The Dynasties: Long Island High School Football

By Christopher R. Vaccaro and Bill Pinner

The Dynasties: Long Island High School Football is the first in a series of books about the top high school sports teams on Long Island. The first, a look at the best grid iron squads of all-time, breaks down the historical backgrounds behind the top 10 programs and the next 11 honorable mention schools.

Through anecdotal stories and recaps of the biggest games in the history of every program, The Dynasties: Long Island High School Football is truly a one-of-a-kind piece of literature. No one has ever written about the history of Long Island high school football and Vaccaro categorizes the best schools by going deep into the foundation of every major team, player, year and game of each program.

He considers a dynasty a program that has been consistent from day one, not just a school that won for a few years in a row. In this book youll learn why high school football is a major fabric of any community and how football on Long Island is a special brand of sport, more so than other parts of the country.

Advanced Praise

Vaccaros book captures some of the special moments about the top teams in Long Island high school football history. Its a must read for every high school football fan on Long Island! I couldnt put it down once I started reading it. Andy Slawson, Newsday

This book puts a much-needed spotlight on a realm of sports that doesnt get the attention it deserves. Finally, there is a book that strings together the glory of the programs, players, coaches and administrators of Nassau and Suffolk football that have cultivated and enriched its history to this day." James J. Parziale, Queens Tribune

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 18, 2007
• ISBN: 9781465319654

Christopher R. Vaccaro

Christopher R. Vaccaro is an award-winning journalist, author, and researcher from Long Island. He is the author of two previous books on Long Island high school sports and has written for more than 40 publications. A former editor at the New York Daily News, he has appeared on high school sports television segments and hosted local sports talk shows.

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Copyright © 2007 by Christopher R. Vaccaro.

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This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PHOTO CREDITS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE DYNASTIES SERIES

To my team: Mom, Dad and Bryan

FOREWORD

O NE THING THAT always seems to

generate the most controversy, when it comes to sports, is when the media, either in the form of television, sports talk radio, newspapers, or even some enthusiastic young journalist (like Chris Vaccaro) proclaims the ten best anything, in any sport, at any level. It never seems to matter if it’s teams, running backs, coaches or players. I think you will find this book to be a quick and interesting read and I can assure you that lots of passionate discussion will follow.

There is something, however, I think we can all agree on. In the last 70 years, the single most important event that has changed the way we judge high school football programs on Long Island, and the event that has had the greatest impact on the general population’s interest in high school football, would be the advent of the LI Football Championships.

For those who have followed LI high school football for the last 14 years it may be difficult to imagine what it was like prior to the first LI Football Championships in 1992. But, going back to 1991, for as long as most of us who are alive can remember, high school football in Nassau and Suffolk Counties was a totally separate entity. During the post-war years Nassau County’s population developed very rapidly, almost faster then they could build the schools. Suffolk County retained its more rural identity growing at a much slower rate with school districts covering a much larger geographic area. Schools in both counties developed their own identities and respected football traditions. Rarely, however, did anything that happened in one county have any impact at all on what was happening in the other.

Legendary programs, players and coaches came and went but, with the exception of an occasional non-league game or scrimmage, there was almost no interaction at all between the two counties. There was really no legitimate basis for comparison. There was no common denominator. Early on, football seasons ended with a traditional rivalry game. And, it wasn’t until the ’50s that football seasons ended with some form of league, conference or county championship. In essence, each county did their own thing in terms of criteria for determining high school football prowess. In the 1970s, the league structure, and playoff criteria in both counties began to resemble each other, as did many of the problems.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Suffolk County experienced a very rapid growth in population while many school districts in Nassau County began to experience declining enrollment. But, both counties began to experience some similar and relatively new kinds

of problems related to demographics, school redistricting, a shortage of qualified coaches, more choices for young people, and more athletes specializing in a single sport. With the exception of some of the powerhouse programs, many programs in both counties began to experience a slow but gradual decline in the number of athletes participating. At that time schools in Nassau County were placed in various leagues or divisions based strictly on enrollment and some schools were finding it difficult to compete.

