Donations to Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund help us fund our assistance programs which provide essential support directly to disabled U.S. Army Rangers, their families and the spouses and children of deceased and active duty Rangers. There are several ways you or your company can support Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund, including direct donations, matching gifts and event sponsorship. Please direct all donation-related questions to [email protected].
Donations to Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund help us fund our assistance programs which provide essential support directly to disabled U.S. Army Rangers, their families and the spouses and children of deceased and active duty Rangers. There are several ways you or your company can support Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund, including direct donations, matching gifts and event sponsorship. Please direct all donation-related questions to [email protected].
Monday 05/26/2014 – Leslie Gaber, Duke Sports Information
When the Duke men’s lacrosse team takes the field each weekend in the spring, the players’ uniforms bear a subtle yet powerful tribute to one of their own.
On the back of the Blue Devils’ helmets, opposite the American flag, lies a small, black rectangular box with white font bearing the text “JR 10.”
The insignias honor the late Sgt. James John Regan, or “Jimmy” as he was known at Duke. The Long Island native was a midfielder for the Blue Devils from 1999-02 and was killed in action in 2007 while serving in the United States Army’s 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq.
A native of Manhasset, N.Y., Regan was born in 1980 to James and Mary Regan. He graduated from Chaminade High School in Mineola, N.Y., and went on to play lacrosse and study economics at Duke. The midfielder helped guide the Blue Devils to a four-year record of 43-21 with a pair of ACC titles in 2001 and 2002 and four NCAA Tournament appearances. He was named to the 2002 ACC All-Tournament team after scoring a career-high four goals and adding an assist as Duke defeated then top-ranked Virginia, 14-13, in the championship game.
An Academic All-ACC selection, Regan finished his collegiate career with 22 goals and four assists.
“Just a terrific personality. Always a smile on his face. His teammates just loved to be around him,” former Duke coach Mike Pressler told USA Today in 2007. “He was the kind of kid that every coach in America would be proud to call his own. I can’t imagine a better teammate or a better friend.”
Following his graduation from Duke in the spring of 2002, Regan turned down a job offer from UBS (a financial services company) and a scholarship to Southern Methodist University’s law school to enlist in the Army. Surprising many of his friends and family members, he chose to enter the U.S. Army Ranger School, emailing his former teammates the explanation “This is what I have to do.”
Regan went on to graduate first in his class in infantry basic combat training. After completing the basic airborne course and Ranger Indoctrination program at Fort Benning in Georgia, he became a member of the 3rd Battalion.
Regan served as a machine gunner, gun team leader and then fire team leader during two deployments each to Afghanistan and Iraq, as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. His service in the Army was to end in February of 2008. He and his fiancée, Mary McHugh, had made plans to marry and move to Chicago upon his return to the United States, and he had hopes of becoming a social studies teacher and lacrosse coach.
Regan was killed Feb. 9, 2007 in northern Iraq when an improvised explosive device (IED) targeted his vehicle. He was 26.
Survived by his parents and three sisters, Regan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal and Purple Heart, in addition to a number of other decorations earned during his years of service. The Roman Catholic Church in Manhasset was packed beyond capacity for his funeral, including 600 flag-waving students from the local high school and many of the businesses nearby displaying his photo in their windows. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
The nonprofit Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund was founded in Regan’s honor by his family and friends, and today continues to assist wounded and fallen Army Rangers and their families through health and wellness programs and other services. “Through the Lead The Way Fund, his family and friends strive to honor his spirit, his patriotism and the way he lived his life by combining our efforts to give back to his brothers, the U.S. Army Rangers,” reads part of the mission statement.
Annual events such as “A Run Down Hero Highway” and the “Lead The Way Lacrosse Day for Heroes” support these efforts. In the coming months, LTWF has charity fund-raising slots secured for the San Francisco Marathon (July), the Army Ten-Miler at the Pentagon (October) and the New York City Marathon (November). A pair of “Shootout For Soldiers” 24-hour lacrosse games will be held in Baltimore and Long Island this summer. This year’s LTWF gala benefit was scheduled for May 21 at Chelsea Piers in New York, with CBS This Morning co-anchor Charlie Rose (Duke ‘64) as master of ceremonies.
