Monday’s funeral for Navy men’s lacrosse academic representative Captain Owen G. Thorp III brought approximately 1,500 mourners to the United States Naval Academy chapel in Annapolis, Md.

The chapel couldn’t have held any more.

“It goes to show you the impact he had and the people that look up to him,” said 2000 Navy graduate Jon Brianas. “No matter if you’re a current student or a graduate from 20 years ago, he’s impacted so many people’s lives. The chapel was bursting at the seams. We got there early, and we were in the back.”

Thorp’s wake last Sunday had even more visitors – some from as far away as Hawaii – to pay their respects.

“Every program has those people, and Navy lacrosse had one of the greats,” said 1984 Navy captain Neil Duffy who has stayed connected to the program as a high school teacher and coach. “He was truly great in every way. He’s one of those guys that was right in the center of that program for 20 years and made a huge difference for those guys.”

Thorp was many things to many people.

The Navy team saw him as a teacher, father figure, teammate, leader and life mentor though his official title was simply academic representative.

“He always seemed to say the right thing,” said Navy head coach Rick Sowell. “He’d say the right thing after a loss to pick you up. Or after a great win, just to see the smile and how proud he was of our team was great. He’d often come to practice just to support the guys. We’re going to miss not having him around, but his influence on so many people and so many players was incredible.”

Thorp graduated from Navy in 1977 after being awarded an engraved cup testifying that he was the men’s team’s most dedicated fan.

When he came back to Navy, he taught Mechanical and Systems Engineering and won the Clements Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008. He published numerous research articles. He held several different positions, including leading Navy’s Engineering and Weapons Division at one point.

He balanced his academic excellence with another side as an accomplished saxophonist, as well as an avid fisherman at the New Jersey shore. He relished family time, but opened his house to his Navy family. On any given weekend, a half dozen players might be in his home.

“I don’t know how they paid for all us midshipmen to go over there and eat all their food,” said Bryan Wolfe, a 2003 Navy graduate. “They fed us all the time.”

A devout Catholic, Thorp’s greatest passion outside of his faith and his family of wife Kathy and four children was serving as academic representative for the Navy men’s team for the past 20 years until his death at age 62 on Oct. 29 after a year-long battle with an aggressive cancer.

“He was so happy to be a part of the men’s lacrosse program,” Sowell said. “He was a great fan of our boys. The respect returned to him was given to him 10 times over, the people that came into town the last couple days.”

Former Navy head coach and now Furman head coach Richie Meade as well as his former Navy assistant and now Maryland head coach John Tillman came to the funeral.

“In my life, I haven’t met anybody like Owen Thorp,” Meade said. “When I talked to everyone, I said, ‘This is a gathering of the blessed because we all knew Captain Thorp.’”

Navy players and coaches couldn’t come up with enough accolades to describe Thorp’s impact on the program.

He took over as academic representative shortly before 2000, and Brianas was one of the first people he helped get through the school. As a junior, Brianas was diagnosed with cancer himself, and it came back again when he was a senior and jeopardized his graduation while undergoing chemotherapy.

“You have a guy like Captain Thorp who is the ultimate teammate and steps up to the plate and coordinates tests for me remotely and schoolwork and assignments I can do from home between treatment cycles,” Brianas said. “Over the course of six weeks, he was just an incredible teammate for me and I ended up graduating on time. It’s something I’ll remember forever with the role he played with me.

“And now play that out for the hundreds and hundreds of midshipmen that he’s impacted just on the lacrosse team and hundreds more that he’s counseled separately from the lacrosse team and you have an enormous number of people that he’s impacted.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF NAVY ATHLETICS

Andy Tormey was a sophomore in 2006 when he started getting more playing time. He was also falling behind in chemistry and worried he would have to choose between his first road trip with the team and a chemistry exam.

“He talked to the teacher on his own accord and said he’d administer the test,” Tormey said. “I was able to take the test remotely on the trip. That prioritization – he knew how important both were to me – and he helped me de-conflict through the adversity.”

Thorp, says Tormey, always had a calming influence. He was that same positive presence for the Midshipmen for two decades.

“He can light up a room without even saying a word,” said senior captain Jack Ray. “When he came out to practice, everyone was excited. Every kid would come up and ask how he was doing.”

Thorp, though, was always more concerned about others above himself. Players got that impression early from him.

“He was so caring,” said senior captain DJ Plumer. “He always wanted to know how you were doing. It was never about him. He always had a smile on his face. He always cared more about you than him.”

It was the same in his final days. Meade spoke to Thorp the day before he died.

“The last thing he asked me was, ‘Richie, how’s your family doing?’” Meade said. Thorp had a way of making everyone feel important.