One alternative available to some schools was an Independent League. Although this was made up of primarily private schools, it also accepted some public schools seeking a league in which they felt they could be more competitive. The problem was this league was very selective and limited in the number of schools it was willing to accept. In the late ’70s Nassau County created a developmental league for public schools who were struggling to find competitive relief. This league grew at an alarming rate. The problem facing Nassau County in 1983 was that if the county approved all the applications for the developmental league, it would have more schools playing in the developmental league then it did within the regular county structure. It became clear that as soon as you pulled the bottom teams out of the regular divisional structure and granted them status in the developmental league, new teams took their place at the bottom. This was a never ending cycle that had no apparent solution.

In 1983, I became the Nassau County football coordinator. I had just become the athletic director at Cold Spring Harbor the year before and I was fresh off a 10-year run as head football coach at Sewanhaka High School, where I had an incredible experience and the good fortune of coaching many outstanding young men. It would be impossible to mention all their names, but one most people are sure to recognize is Vinny Testaverde. I also had the opportunity to work with two of the best coaches and friends I will ever have, Tom Flatley (later of Garden City) and Joe Knoll (later of Lynbrook and Locust Valley).

It was Flatley’s double pass play that we used to win the 1979 Conference I Championship game against Don Snyder’s undefeated Farmingdale team. Testaverde, who at the time was an unknown junior backup quarterback, was whisked off the bench following a Farmingdale fumble and sent into the game at split-end. He backed up, caught a lateral pass from quarterback Lou Voltaggio, and with Farmingdale’s 1979 Thorp Award winner and future NFL All-Pro Ron Heller closing in on him, he calmly threw the winning touchdown pass to tight-end Ludlow Harrison. We called it the shot heard around the world, because it marked the first significant event in Vinny’s great career. We finished undefeated, and Sewanhaka won its first Rutgers Cup that year.

Knoll was our line coach at the time. He was and still is arguably, one of the best line coaches ever at the high school level. He had the daunting responsibility, during the following season, of rebuilding the entire offensive line to protect Vinny. The problem was, due to graduation, the entire line consisted of first year starters who were about 170-pounds. I clearly recall the first day we arrived at Golden Valley Sports Camp the week before Labor Day in 1980. Myself, Flatley, and Knoll were sitting on the porch of the coach’s cabin when Testaverde came walking bye tossing a football in the air. Knoll called out, Hey Vinny! Lie down on your back and try throwing me the ball. Vinny looked at him with a curious grin, but knowing Knoll as he did, he laid down on his back and threw him a perfect spiral. Knoll responded by cheering, GREAT JOB! Now, I want you to work on that everyday because with our offensive line, that’s the position you’re going to be throwing from for the rest of the season. We all laughed, but what followed was Sewanhaka’s second consecutive undefeated regular season. In 1992, both Flatley and Knoll would coach their teams in the first Long Island Championship games ever played.

When I became the athletic director in Cold Spring Harbor I was no longer coaching football. The choice to take the job as county football coordinator had as much to do with missing coaching and missing the collegial relationship I had with the other coaches, as it did with a desire to address the many problems confronting high school football at the time. The inspiration for the decision to take the job as coordinator came from my wife Patty who put it so simply when she said, Look, I know how much you miss coaching. So, why don’t you take the job? Treat Nassau County like it’s your team and all the coaches like they are your players. Get them to play as a team and take a little pride in what’s going on in this county. Together, you can solve whatever problems exist.

I don’t know if it was destiny or not, but most of my life has been about football. I grew up in North Bellmore just over the back fence of the football field at Mepham High School. I was fortunate to play football at Mepham for a man who was not only a father figure to me, but also my mentor, and a great man, Mr. Nick Sabetto. Sabetto was an outstanding coach who produced three Thorp Award winners: Ed Nickla (1950), Bill Sandie (1953) and Dave Hayes (1957). Mepham was also widely recognized as one of the powerhouse programs of the 1950s and his 1950 and 1952 teams won the Rutgers Cup. By the way, Mepham didn’t even make the honorable mention chapter in this book. (I’ll be sure to talk to Chris about that later). Interesting, a coincidence, or both, I don’t know, but, Nick Sabetto later became the athletic director in the Bellmore-Merrick School District and also served on the Nassau County football committee in the ’60s and ’70s