Regan’s father serves as the CEO of the Lead The Way Fund, with the board and advisory committee loaded with many of his son’s former high school and college friends and teammates. First Lady Michelle Obama last month commended the work done by Lead The Way in a speech she gave for Joining Forces, another military support organization she founded with Jill Biden three years ago.
Although several classes of Blue Devils have come and gone since Regan’s death, his legacy continues to live on within the program. A memorial display and his framed No. 10 jersey hang outside the team’s locker room. His initials and number remain on the players’ helmets for every game.
With the return of defenseman Casey Carroll to Duke last year, the reminders of Regan’s service to his country have been even more constant.
Carroll was a first team All-America selection for the Blue Devils as a senior in 2007. He cites Regan’s story as being influential in his decision to also join the United States Army following graduation.
“It was my senior year when Jimmy Regan died,” Carroll says. “That really moved me when Coach (John Danowski) told us about his story. I found that the best way I could honor him and also blaze my own way through life would be to try to follow in his footsteps. I just set my mind to it. Fifth year of eligibility, that went right out the window for me.”
Coming from a family that had ties to military service as well, Carroll enlisted in the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment — the same unit Regan had served in.
After spending 2007-12 in the U.S. Army with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Carroll returned to Durham to pursue an MBA at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. With one year of eligibility remaining due to injury, he was also able to get back on the field for the Blue Devils, joining his teammates in honoring Regan every time they don their helmets. And although Carroll tends to shy away from the spotlight, he is eager to share Regan’s story.
“As far as we saw, he was the toughest guy in the world,” Carroll said. “He’s a guy that we all looked up to, whether guys knew of him personally or just knew of his story. I felt that would be a really great way to honor his memory.”
For more information on the Lead The Way Fund, visit leadthewayfund.org.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, who was recognized at President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, received a hero’s award Thursday at the Bellagio.
The 2014 Homer Deakins award, given by Ogletree Deakins, recognizes Remsburg for “selfless and courageous action” that demonstrates the true spirit of giving. It comes with $10,000 he said he will donate to the Lead The Way Fund, Inc., a nonprofit organization that raises funds for disabled Army Rangers and families of Ranger who have died, are injured or currently serving.
Remsburg, of Phoenix, was nearly killed in a 2009 roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan on his 10th overseas deployment.
“It was an honor to be the face of every wounded warrior,” Remsburg said after receiving a standing ovation at the State of the Union address.
“His comrades found him in a canal face down, underwater, shrapnel in his brain. For months, he lay in a coma. And the next time I met him, in the hospital, he couldn’t speak, he could barely move,” Obama said.
“Over the years, he’s endured dozens of surgeries and procedures, hours of grueling rehab everyday. Even now, Cory’s still blind in one eye,” Obama said. “He still struggles on his left side. But slowly, steadily, with the support of caregivers like his dad Craig and the community around him, Cory has grown stronger.”
If you had told anyone what had happened on the back lacrosse field at Manhasset High School Saturday afternoon between Chaminade and the Indians, they probably would have said you were making it up or that it was scripted out of a Hollywood feel-good movie, too good to be true.
The Flyers took the 10-3 victory – that was believable and expected, given their dominance this year – but how they got there still makes the tale.
Before the season, senior attacker Ryan Lukacovic was awarded the No. 19 jersey based on a vote of his teammates, the same number Jimmy Regan, a Manhasset native, had worn as a member of the Flyers before going to Duke and winning a pair of ACC championships for the Blue Devils. Regan later became of the U.S. Army Rangers, the special forces division, only to lose his life in Iraq in February 2007 during his fourth tour of duty at the age of 26.
“We miss Jimmy dramatically, obviously, it’s something that you don’t get over, but you learn to deal with it,” said his father, James Sr. after the match.
“When you look back at it, what can I say – I lost my son. I don’t want to get into politics with you, I don’t want to do all that, but it’s terrible when you lose somebody like that.”
