The Spire

Aiden Konold ’26

Sports Editor

Maureen Magarity was always meant to be a college basketball coach. She was born on March 4th, during which college basketball conference playoffs take place. Maureen’s dad, Dave, coached men and women’s college basketball, accumulating 579 wins over the course of a 38-year career as a head coach. 

Maureen’s first coach, though, was her mom, Rita, who drove Maureen and her siblings all over creation to get them to practice growing up. When Maureen was ten years old, she started watching game film with her dad. 

“My mom would be like, ‘What’s wrong with you,’ and my brother would be like, ‘You’re so weird,’ ” Maureen Magarity said in a Spire interview. “I just knew at a young age that I wanted to be like my dad.” 

Coach Magarity was also an elite player from an early age. As a seventh grader, Maureen made her high school’s varsity girls’ basketball team and she played on Christ the King, a New York-based AAU team, with WNBA and Olympic legend Sue Bird. 

Magarity went on to attend Our Lady of Lourdes, a Catholic high school in Poughkeepsie, NY and a regular girls’ basketball state championship contender. 

As a senior, Maureen averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds, and earned USA Today Honorable Mention All-American honors. Her strong senior year interested Boston College, at the time a Big East school. 

In Maureen’s freshman season, the Golden Eagles were ranked as high as 14th in the nation, and earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history, making it to the second round. 

The college game, though, was an adjustment for Magarity. In high school, she never suffered long-term injuries, but in college, she suffered stress fractures in her feet and she broke her foot her sophomore year. 

“The doctors [at BC] were like, ‘We just don’t know why you keep breaking your feet,’ ” Magarity said. “I could have just been medically retired, but all I ever did was play basketball, so I ended up making the decision to go home and [go] to Marist.” 

Magarity decided to take a whole year off, unsure where her basketball future stood despite her passion for the game. “Just whatever you want to do,” Kristin Lamb, Marist’s head women’s basketball coach at the time, told Magarity. “If you want to come back, come back, and just ease your way into it and see how you feel.”

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Magarity said of her injury experiences. “I really learned a lot about myself, I played with some amazing, amazing players, [and] I played with some great coaches that really helped me and I use a lot of what happens during my experiences now.” 

To recover, Magarity swam with the swim team to reduce the stress she experienced in her joints. Given the stress fractures and breaks Magarity experienced in her feet, she could not run and pound on her feet. “[I] never got hurt again,” Magarity said. 

After she graduated with her bachelor’s degree, Magarity returned to Marist for her final season of eligibility and started working towards her master’s degree. 

Magarity played three seasons at Marist, serving as a team captain for two and leading Marist to its first ever NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball tournament in 2004, her final season. Brian Giorgis, Magarity’s high school coach, coached at Marist during Magarity’s junior and senior seasons.
As soon as Magarity concluded her college basketball career at Marist as a player, Coach Giorgis hired her to join his coaching staff. This allowed Magarity to finish her master’s degree, while getting right into coaching. 

“It was interesting because I was an assistant coach, but I was then coaching all my friends, because they were still on the team, but it was great,” Magarity said. “I learned a lot and it helped my confidence to continue to know I wanted to [continue] coaching.” 

After working under Coach Giorgis at Marist for a year and earning her master’s degree, Magarity went to Fairfield University for a year to work under head coach Dianne Nolan, who won a school record 476 wins during her 28 years as Fairfield’s head women’s coach. 

Around the same time, Maureen’s father was offered a women’s assistant coaching position at West Point (Army) under Maggie Dixon, who was just hired as Army’s head coach at age 28. In Magarity senior’s first season working under Dixon, Army reached the NCAA Division 1 College Basketball Tournament. 

Shortly after Army lost its first round game, Dixon passed away after suffering an arrhythmic heart episode, leaving Dave Magarity with the Army head coaching job. Maureen was then hired as an assistant for her father, a position she held onto for four years. 