By 1984 the Nassau County football committee knew we had to address the difficult problems of declining participation, a growing developmental league and numerous appeals for competitive relief. This committee included some of the most respected coaches in the county. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that many of these coaches are the same coaches from the Dynasties you will read about in this book. Coaches like Snyder from Farmingdale, Howie Vogts from Bethpage, and Buddy Krumenacker from Hempstead and later of Farmingdale. The committee also included other outstanding coaches like Roy Kessenich of Oceanside, Jay Iaquinta of Lynbrook and later Hewlett and Fred Smith, the football coach and athletic director at Locust Valley. Also included were athletic directors who represented those schools that were struggling desperately to save their programs. Our challenge was clear: we had to develop a way of aligning our leagues, not only by enrollment but also in a way that would give teams the opportunity to be more competitive on the football field. We had no idea at the time, but in making a very determined and sincere attempt to solve some of the counties most difficult problems, we were about to take the very first steps toward what would ultimately lead to the development of the LI Football Championships.

Krumenacker suggested, rather then have all these eight little divisions (at the time the county had four conferences in two divisions), why don’t we take all of the schools in the county and divide them into four large conferences utilizing enrollment. But rather then dividing each conference into divisions, suppose we seeded the teams from top to bottom by ability. The stronger teams at the top could play each other. The weaker teams at the bottom could play each other, and the teams in the middle could play some from the top and some form the bottom. By doing this, it would give every school a reasonable chance to be competitive.

The mere fact that the conferences would include anywhere from 11 to 14 teams, would allow us to distance the stronger programs from the weaker programs. Most importantly, each team’s schedule would include other teams that were similar in competitive strength. Although Buddy’s idea sounded great, the obvious questions were; how do you compare teams within a conference that don’t all play each other? And, how do you determine a champion? Fortunately, the year before, during the 1983 season, Kessenich had devised a mathematical formula or power rating for comparing teams that didn’t play each other within Conference I. Conference I had 11 teams and each team played only eight games. By the way, this is long before anybody ever heard of the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) or thought of using computers to determine where teams finish within a competitive structure. Kessenich believed his power rating point system would work. The entire committee was relieved when the trial applications proved that we could use his formula for conferences with up to as many as 14 teams.

Our next hurdle was scheduling. When we tried to develop schedules, we found that the top seeded team could play down to number nine and the 14th or last seeded team could play up to number six. But, we hit a wall when we realized the teams in the middle (six through nine) were playing everybody in the conference. By this time, we were all mentally drained and the meeting ended in frustration. That night, at about 10 p.m., I received a phone call from Iaquinta. When I answered the phone Jay exclaimed, Bill, it can be done! I answered, What can be done? Jay explained further, We can schedule it! We can schedule eight games, four home games, four away games, and no more than two consecutive home or away games. And, it can be done in such a way that the difficulty of the schedule reduces proportionately from top to bottom. I couldn’t believe my ears! What apparently happened was Jay sat down at dinner with his wife Agnes (clearly an unsung hero in this story). He told her about the meeting and explained the problem. Then, as if it were a Sudoku puzzle, they proceeded to work out the schedules on paper napkins. Amazingly enough, Agnes and Jay’s schedules and the Kessenich power rating point system are still being used today to determine conference standings in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester Counties.

The committee felt strongly that the only way to determine a true conference champion was on the field and not by a mathematical formula. Therefore we decided the top four teams would qualify for a two game playoff; one vs. four and two vs. three in the semifinals followed by the two winners playing each other, the following week, in the finals. This left us with two major obstacles: 1) The maximum number of football games permitted in Nassau County was nine; eight regular season games and one playoff game. For this system to work, we needed 10 games, eight regular season and two playoff games. 2) We had to convince the coaches, athletic directors, principals, and school superintendents to scrap the developmental league, prohibit participation in independent leagues, and buy into a completely new idea that had a delicate