Longwood football team's Matt Reany following in footsteps of his father and grandfather
Matt Reany, left, and his father and former Longwood football player Tim Reany ahead of Longwood’s homecoming game. Tim is wearing the jersey number of his late father, Phil. Credit: Tim Reany
Longwood offensive lineman Matt Reany has helped pave the way for the Lions’ high-powered rushing attack on their way to the No. 3 seed in the Suffolk Division I playoffs. The Lions totaled 413 rushing yards in a 48-14 win over No. 6 Whitman on Friday night.
But the third-generation football player has been following in the footsteps of two Longwood legends.
Reany’s late grandfather, Phil, was a captain on one of Longwood’s first varsity football teams and a member of the high school’s first graduating class in 1965.
Reany’s father and Phil’s son, Tim, was an All-Suffolk selection in 1997 and graduated from Longwood in 1998.
Both played offensive and defensive line. Phil wore No. 57 and Tim wore No. 58.
Add No. 56 to the Reany lineage. The 6-foot, 255-pound senior right guard started playing football when he was in the eighth grade. Now he is a captain and an impact player on both sides of the ball.
“I wasn’t very into football when I was younger, but I started watching it more, and the way my dad and my grandpa would talk about football made it seem like a lot of fun,” Reany said. “I decided to wear 56 to keep it in a line and keep the tradition going.”
Reany’s grandfather served in the military after playing football at Defiance College in Ohio. He returned to Longwood, where he taught social studies for 33 years and was a member of the board of education. The weight room at Longwood is named in his honor. Phil Reany died in 2017 at the age of 71.
Tim Reany now serves as a special education teacher at Longwood High School. Both Phil and Tim were inducted into the Longwood Athletic Hall of Fame.
And the Longwood lineage doesn’t end there. Tim Reany’s wife, Laura, graduated from Longwood in 2000. She is a special ed teacher at Longwood Middle School.
“We bleed green and white,” Tim Reany said. “I’ve lived here my whole life and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“There’s a saying in our district that people at Longwood never leave,” said coach Sean Kluber, who graduated from Longwood in 2006 and is a special ed teacher at Longwood. “The Reany family is the perfect example of that. Tim Reany was a teacher when I was a student here and he saw me go through it. Now, he gets to watch me coach his son.”
Ahead of Longwood’s homecoming game every year, each player asks a teacher who has impacted his education or life to wear his jersey throughout the school day. Naturally, Matt Reany asked his father to wear his jersey this year. Except it wasn’t Reany’s No. 56 jersey.
“He picked me and I guess they didn’t have another 56 jersey, so they gave him 57,” Tim Reaney said. “It was cool because that was my father’s number, so it was awesome. Matt and I were both pumped about that.”
“I always say that when my son goes through the school district, I want him to be just like Matt,” Kluber said. “There’s no entitlement because his dad is a teacher here. He’s just an awesome kid who was raised right and his parents are so supportive of the football program.”
Reany is a member of the National Honor Society and has a 93.15 unweighted GPA. He is uncommitted and hopes to play football in college, but he knows he wants to major in education.
“I want to become a teacher and teach social studies at Longwood like my grandpa did,” Reany said. “I love Longwood. I want to come back here, have kids here, have them come to the school and relive the same things that I get to do every day.”
Reany is looking to become the first in his lineage to win a Suffolk football title. Friday’s win was a step in the right direction.
“When I got to Longwood, everyone was talking about the great athlete and scholar that my father was and how I had big shoes to fill,” Tim Reany said. “So I know what it feels like. Matt is working very hard on the field and in the classroom. I’m very proud of him.”
Matt Lindsay is a high school sports reporter who joined Newsday in 2022 after graduating from Stony Brook University.