“He was very, very valuable and always there,” Meade said. “He’d be at the tailgates after games. He cared about you. He cared about your parents and your brother and sister and knew your story. That’s what great leaders do – they give themselves to other people. He was a great leader.”

Thorp did everything possible to keep players on track academically.

“He brought his own personal style and his way about it and it was very, very effective,” Meade said. “We would have two buses go to every game, and it wasn’t because we had so many guys. Owen wanted a bus for guys that were struggling academically so that they could have a good environment to study. He would spend his time on that bus tutoring people.”

Thorp had a unique way of reading just what every player needed. If a player needed help, he helped to arrange it. If they needed space, he gave it to them. He helped to guide players through the academy to prepare them for their service.

“They learn their work ethic and those types of things at the academy while struggling a little bit,” Meade said. “Owen’s the guy who taught them. That’s his legacy. The legacy will continue. It’s not just the academic stuff. He was a leadership mentor. The intangible things that he taught them are going to benefit them the rest of their lives.”

Wolfe feels fortunate to have drawn Thorp as his sponsor parent for his plebe year. Sponsor parents partner with freshmen to help them adjust to the rigors of the academy.

“For almost every weekend of my freshman year at the Naval Academy, I spent all day at his house with Mrs. Thorp, Captain Thorp and his four kids,” Wolfe said. “It was my family away from my family.

“He was there to support you and listen to you and give you whatever you needed to be successful,” Wolfe added. “What I needed at that time was a family environment where I could be myself.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF NAVY ATHLETICS

Thorp’s impact extended beyond his role as academic representative. A 1978 graduate who played four years of lacrosse, Roy Cranford knew Thorp a little from school, and saw him regularly at lacrosse events, but they weren’t much more than acquaintances.

“When my son was being recruited there, I talked to him a bit and he was very helpful from that aspect as well,” Cranford said. “It wasn’t just the kids on the team, but the kids that were going to join the Navy and go to the Naval Academy and make that commitment that he cared about.”

Said Duffy: “The people that know him closely would tell you how gracious he is and how warm he is and how professional he is. I remember instantly being impressed with his demeanor and his professional bearing and his concern for the midshipmen.”

Even after players graduated, Thorp helped however possible. He tutored Adam Borcz as he began Nuclear Power School when the 2001 graduate was drafted and starting playing in the MLL. Players find themselves thinking back to Thorp’s wisdom.

“I got out of the military about four years ago and I’m with a business and have a family and kids and everything, and a lot of the lessons he taught me when I was there are very much applicable in my life now,” Tormey said. “Whether it’s when you meet someone for the first time look them in the eye and care about what they’re saying and listening to what they’re saying and trying to make that impact, whether it’s from an acquaintance standpoint, from a friendship standpoint or from a leadership standpoint, there’s so many life lessons he taught just on those types of interactions and also from a big-scale life prioritization standpoint, he was a big faith person, family, then everything else – whether it was school, military.”

The way that Thorp carried himself over his final year while battling cancer also hasn’t been lost on Navy. His physical appearance changed during treatments, but his attitude never waned.

“I think he became happier and more involved with us,” Ray said. “He lost his hair, but he was as happy as could be. He was always the most positive guy by far.”

Thorp sprinted out beaming with an American flag in hand to lead Navy onto the field last April.

Brianas helped to fashion a shirt that featured the now iconic picture captured by longtime Navy photographer Phil Hoffmann. Proceeds from sales of the shirt have been given to Thorp’s favorite beneficiary, the Sisters of Life.

Alumni had hoped to present him a shirt and a framed No. 77 lacrosse jersey at his 40^th year reunion, but he wasn’t out of the hospital. Instead, Brianas brought one to his house along with a photo of his supporters wearing the shirts.

The next day Thorp died.

“The timing was opportune,” Brianas said. “He needed to see the jersey the team made for him, the picture of everyone wearing the shirt that supported him, and just that he had teammates. On the front it said, ‘Captain Thorp = Teammate.’ I’m glad we got to share that with him before he passed away.”

This year’s team will honor Thorp with a decal on their helmets, and there are other steps being organized to memorialize their beloved academic representative.

“It’s definitely going to be tough,” Plumer said. “A lot of guys leaned on him for different things. We know he’d want us to do the best we can without him. We want to go out and work hard and honor him and have a great season for him.”

Alumni, too, won’t forget the lessons they took from Thorp. They paid their respects at his wake and funeral and are striving to live up to his example in life now.

“I don’t think you can replace Captain Thorp,” Wolfe said. “We have to carry on who he was. He impacted so many people and so many naval officers and marine officers and just people in general. He gave everything he had to everybody and we all kind of owe it to him to try to carry that legacy on in his model to help others first.”