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Heather Gearity shined during her four seasons on the track for the Red Hawks, winning a pair of NCAA Outdoor Championships and adding three additional All-American accolades in her outdoor career. After finishing as the runner-up in 2011, Gearity won the 400-meter hurdles the following season as she clocked in at 1:00.27. The mark was nine-hundredths of a second faster than second place, and she became the fourth Montclair State female to win a national championship and the first since Monique Riddick captured the shot put in 2009. Gearity claimed the first title on the track since Tierra Hicks won the same event in 2003, and she is the ninth overall outdoor champion (men and women) in Montclair State history. She repeated the feat in 2013, posting the fastest qualifying time in the preliminary rounds with a mark of 1:00.3 before becoming the first Montclair State women's track and field athlete to win back-to-back outdoor national titles as she posted a mark of 59.31.
A three-time CoSIDA Academic and four-time USTFCCCA All-American, Gearity was a 23-time All-NJAC performer, as she collected 11 First Team honors, eight Second Team laurels, and four Honorable Mention selections. The Rutherford, NJ native is a part of six school records (Indoor – 4x400 and 4x200 meter relay, Outdoor – 4x100, 4x200, 4x400, and standard medley relay.) Gearity collected three NJAC Outstanding Female Track Athlete of the Year accolades during Indoor while adding one during the Outdoor campaign.
The 2011 NJAC Outdoor Track & Field Rookie of the Year closed out her career by picking up All-American honors in the 400-hurdles as she finished fourth during the 2014 season. Gearity also earned All-American laurels in the 1,600-meter relay as her, Hannah DeMatteo, Morgan Byrne, and Nicosia Henry turned in a school-record time of 3:47.71. Heather is a two-time stadium record holder, breaking the Skallerup Track at Swarthmore College (1:00.84) and the Roger Harring Stadium at the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse (59.31) in the 400-hurdles.
Heather still resides in Rutherford, NJ, where she lives with her husband, Tim Harris, whom she married in December 2021. Heather received her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Hunter College in 2019. She has been working as an outpatient physical therapist at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, NJ for four years. She became a Certified Lymphedema Therapist in 2022 and has been working toward developing a defined oncology rehabilitation program for patients who are undergoing treatment or have a history of cancer. She and her husband are hoping to start a family in the near future, and Heather hopes to one day raise money for cancer research to run the NYC marathon.
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