University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heel Monthly: Kohart's Memory Honored With Scholarship
May 14, 2002 | Men's Lacrosse
Tar Heel Monthly is a new monthly publication devoted to the stories and personalities behind UNC sports. For more information, visit www.tarheelmonthly.com.
By Adam Lucas
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Kohart had spent a semester studying in Italy, so he was the perfect tour guide for White, his girlfriend of two years, when the pair went back to Italy for a nine-day vacation last summer. He showed her around Florence, and then they traveled to Positano, a gleaming city on the coast considered one of the most romantic places in the world.
Then it was off to the island of Capri. On top of a mountain, looking out over a nearly Carolina-blue ocean, Kohart asked White to marry him. She said yes, of course. That was all part of the plan.
"It was possibly the most perfect proposal you can imagine," White said. "It was just like him. Everything we did together was always perfect."
Kohart's life followed a specific plan. Growing up in Garden City, New York, a bedroom community of New York City on Long Island, he was a lacrosse standout. In Garden City, kids pick up lacrosse sticks the same way that kids in Chapel Hill pick up basketballs, and the area had a thriving youth lacrosse league. By fifth grade, he was already quite proficient with the stick. There was a long Kohart lacrosse tradition in Garden City, as an uncle had been on a state champion team at Garden City High. Ryan duplicated the feat as a senior. Four Kohart brothers would eventually play major college lacrosse.
Older brother Geoffrey Kohart, Jr. attended Johns Hopkins on a lacrosse scholarship but had friends who went to North Carolina. After a visit to Chapel Hill to see them, Kohart returned and told his lacrosse-playing brothers that they would be foolish not to consider playing for the Tar Heels if they were recruited by them. "When we were being recruited, he told us, 'Don't be stupid, go to Carolina,'" Brett Kohart remembered.
Carolina wound up with two Kohart brothers, not just one. Ryan's freshman year was 1995, when he was the co-recipient of the Jay Gallagher Award, which is given to the outstanding freshman player in the lacrosse program. The next fall, he was joined by Brett, who was a Carolina standout from 1996-99.
"It was terrific," said their father, Geoffrey Kohart, Sr. "We drove down in the spring to almost every game. We didn't miss many, either home or away. We still have friends that we see from those teams. Lacrosse almost seems like a little fraternity."
Brett was even more highly recruited than Ryan, and by virtue of his position, Brett, a midfielder, received more accolades than his brother, a defenseman. In lacrosse, midfielders score the goals. Defensemen do the dirty work.
That's what made it even more special when the Tar Heels played a road game at Hofstra to close out the 1997 season. After 17 straight years of making the postseason, Carolina had an 0-3 ACC record and the team already knew they would miss the NCAA Tournament. But their season finale would be a special one for the Kohart brothers. Their high school games had been played at Hofstra Stadium, the same place that would host the season finale. A bevy of local family and friends were on hand to watch the game. The Tar Heels pulled out a 10-4 victory with some surprising offensive contributions.
"Ryan was bringing the ball downfield, and nobody picked him up," Brett said. "Right after he shot it, he got his clock cleaned. He scored, but he was just laying there on the ground. And then all of a sudden you saw his two arms pop up. No matter how hard he was hit, he always got up with a smile on his face."
Brett Kohart remembers September 11: "I got up around 8:30 or 8:45 and went online. The first thing that flashed up on AOL were the towers burning. I kind of freaked out, but I had forgotten he was up that high. Then the power went out and all the cell phones went dead. All you could hear were sirens. I lived on the Upper East Side and it was nuts. I live right by the Tri-Borough Bridge and it was gridlock. All I could see was smoke coming up. We pretty much kind of knew, but we had hope. What else have you got?"
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"He really came across positively. He was always that kind of person who people looked up to. He always did the right thing."
- Geoffrey Kohart Sr.
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By the time the team held their end-of-season banquet, it was a somewhat fractured squad. It had been a difficult time period for the program, which would get even more bad news in the fall when Kevin Reichardt was killed in the Henderson Street shootings. Despite a bid to the NCAA Tournament, it almost seemed that there was more bad news coming out of the Tar Heel lacrosse program than good news.
It was with that backdrop that Ryan Kohart took the podium at his final men's lacrosse banquet and gave what was by all accounts a classy and eloquent speech.
"The team was in turmoil and had had a tough season," said his father. "Some people were pointing at the coach. But he told the juniors who were soon to be seniors that they had to look at themselves and work with the coaching staff to make the program better. He really came across positively. He was always that kind of person who people looked up to. He always did the right thing."
Another thing he always did was spend the summer in the Hamptons. It was something people from that area of the state did naturally, like Triangle residents making their annual trip to North Carolina's beaches.
The summer of 1998 turned out to be more than just the typical summer, because it was then that Kohart met Melissa White. A student at Holy Cross, White also spent most of her summers in the Hamptons. Ryan was earning money parking cars at a beach club, and their paths crossed.
"He was so thoughtful and caring of others," White said. "He was so sweet and so kind. He was a perfect little gentleman."
Kohart finished his degree at Carolina the next fall semester while simultaneously dating White, who completed her studies at Holy Cross the next spring. After graduation, it was time for the next phase of Kohart's plan.
Geoffrey Kohart, Sr., remembers September 11: "I work on Wall Street, and I couldn't see the building, but I could see the debris. I started calling him on the phone and there was no answer. I was with a couple of people from my office and we started over there, and didn't get halfway there before the second tower collapsed. It was a huge wall of white smoke and powder. We headed east and had to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to get out of Manhattan. This was about 30 minutes after the plane had hit, and the building came down while we were on the bridge. All the emergency vehicles were on the bridge. It was a bizarre scene that you never thought you'd be in. We thought he had a chance to get down because the North Tower was up for quite a long time. I walked through Brooklyn and got a train to where we live. All our family had gathered there. I said to my wife, Joy, that we just have to be lucky. Then it was two or three days of them saying that people had been sent to different hospitals or here or there, and it was just a difficult time. Everyone was telephoning. What we eventually realized was that where those planes hit, anyone above there just didn't have a chance, because the planes were filled with jet fuel. Once we realized that, we went from hoping to coping." [continued]
