Some people – a lot of people, actually – talk a great game. They’re front and center when it comes to telling everyone else what to do, but they’re clear out of sight when it comes to taking any action themselves.
We call that talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
Gerard Moynihan, who died Monday at 84, didn’t just walk the walk. He outpaced the field when it came to honoring student-athletes on the North Shore.
In 1992, Moynihan, proprietor of Moynihan Lumber in Beverly, approached former Item Sports Editor Paul Halloran and local broadcaster Don Boyle about the idea of starting a recognition program for student-athletes.
Moynihan, who graduated from Saugus High and College of the Holy Cross, felt the appreciation of the difficulty of juggling academics and athletics was getting lost. His idea was to recognize the statistics – not just in sports, but the classroom too.
Halloran wanted to make sure this endeavor wasn’t a back-door marketing idea for the lumber company, and was quick to point that out to Moynihan. Gerard already had one thing going for him: Halloran is a Crusader, too.
Thirty-three years later, here we are. The Moynihan program is firmly established. Each school year, a panel of writers and broadcasters from the area consider the best of the classroom and playing fields, then pick a student-athlete of the month. One overall annual winner, male and female, are picked at the end of the year.
The first winners were Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt and Lynnfield’s Lauren Maney. The panel, which, for 20 years included yours truly, had the incredible prescience to pick Marblehead Olympian Shalane Flanagan twice.
Moynihan Lumber is a small business. And if you know anything at all about the nation’s economics, small businesses are caught in a huge squeeze. Many really struggle.
Yet, that never deterred Gerard Moynihan. One hundred percent of the cost for this program has been absorbed by the company for 33 years. On top of plaques and a nice annual luncheon at Salem Country Club are scholarships for the yearly winners. Gerard never spared any expense for this program because he knew he was absolutely doing the right thing. Sometimes, he knew it better than school athletic officials who, for reasons none of us will ever really understand, did not actively participate. He was fully committed to the program.
More than that, Gerard Moynihan was a wonderful guy – gregarious to a fault, charitable, warm, and compassionate. Our favorite thing to do at those annual fall breakfasts was to get Gerard to go off on a subject that had nothing to do with why we were there, and then see how long it took to steer him back to the topic at hand. He knew it, and was so good-natured about it.
He was as chill as they come until you got him on the topic of athletic directors who did not nominate kids for the monthly awards. Then, he got hot.
Real hot.
But who on Earth could blame him? First, this was his baby, and he nurtured it like he was a mama lion. And second, this was a way for kids who never get any recognition to get some. It may appear that the usual cast of characters got all these awards too, but, not surprisingly, there were some brilliant and creative kids earning these plaques. Gerard made sure of that, and nothing made him happier than to see a well-rounded and deserving kid get one of those plaques.
Gerard hadn’t been feeling well for quite some time, but it was still incredibly sad to hear he had died Monday. Men like Gerard are harder to find now as opposed to even 25 years ago. You just don’t see that kind of passionate love for school sports anymore.
“His commitment to North Shore high school sports over the last 40 years is unrivaled,” said Halloran, who coordinates the program and emcees the luncheon. “He had a passion . . . to recognize student-athletes for their achievements both on the field and in the classroom.
“He and Moynihan Lumber have provided critical support over the years to ensure that happened,” Halloran said.
