Direct Rays Sports Column
Yorktown A.D. Nardone Goes Out with Bang, Enter Mr. Barrett
Mahopac Mustn’t Waste Another Minute in Search for Grid Coach
Good luck to Rob Barrett, the newly-minted athletic director at Yorktown High. Talk about pressure; Barrett will be under it from the get-go as he inherits what is widely considered one of the finest athletic programs in Section 1, where winning isn’t everything, it’s the whole shebang, and the only option.
On God’s green earth, there is pressure to succeed everywhere, but Yorktown High may well represent Section 1’s upper crust better than any other school district in Section 1. Everybody buys in to one thing there: Winning! And that’s exactly what the Cornhuskers did last week, taking aim at four Section 1 championships and hitting the target an unmatched four times; hoisting the Class B hardware in boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, which we’ve come to expect, the AA title in softball (its first since 2008) and serving notice on the tennis court behind Peter Wei. In my three decades along the local beat, I can’t recall anything quite like it.
This is what Mr. Barrett walks in to as he departs Port Chester and enters highly heralded Yorktown; a set of unprecedented circumstances. Here are four words of advice when it comes to dealing with displaced parents: Remember the word NO!
Best of luck there, Bobby boy! I can’t imagine it will be easy, but your calm demeanor and awareness of humanity should prevail, provided you follow the last-bastion lead of one Fio Nardone, the outgoing A.D. cut from the cloth of athletic royalty. When it comes to people power and controlling the vicarious revolution, Nardone was unmatched in his 17 years at Yorktown. So long, Fio, we’ll miss you…
Okay, so last week we merely touched on the MAHOPAC football mess in a snippet designed to evoke action. This week, we’re suggesting that the powers that be don’t delay another second in hiring the Phys. Ed. Teacher that has been accounted for in the current school budget, so long as THIS PARTICULAR hire brings crack gridiron genetics to the table. There is some talk about reinstating former football coach, Mark Langella, and if that’s the route Mahopac takes, then so be it, just get a coach, please. That ship may have sailed, though, when Langella was not reappointed by the BOE last winter.
If that’s the case and that ship has, indeed, subsequently sailed, Mahopac will likely get a slew of solid candidates for the P.E. position in a prime school district, but it’s highly unlikely that any of the apps have the dual-capability qualities of one Dominick DeMatteo, the former Arlington and current Nyack football coach/P.E. Teacher, who just so happens to live right here in Mahopac. With his wife and two middle-school-aged sons, plus a vested interest in promoting everything the Mahopac community used to stand for, DeMatteo is the no-brainer Mahopac needs to retain the status it once had when Mahopac was the envy of most Section 1 athletic programs under the guidance of former A.D.’s Frank Miele and Gerry Keevins.
If Mahopac were ever looking for a knight in shining armor, a fair-haired boy so to speak, a guy on a white horse… DeMatteo, a family man with tremendous loyalty, character and appeal, is all those dudes rolled into one. The fact that he has applied for the Mahopac P.E. position should be enough to induce swift action by the Mahopac Board of Education and school administrators TO HIRE HIM PROMPTLY (yes, I’m in holler mode!).
The fact that this is being delayed by a few naysayers is not only teeming with tomfoolery, but is also putting the children this board represents in clear and present peril. This isn’t Class D football we’re talking about here, this is Class AA; where the big boys have been preparing under sagacious coaches since last November.
DeMatteo, Langella (if that vessel is still at port) or whoever this BOE decides to put in place, needs to be instated like yesterday, so just remember: Every minute you delay, every second you waste, your children are being thrown to a pack of wolves that will eat them alive this September without the proper preparation to take the field. So, what are you waiting for?
P.S. DeMatteo’s dad, Tony, is only the greatest living amateur football legend in the state of New York. Perhaps Mahopac gets some of that residual effect on their sideline when Tony D eventually steps down at Somers — where he just guided the Tuskers to their only state grid title in school history — and helps coach his grandsons to something similar. It’s win-win, y’all!
Ray has 33 years experience covering and photographing local sports in Westchester and Putnam counties, including everything from Little League/Travel Baseball to varsity high school prep sports and collegiate coverage. He has been a sports editor at Examiner Media since its inception in 2007.
Visit Ray’s author bio page for more details. Also read Ray’s archived work here and his Direct Rays column here.
