After six years away, The Moose is loose again on “American Ninja Warrior.” And Cape Coral P.E. teacher Morgan Wright can’t quite believe it, himself.
Wright, 51, never thought he’d get to compete again on the TV competition. Not after a nearly fatal heart attack on July 26, 2022.
Yet here he is again, running those “Ninja Warrior” obstacles and competing against other, much younger “ninjas.” He’s scheduled to reappear on the show Monday, June 23.
“I’m just happy to be there,” he says. “I honestly didn’t think I could go back.”
“Ninja Warrior” fans affectionately know Wright by his nicknames “Moose” or “The Moose,” thanks to the moose antler-shaped hat he always wears on the show.
Wright has competed four times before on the obstacle-course competition. In 2018, he even made it all the way to the buzzer for the stage-one finals in Las Vegas, but he didn’t get through stage two.
The Cape Coral resident is a retired U.S. Army first lieutenant and a Golden Apple Award-winning P.E. teacher for Lee County Schools. He has practiced Brazilian jiu jitsu and boxing and competed in mud runs, obstacle-course races and ninja challenges.
The Moose of ‘American Ninja Warrior’ trains hard after heart attack
Wright thought his “Ninja” days were done after that 2022 heart attack. He feels lucky to be alive at all, in fact.
“It was completely out of the blue,” he says about the heart attack. “I remember being at the gym, and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t feel good.’ … I knew something was going on. I knew that something was really wrong.”
He drove himself to the VA clinic, he says, but his memory gets spotty after that. He remembers waking up at one point in the back of an ambulance. “Then I coded right there,” he says.
He coded again later at the hospital, and doctors had to shock his heart to revive him. Then they put him into a medically induced coma.
He says he wouldn’t be alive without the Impella device doctors implanted in his heart to keep it pumping. “That technology ended up saving my life,” he says. “They basically put it in the heart and it pumps the heart for you.”
Wright slowly built himself back up after that heart attack, including months of physical therapy. If anyone knows how to do that, it’s probably him: He’s a PE teacher at Cape Coral’s Diplomat Elementary School and also teaches young ninjas at the new Ulitimate Ninjas Academy in Fort Myers.
Wright began with just walking. That’s all he could do at first.
“I started walking one mile a day, and then two miles, and then five miles,” he says. “And then I started doing 15 miles a day. And then I bought a weighted vest, so I’m out walking with a weight vest.”
He couldn’t do regular push-ups, at first, so he did them leaning against a wall. And, slowly, he started feeling like himself again.
“I wasn’t even thinking of ‘Ninja,’” he says. “I just wanted to get back into shape.”
Getting the call from ‘American Ninja Warrior’
Wright assumed he’d never have another shot on “American Ninja Warrior.” But then he got an email from the show’s producers. They wanted him back as a “fan favorite,” he says.
Season 17 of “Ninja Warrior” is bringing back “trailblazers, record-setters and fan-favorite competitors from the last 16 seasons,” according to information provided by a show publicist, “along with iconic obstacles that have defined the course over the years.”
“It was crazy, dude,” Wright says. “I didn’t even apply this last season. They reached out to me.”
Of course, he said yes. Then he started training. And training. And more training.
“I’m the world’s OK-est ninja,” he jokes. “(But) I show up ready. I do my training. … You know, I give it my all. That’s why I look so surprised every time I clear an obstacle.”
He doesn’t have his own training rig anymore, he says, and there aren’t any official ninja gyms for adults in Southwest Florida.
“I would just sneak into CrossFit gyms and use their rope climbs, do a million chin-ups and pull-ups,” he says. “I really worked hard on the training.”
The Moose makes his big return on ‘American Ninja Warrior’
Wright filmed the June 23 episode in Las Vegas last September. The show’s producers paid for his flight.
“I was super excited and pumped,” he says. “And when I stepped onstage, that’s when it really hit. … Everyone was losing their minds. They were screaming for me, cheering for me. A couple people had moose hats in the crowd.”
Wright said it was all kind of overwhelming.
“I broke down…” he says. “It was a lot, man. I just didn’t think I’d ever be back, you know? I thought that part of my life was over.”
The episode hasn’t aired yet, but Wright is already considering a sixth attempt on the show. Applications are open now through July 20.
“I’m thinking about it,” he says. “I’ve done it five times now.”
“American Ninja Warrior” airs at 8 p.m. Mondays on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock. Learn more at nbc.com/american-ninja-warrior.
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. For news tips or other entertainment-related matters, call him at 239-335-0368 or email him at crunnells@gannett.com. Connect with him on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: After heart attack, Cape Coral teacher is back on ‘American Ninja Warrior’ for fifth time
Reporting by Charles Runnells, Fort Myers News-Press / Fort Myers News-Press
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