“As an assistant coach, that year, I’d say 60% of my day was just [the players] coming into my office crying,” Maureen said about the season following Dixon’s sudden death. “That really just helped kind of solidify just my coaching style. You just need to be there for your players, no matter what, and for them to always know that you have their back, win or lose, so that they know that you really care about them as people.” 

In Maureen’s four seasons as an Army assistant, the Black Knights went 72-47. On May 10th, 2010, Magarity was hired to fill the women’s head coaching vacancy at the University of New Hampshire, which made her the youngest women’s basketball coach at the time at age 29. 

“[Former New Hampshire Athletic Director] Marty Scarano is one of the most influential people in my life because he gave me a shot,” Magarity said. “I will forever be grateful to him because none of this would ever have happened had Marty not hired me.”

Magarity was the program’s third head coach in as many years, and she hoped to rebuild the program into a contender. “The thing I love most about that first team is they didn’t really have huge expectations,” Magairty said. “They just wanted the love of the game back because they had just been through a lot.” 

The first season was a struggle, as the Wildcats went 9-22. By year two, though, Magarity managed to turn the team around, good enough for a 16-14 record. By 2016, Magarity led the Wildcats into the Women’s National Invitation Tournament after going 26-6, the program’s first 20 win season in 33 years, and winning the America East regular-season title. 

Magarity was named the 2017 America East Coach of the Year, and she earned Kay Yow National Coach of the Year honors. Three years later, the Holy Cross women’s basketball team was looking for a head coach. 

“I love UNH and I still do with all my heart,” Magarity said. “But when this opportunity came up, I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And Marty continued his blessing. He was like, ‘You gotta go if you want to go after that job.’ I remember Bill Herrion, the [UNH] men’s coach at the time, saying, ‘If you get offered that job and you don’t take it, I’m not talking to you.’ I just felt when this job was open, it was a perfect time for a change.” 

On April 14th, 2020, Holy Cross officially hired Magarity as the program’s next women’s basketball coach. Shortly thereafter, Magarity hired Kat Fogarty, one of her former players at UNH, as an assistant. 

“I’ve always had a really special connection with Kat,” Magarity said. “When I got this job, she was one of the first people I called and she’s been incredible with the players. She just has a great rapport with them.” 

In Magarity’s first season as head coach, the Crusaders went 7-8. The first of those seven wins came over Maureen’s father, Dave, who was still the head coach at Army. 

In year two, the Crusaders went 20-9 with a 14-4 Patriot League record and won the regular season divisional title. No. 1 Holy Cross would face 8 seeded Navy in the quarterfinals. 

The game was close throughout, and with 1 second remaining, the Crusaders held onto a 49-47 lead. And then, devastation struck. Navy inbounded the ball into the corner closest to their bench, and knocked down an improbable 3 pointer, simultaneously knocking Holy Cross out of the playoffs at the Hart. 

“I think that was the most heartbreaking loss I’ve ever had as a coach or a player.” Magarity said. “It was horrible just knowing how hard we worked to get the one seed.” 

The next season, Holy Cross got a shot at redemption; the Crusaders went 24-8 and 13-5 in the Patriot League. Though the Crusaders were the 2 seed in the Patriot League playoffs this time around, they went on to beat Boston University on the road in the Patriot League Championship to advance to March Madness. 

“I think we surprised a lot of people,” Magarity said. “We only had one senior, Addy [Cross], and we had to beat BU twice. To get to go and play like a team like Maryland [in March Madness] and to coach against Brenda Frese, who was one of my all time role models, was just such a great experience.”

This season, the Crusaders hope ro repeat as Patriot League champions with Magarity at the helm. Repeating as the regular season champion would earn the Crusaders the 1 seed, which would give them home court advantage. The Crusaders are 10-1 at home, though the team has struggled on the road (4-6). 

“I think it was great during the winter break stretch because we were able to really string together some good wins on the road,” Magarity said. “It’s hard to kind of balance that [during the semester] to feel like you’re missing class and we have some tough games ahead of us. The seniors have to play with toughness on the road.” The Crusaders’ next game takes place this Saturday, February 10th at 3 pm on the road against American (8-13, 6-4 PL).