St. Bonaventure mourns assistant SID Brian Moretti, felled by heart attack at 26
The adage that the scoreboard doesn’t reflect what happened could not have been more true than in Saturday’s Fordham-St. Bonaventure Atlantic 10 tournament game in Richmond.
The final score was 73-32, and Fordham led at the half, 38-4. What no box score can tell you is the grief that St. Bonaventure was playing through.
On Wednesday, assistant Sports Information Director Brian Moretti and his colleagues went to a restaurant after the team arrived in Virginia. Moretti, 26, suffered an apparent heart attack and died shortly after.
Coach Jim Crowley, who a day earlier had been named A-10 Coach of the Year, wasn’t sure his team was going to play on Friday against La Salle.
Brian Moretti
But play they did, winning 54-42.
When it was over, Crowley met with the media.
“Obviously ... this has been ... a tough time,” Crowley said, according to the OleanTimes Herald reported. “I’ll be happy to talk to anybody who has questions about (Moretti’s passing) afterward. (But) I would request that we deflect that from the kids. I’ll gladly answer those after we complete this.”
Crowley detailed the events.
Crowley watched the play-in game between UMass and George Mason with Moretti on Wednesday.
“We went back to the hotel and he was going to dinner with some sports information directors,” the coach told the paper. “About 45 minutes later, I got a call from Jack Jumper, a Bonaventure grad who used to work for us and now is at St, Joe’s,” Crowley recalled. “He said that Brian had passed out. Then I got a message from the Dayton SID sounding dire and by the time we got down to the lobby we heard some things that weren’t sounding good.
“The restaurant was close by, so three of us (Crowley and two assistants) sprinted there and saw Brian being worked on.”
Moretti was then taken to Virginia Commonwealth University Hospital, where he passed away.
“We realized it wasn't good," Crowley said. "And with the age of social media and everyone knowing, I wanted to get back and tell the team. So we sprinted from the hospital back to the hotel around 11:30 (p.m.) and there was somebody there who told us he didn’t make it. So I gathered the team (and told them) and later I spoke to Brian’s dad (in Rhode Island).”
He admitted, “The next day we wished the nightmare hadn’t happened ... but it did. And, later in that day, we picked his parents up at the airport.”
Crowley offered some memories of Moretti.
“Brian was recommended to us from Jimmy Baron at Canisius (where Moretti previously worked),” Crowley remembered. “He didn’t ask him to do, but Jimmy said, ‘You’ve got to hire this guy.’ And when Jimmy vouches for somebody, you listen. He came down here, we met him and he joined in with us.
“And when I say joined in ... he was one of us. You liked to be around Brian. He made a huge impact. I’m a better person because I knew Brian and there’s very few people I would say that about.”
