Field Hockey
Favorite athlete: Ryan Lochte
Favorite team: Philadelphia Flyers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Going to playoffs for the past three years with my teammates. It has been such an incredible experience.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Two years ago in one of our practices, my team decided to play a little joke on our coaches. When someone screamed ‘penguin,’ we’d all drop to the ground and lie completely still. It was so funny!
Music on iPod: The Killers, the Script, Sleeping with Sirens, Luke Bryan
Future plans: To become a nurse and have a family.
Words to live by: “Remember, you are braver than you believe and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”
One goal before turning 30: I really want to try and travel to at least Greece or Italy
One thing people don’t know about me: I have a twin sister.
By Mary Jane Souder
Mention the name Megan McCloskey to Kaitlyn Rauchut, and the William Tennent field hockey coach cannot hide the immense admiration and respect she has for her senior captain.
“She’s more than positive,” Rauchut said. “She’s the most gracious, most humble, most selfless person I’ve ever met, and when it comes to her teammates, her confidence and her positive attitude – to say it’s contagious is an understatement.
“She always leads by example, and I think that’s the most important thing in a leader. No one would know the difficulties and struggles she’s gone through.”
For the past two years, McCloskey has been living with a rare disorder called RSD – Reflex Sympathic Dystrophy, an amplified pain disorder usually caused by trauma.
“The way her physical therapist explained it – if you would get your foot kicked, it hurts for a little bit and then wears off,” Rauchut explained. “If Megan gets hit in the foot, it’s like a thousand bricks are dropped on her foot. It’s a pain disorder, and the only way to battle it is to fight through it.”
And that’s exactly what McCloskey has been doing since her world forever changed in December of 2010.
“I got my wisdom teeth out, and I woke (from the anesthesia) with a massive headache and neck pain,” she recalled.
Since that day, McCloskey has been dealing with chronic pain.
“You go in for a simple thing, and you come out and your whole life has changed,” she said.
For close to a year and a half, McCloskey’s condition went undiagnosed.
“I went to numerous specialists, and I took dozens of medications,” she said. “During that time, the pain kept spreading through my body. It started in my head and neck and then it spread to my arms and my back.
“It was the worst 13 months of my life. Going to school was difficult because I couldn’t concentrate well. Just life in general wasn’t so great because every day was chronic pain, excruciating pain.”
How intense was the pain?
“Every day was a 10,” she said.
Needless to say, it impacted every area of McCloskey’s life.
“I’m such a perfectionist, and I didn’t want pain to ruin my high school career and ruin my GPA,” she said. “I just worked really hard, and my teachers worked with me.”
Finally, after close to a year and a half, McCloskey received the diagnosis of RSD. In the summer of 2012, after a stint on a waiting list, she was admitted into a month-long physical therapy program at CHOP. For eight hours a day, McCloskey was in therapy.
She missed her hockey team’s entire preseason, but by the time season got underway, McCloskey was back on the field and contributing.
“Her tenacity and intensity cannot go unseen on the field,” Rauchut said. “Her impeccably quick stick skills allow her to have wonderful field vision.”
Rauchut was impressed with McCloskey from the outset, and she was the lone sophomore in the starting lineup for a veteran varsity squad when she was a sophomore.
“I think she not only impressed myself, she impressed all of her teammates at a very young age,” Rauchut said. “She came onto a team that was very strong, a very well-established team, and the seniors were very, very talented, and I think that gave her the confidence she needed.
“She’s a very happy, sometimes, shy, quiet person, but I think that experience and exposure to that caliber of play helped her come out of her shell and realize she had the potential to become a fabulous field hockey player.”
McCloskey, who grew up playing soccer, admits she took to hockey from the outset. With a mother who played hockey and a grandmother who played at Michigan State, McCloskey was born to play the sport.
“In sixth grade, there was a clinic and a friend of ours gave us sticks to use – old wooden field hockey sticks,” she recalled. “At first, it was difficult, but I picked up the stick, and I kind of knew. It felt so natural, and it felt so good to play.”
A standout defensive player, McCloskey has been a fixture in the starting lineup for three years, and last year, she played club for the first time, joining the Mystx program.
“I never heard of travel hockey before,” she said. “Rauchut said, ‘You should really try out if you want to play in college and better your skills.,’ so I tried out.
“It was really scary because all of the girls were so good, but I’m so glad I did it. Club was one of the best experiences I ever had.”
In many ways, field hockey was McCloskey’s salvation.
“God bless Rauchut,” she said. “Seriously, I can’t thank her enough. She believed in me so much more than I believed in myself. She’s one of the main reasons I’m getting through this.”
And getting through it is exactly what McCloskey is doing. The senior defensive back still lives with chronic pain.
“It ranges from a seven to 10 (on scale of 1-10),” she said. “It fluctuates. I do have pain-free moments, and when I do, I take advantage of it, but I still go to a 10.
“The pain program did help, but I was hit in the head a month after the program, so it knocked it back. Medications don’t work at all, but my doctors are still working with me. I’m so blessed to have them too.”
Just as she excels on the hockey field, McCloskey also excels in the classroom where she has a full course load of honors and AP classes. She is a member of the National Honor Society and aspires to pursue a career in nursing.
“I want to be a nurse so bad,” McCloskey said. “I’ve wanted to do it since I was 12, but (the RSD) definitely influenced it.”
She would like to stay in the Philadelphia area with Drexel as her number one school and La Salle also a serious consideration.
McCloskey admits she can’t help wondering how different her life might be if she hadn’t had her wisdom teeth removed on that fateful day in December of 2010, but instead of viewing RSD as a curse, McCloskey has put a positive twist on her situation.
“It was the hardest thing, but honestly, it’s made me such a better person,” she said. “It just gave me so much strength and so much perseverance.
“It’s weird – it’s just taught me what I want in life and what’s important versus what’s not. If you put your mind to it, you can really get past anything.”
McCloskey, who lost her father this past summer, credits her hockey team for helping her through the difficult times.
“They’re one of the biggest reasons I can even make it through the school day,” she said. “They were all so supportive when my father died and just through all my pain stuff. They’re the greatest bunch of girls ever.”
And it is McCloskey who sets the tone for the team.
“No one would know the difficulties and struggles she’s gone through,” Rauchut said.
“Megan has become an inspiration to her teammates, especially while battling her rare disorder. Her strength and passion for field hockey is contagious.
“She works so hard. As a player and individual, she goes above and beyond to better herself as a person, to better her teammates and the program.”
All the while serving as an inspiration her coaches and teammates alike.
