The 2006 Ramapo High School boys' lacrosse team was tired of waiting. The team, led by star middie Chris Hogan, had to sit through its third lightning delay of the New Jersey Group II state championship game against Montgomery on June 2.

Referees came into the locker room for an update: They would try one more time to play, and if they couldn’t, the game would be rescheduled to the next day.

Ramapo got ready and prepared to head out to the field, but Hogan, who had missed the past three weeks after lacerating his spleen in a historic win over Ridgewood and was playing with a flak jacket under his jersey, made one last effort to pump up his team. 

“He just kept saying, ‘I’m going to be back,’” said Bob Turco, the Ramapo coach at the time who filled in during the 2006 season. “[The team] stepped up because of their respect for him. They were determined to make sure he was healthy enough to get a chance to play in that last game. Sure enough, he did.”

Hogan walked over to a chalkboard in the locker room, which had the words, “Will you be remembered?” inscribed on it. He erased the “W” and made it lowercase, adding the word “How” before the phrase.

“How will you be remembered?”

Over a decade later, Turco still remembers the player that scored three goals and added three assists, leading Ramapo to the 12-10 win in the state title game. Hogan, who went on to play lacrosse at Penn State for three years and football at Monmouth for one, will now play a big role for the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl on Sunday night.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB TURCO

Hogan’s success on the football field — including a nine-catch, 180-yard performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC championship game Jan. 22 — has made the the lacrosse advocates proud, none more so than his former coaches.

“You don’t get to watch someone you know, let alone someone you coached, very often,” former Penn State coach Glenn Thiel said. “I was a Steelers fan, so I was thinking the Steelers probably should have covered him. I guess next time they’ll figure that out.”

Thiel, who coached Hogan from 2007 to 2010, and Turco, who coached him with Tri-State All-Stars and then at Ramapo for Hogan's senior season, both remembered him as one of their best athletes.

“He shot the ball left-handed 106 mph and 100 mph right-handed,” Turco said. "He could hit corners with it and he ran a 4.4 40-yard dash, so that got my attention.”

Hogan played baseball up until ninth grade, but picked up lacrosse quickly and became a star at Ramapo. Still, he loved to give back and teach local children at Tri-State camps during the summer.

He worked with Turco’s son, Ross, and his wife, Jody, at camps even after his time at Penn State. He loved to work for others.