Regan, who is also a coach for the Flyers, started the “Lead the Way” fund to help families and discharged members of the Rangers and Chaminade and Manhasset play a non-league game each year that also acts as a fundraising event for the non-profit.
And there in the middle of it all was No. 19, fittingly scoring the first goal of the game. The three-year varsity player would go on to score another goal and another, notching his latest hat trick this season.
“Ryan shows a lot of poise out there, he’s going to be a tremendous player down at the University of Virginia,” Regan would say after handing back “Reg’s Rock” – the black-quartz trophy bestowed upon the winner of the annual game – to the Flyers, who now stand even with the Indians, having won it each three times.
“It’s great to get a win for him,” Lukacovic would say, his words vague enough to apply to either father or son.
Under Armour had also made sure that several Chaminade players dressed the part, sending star-spangled cleats to Tim Muller, Tom Zenker and John “Shoeless” McDaid in honor of Regan.
The sun even made a cameo appearance, parting the grey overcast in the fourth, a heavenly ovation for the Flyers as the clock wound down on another dominating performance.
“I definitely thought about it after it happened,” Lukacovic said after the win about opening the scoring. “It was definitely Jim looking down on me. I pointed to coach Regan so I just had a feeling Jimmy was definitely involved, that wasn’t just another goal.”
Wearing the No. 19 jersey as Jimmy Regan once did, in the annual matchup against Manhasset dedicated to the former Flyer, Ryan Lukacovic smiled at Chaminade assistant coach James Regan after scoring the game’s first goal.
“I definitely thought about it after it happened and I thought it was definitely Jimmy looking down on me,” Lukacovic said. “I pointed to coach Regan and thought Jimmy was definitely involved. This was unbelievable.”
Jimmy Regan was a Manhasset native and All-American lacrosse player for Chaminade. He graduated in 1998 and led Duke to two ACC championships. He died in Iraq during his fourth tour of duty as an U.S. Army Ranger in February 2007. Regan’s father, James Sr., established the “Lead the Way” fund to honor his son’s memory and Chaminade and Manhasset have played a game for the past six years that also acts as a fundraiser for the foundation.
Led by Lukacovic’s hat trick, Chaminade defeated host Manhasset Saturday, 10-3, in the non-league contest and evened up the annual series known as “Reg’s Rock,” at three games apiece.
Longtime Chaminade coach Jack Moran said the senior attack’s character, work ethic and service to the school epitomized what Jimmy Regan stood for and therefore made it an easy choice to bestow the No. 19 upon him before the season. Matt Graham wore the number last year before graduating.
“Ryan’s the best athlete in the school and yet he’s the manager of the band,” Moran said. “We’re really happy that he’s leading us right now.”
Chaminade led 5-1 at halftime, playing fast, but also playing smart. John McDaid scored two goals, and Jonathan Patterson and John Tigh each had one in addition to Lukacovic’s three.
Lukacovic scored three minutes into the second half. He notched his third a few minutes later after coming from behind the net to put Chaminade ahead 7-1 and put the game away. McDaid finished with three goals and Tigh had two for the Flyers.
Kris Clarke won 13 of 17 faceoffs and Chaminade rarely turned the ball over, racking up possessions and maximizing the clock.
Duke-bound goalie Danny Fowler didn’t receive much action as a result, but relished playing a game in honor of a hero who had ties to Fowler’s present and future schools.
“I was told Jimmy was a guy who made you want to be the best you can be and it just drives you to want to play your best for a game like this,” Fowler said.
Wearing cleats displaying an American flag design in honor of Regan, Tim Muller diligently defended Chaminade territory, holding Manhasset’s top scorer, Mike Fahey, without a goal.
“I tried not to let Mike get to the goal,” Muller said. “But more importantly, it’s a great cause and it was just great to win for coach Regan.”
Before the game, coach Regan said his son’s memory would be served well regardless of the outcome.
“I know Jimmy was looking down smiling at this game,” Regan said.
