Amityville High School forced to cancel varsity football, can only field JV team this season
Amityville High School will only field a junior varsity team this season after injuries in practices and scrimmages forced the school to cancel its varsity program, according to the school's director of athletics Evan Farkas.
Farkas said the school was planning to play varsity but made the decision on Monday morning that it would not have enough healthy upperclassmen to field a team. Farkas said he informed Section XI the program will only play junior varsity this season.
“We really tried to make it work at the varsity level,” Farkas said. “But we’re a very young group of players and there are developmental and safety concerns. This really stings because we wanted it to work out. But it’s the right decision to rebuild the program. We have the right staff to develop some talented players with a junior varsity schedule.”
Amityville, the 13th seed in Suffolk’s Division IV, was scheduled to open the season at No. 12 Wyandanch on Saturday. They are the second team to drop football in a division that has schools with the smallest enrollment in Suffolk. Port Jefferson made the decision last week to cancel its football program because it did not have enough players to field a team.
“Our policy reads that if two teams drop before August 1, we can re-seed the division,” Section XI executive director Tom Combs said. “If it happens after August 1, we have no choice but to award forfeits. The division already had an odd number with 15 total teams. There was a bye every week.”
Now there are three teams with a bye each week.
“It’s unfortunate because now we’ll have a few teams getting two forfeit wins and playing only a six-game schedule,” Combs said. “But they can go into the team portal and try to schedule a game with other available teams.”
Amityville will play a six-game junior varsity schedule with the hope of adding two more games.
“It’s in the best interests of our younger players to reset,” said Amityville first-year coach Paul Mastronardi. “These kids should be playing junior varsity football as most of them are only 14 years old. Our scrimmages against Babylon, South Side and Baldwin exposed two pressing issues: physical and developmental concerns, and the biggest issue, the safety of our players.”
Amityville has had 12 straight losing seasons but was at one time a Long Island powerhouse. The school won a Long Island Championship in 1999 in Division III and has won eight Rutgers Trophies (1950, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961, 2000), which is awarded to Suffolk's top team.
Mastronardi said Amityville superintendent Gina Talbert and Farkas have been supportive of the football program.
“I'm going to bring it down to the studs and rebuild this storied program,” he said. “We have some very talented athletes. I have a three-year plan that’ll be implemented.”
Farkas said he felt Amityville had the right staff on the right path to rebuild the program.
“I feel pretty good that we’ll be back,” Farkas said.
Holy Trinity also canceled its CHSFL season earlier this summer.
Gregg Sarra is Newsday's high school sports editor and has been on the beat since the mid-1980s.
