrosse powers like Virginia and Syracuse, Moyer chose Hofstra, where the coaches promised him a shot at immediate playing time.
“Around here, we like to say, ‘Either you’re all in or you’re not,’” he says. As for the players who left, Moyer says their departures ultimately made the Pride stronger. “I guess it just wasn’t for them, and it actually helped the team. The guys who are going to be around in the long run – that’s going to be the team that you want and the guys you want to play with.”
 One of the people Moyer immediately recognized as a guy he wanted to play with was Nick. Whereas the upperclassman Moyer often struggled through his early morning runs, the eighteen-year old Nick loved them. “He’s hardcore. He just loves working out,” says Moyer. “Nick’s the type of guy if you ask him to do anything he will. He’ll do it that second.” Whereas some of the other incoming freshman had difficulty adjusting to Hofstra’s strict regimen of running and practice, Nick, who was nicknamed “Fat Head” early in his playing career, seemed to prefer it that way. “Even as a freshman, he was probably one of the most dedicated kids on the team last year.”
Nick wasn’t alone in his passionate approach to lacrosse. “We always knew we had a bunch of guys that are really dedicated,” Moyer says. Meanwhile, Moyer’s personal performance continued to improve each season. He gave notice to the collegiate lacrosse world of his prodigious talents as a freshman. In only his eleventh college game, he smothered the explosive Mike Powell, limiting Syracuse’s legend, who averaged over four points per game that season, to a single assist. After being named a third-team All-American as a sophomore, Moyer was rewarded with second-team honors last year and was picked a preseason first-teamer in 2006.
Despite a combined record of 12-18 in `04 and `05, Moyer was guardedly optimistic about his squad’s chances in `06. “It’s a senior laden team,” Moyer explains. “We had basically the same team we had last year. And we did the little things in the summer carrying over into the fall. We knew that the one thing we wanted to do before we graduated was win a national championship, and we knew the work that we had to put in to do it.”
In the fall of 2005, practices resumed at Hofstra. Seniors like Moyer were hopeful, but the vast majority of pre-season prognosticators did not share their optimism. Face-Off Magazine, for example, picked Hofstra to finish 19th.
One fall morning, when Moyer woke at six a.m. and knocked on Nick’s door, he didn’t receive an answer. Moyer shrugged and went ahead, the morning run a battle without his friend’s enthusiasm.
And at practice that afternoon, Nick was again mysteriously absent. The coaches said nothing. After practice, with the team huddled together on a shadowy, windswept field, Coach Danowski told his players that Nick had something to say to them, and dressed in street clothes, Nick approached from the other side of the field. When he reached the huddle, he said, “Everything’s going to be all right.” But he was crying. He’d been diagnosed with cancer. Moyer recalls: “He told us that he was part of our family, and that we were his brothers, and that we needed to be behind him. It was tough. But Nick’s a strong kid, and his whole point was just that everything’s going to be okay.”
In September, Nick returned home to Pennsylvania to undergo chemotherapy. Although the diagnosis was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the doctors thought that Nick might be well enough to play in the spring. But Nick received word in January that the cancer had spread. In addition to ending Nick’s hopes of playing this season, the news meant that chemotherapy treatments would have to continue, only to be followed by a stem-cell transplant that would require a month-long hospitalization.
Hofstra’s team reeled in reaction to Nick’s worsening condition. “This is a tough thing, and nobody really knows how to deal with it,” says Coach Danowski. “The person who is dealing with it best is probably Nick himself.”
 A few days later, Moyer’s alarm clock was ringing. It was 5:30 a.m. and his heart was racing. Five minutes later he was dressed, out the door, and, after a glance at the door to Nick’s empty room, running hard through the cold Hempstead darkness. “Nick’s situation is always in the back of my mind. I think I want to quit working hard, and then I remember he’s not quitting on us, so we can’t quit on each other.”
Nick’s illness had a galvanizing effect on the entire team. “It definitely had an impact on the team and brought us closer together,” says Moyer. The Pride entered its season opener on February 26th against Massachusetts with the urgent sense that anything less than their best effort would dishonor Nick and everything he meant to the team. Nevertheless, the Minutemen dealt Hofstra an 11-7 defeat, which Moyer recalls as the most devastating loss of his playing career.
Coach Danowski made sure that the week of practice following the UMass loss was nothing short of brutal. “That next week was probably one of the hardest weeks in practice since I've been here,” says Chris Unterstein, one of Hofstra’s star attackmen. “We knew we had to get it turned around right then and there.” In perhaps just as significant a move, Coach Danowski also created a new team ritual: The Fat Head Awards. He ordered a set of helmet decals featuring a bald-headed face and Nick’s jersey No. 27. Now, after games, Nick presents one or two of the stickers in the bus or locker room to the player whose performance most impressed him.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering he was a pre-season All-American, Moyer received a Fat Head Award from Nick early in the season. But to avoid the appearance of a Ridley bias, Nick told Moyer he will have to play “absolutely great” to receive another.
When his chemotherapy treatments prevent Nick from being able to attend games, Coach Danowski sends him a videotape and Nick makes his selection for the award from the tape. But these mailings aren’t usually necessary. Despite a compromised immune system and some inhospitable weather conditions early in the season, Nick has been on the sidelines for many of the games. “From the time he walks on the field he’s always excited, always yelling, always motivating people,” says Moyer. “He gets everyone excited. It gives everyone a little extra something behind you to keep you going. It’s just a great atmosphere when he’s around.”
Hofstra’s inspired play has translated into unprecedented success this season. In fact, they currently rank as the second best team in the country, three spots higher than any previous ranking in the modern era of the lacrosse program (they ranked fifth in 1973). Since the UMass game, they’ve beaten every team they’ve played, including dominant wins versus perennial powers Johns Hopkins and Princeton. And on March 31st, the Pride finally vanquished their intraconference demons by taking down Towson in overtime, 10-9. To date, it is Moyer’s most satisfying win of the season.
“Nick’s situation is always in the back of my mind. I think I want to quit working hard, and then I remember he’s not quitting on us, so we can’t quit on each other.”– Brett Moyer
Although the offense has been productive, the strength of the team is arguably Moyer and his ability to shut down the opposing team’s most potent weapon on a weekly basis. His work ethic, fueled by his sense of obligation to Nick, has been nearly flawless, and his performance on the field equally so. Three weeks ago, he was selected as a nominee for the Tewaaraton Award, given annually to the best player in Division I lacrosse. Maybe just as important, and despite occasionally worrying about perceptions of bias, Nick has given Moyer two more Fat Head Awards.
Meanwhile, Nick’s positive response to chemotherapy has been, as Moyer understands it, incredible. “The recent chemo was able to get almost all of it out except a little bit in his nose,” Moyer reports. “He still has another week of treatment and then he’s going in for stem-cell. Everyone’s talking about how unbelievable it is that almost everything’s out.”
Should Nick’s progress continue, he plans to work with a personal trainer in the summer in anticipation of rejoining the team in fall 2007. By that time, Moyer will have graduated. Who knows, maybe he’ll continue his workouts with his running partner, bright and early as always. But as he runs towards his goal of a national championship, Moyer may never value Nick’s company more than he does right now.
Photos courtesy of Hofstra Sports Information
Matt Fuchs played lacrosse in high school and club ball in college, and he currently lives in Baltimore. He can be contacted at matt@laxpower.com.
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