Director of Alumni Relations to Retire

As Patrick L. McCarthy ’63, P89, 87, 86, sits behind his desk on the second floor of O’Kane Hall and looks to his right, at a wall of his office covered with framed photos of many great moments captured during his almost 40-year professional career at Holy Cross, he laments the fact that he didn’t ask more of the famous folks he’s photographed with for autographs.

The photos depict a more youthful McCarthy with Helen Hayes, Joe DiMaggio, and others. McCarthy brightens then and recounts the day he met Mother Teresa, who received an honorary degree from the College in 1976. On that occasion, he pulled out the actual citation and asked the holy woman for an autograph. The note that Mother Teresa wrote on the back of the citation is cherished, and hangs in the McCarthy family home. Mother Teresa wrote: “May you love others as God loves you.”

To say Pat McCarthy has made a career of loving others might sound too emotive a depiction for this Marine, and it might embarrass him, but it’s also true. McCarthy graduated a football hero from Holy Cross in 1963, served in the Marine Corps for five years, spending 13 months in Viet Nam as an Artillery Officer, and returned to Holy Cross in 1968 to work in the annual fund. For the next 39 years McCarthy forged relationships with other College faithful, and made a career and a life out of cultivating those friendships.

McCarthy never really expected to do anything other than serve in the Marine Corps, but family illness brought him back near Worcester. A classmate, Denny Golden, tipped him off about a job that he thought would be a perfect fit back at Holy Cross. Initially McCarthy worked in the annual fund with class agents. He traveled to meet with class chairs around the country to introduce them to the class agent program. Some of those people he met in his travels became longtime friends.

After completing his tasks for the annual fund, McCarthy was asked to consider the Director of Alumni Relations position. He became executive secretary of the General Alumni Association as well, a responsibility he has enjoyed for 35 years. “I only thought I’d be here a year or two, but it evolved,” McCarthy says with a laugh. Holy Cross and the GAA have benefited from continuity and longevity almost unheard of in higher education. “The overriding factor that kept me here was that friendships grew as I grew in the position,” McCarthy says.

McCarthy cites getting to know many incredibly dedicated volunteers as a principal reason for the joy in his job. And he found mentors: “Matt Cavanaugh ’20, Joe Perrotta ’28, Father Brooks ’49, and Father Miller ’46.”

“Through Father Brooks’s presidency, and all of our travels, we were a companionable group. It was a good group to work with,” McCarthy says. “The friendship. The compatibility. That captures it. I came from the Marine Corps, where there is a strong fidelity among a group, so it was very easy to fall into fidelity here. It made it easy. It’s been a vocation.”

As the McCarthy family grew, they all enjoyed the social aspects of the work of alumni relations. “My work drew in and involved my family,” he says. “There were lots of home basketball games we attended, and football games.” Pat and his wife, Beverley, no stranger to Holy Cross events of all kinds, had four children: Patrick ’86, Sean ’87, Kevin 89, and Beth. Patrick Jr. played football at Holy Cross. Sean played varsity baseball, and married a classmate, Christine Ryan McCarthy. The oft-heard phrase “the Holy Cross family” has been, in many respects, symbiotic with the McCarthy family.

It is the association with the many alumni he’s been friendly with over the years that McCarthy will miss most when he retires on June 30 of this year. He looks forward to time for travel and leisure—time spent with family—including his four grandchildren: Patrick, Brendan, Connor, and Meaghan, and perhaps a little time spent at O’Connor’s Restaurant and Pub.

So why not make it 40 years even? McCarthy says, “My time has come. My replacement (Associate Director Kristyn Dyer ’94) is here. She is knowledgeable and will do a spectacular job. And she will find it is the best job on campus when viewed by the associations you develop and the friendships you gain from.”

We wish our dear friend, Pat, the very best. The words of the Irish seem fitting here.

“May God grant you always...A sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel, so nothing can harm you. Laughter to cheer you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you.”

By: Joyce O’Connor Davidson Send a note to Pat:

pmccarth@holycross.edu