The year that’s just about to pass began with as balmy a day any of the 400-plus New Year’s plungers, some, like John Ryan Sr. and Joan Tulp, both over 80, could remember, and because of that bountiful turnout, East Hampton’s food pantries greatly benefited.
The long-ago established link between sports and good works was further strengthened here in 2019, what with the above-mentioned plunge at East Hampton’s Main Beach, the Katy’s Courage race in Sag Harbor, Ellen’s Run in Southampton, Montauk’s triathlons, the Shelter Island 10K, the Artists-Writers softball game, and the I-Tri program for teenage girls coming immediately to mind.
Though East Hampton and its neighbors cannot claim to be unique in this regard, it does seem that it’s all for one, one for all here. And it’s pleasant for a sportswriter to think that individual feats and generosity often go hand in hand on the South Fork.
To quote a former East Hampton resident, Grantland Rice, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”
The game is played well here. East Hampton is blessed to have such good coaches, people like John Ryan Sr. and Jr., whose lifeguarding work was the subject of a documentary that premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival in October.
“The whole film is about saving lives, and about what it takes in the way of community bonding to achieve that,” Mae Mougin, the film’s producer, said the week it was shown, to which Ross Kauffman, “Waterproof’s” Academy Award-winning director, added, “It’s a great story about extraordinary people that I hope will help further the cause of good in the world.”
Not surprisingly, when you’re thinking of sport and communal concern going hand in hand, East Hampton’s swimming program serves as a great example, beginning with its 6, 7, and 8-year-old Nipper Guard instructional sessions on Gardiner’s Bay and continuing through the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter Hurricane and high school varsity boys and girls swimming teams to East Hampton’s successes in national junior and senior lifeguard tournaments. And, as far as I know, the safety record when it comes to East Hampton’s protected beaches, remains intact.
On the subject of swimming, Angelika Cruz, the Old Montauk Athletic Club’s female athlete of the year, said in a winter interview, “I think it’s the best sport ever. It’s about much more than medals. It teaches you time management, about setting goals, and learning how to reach them, and it also teaches you how to handle disappointment — all valuable lessons in life.”
There was little in the way of disappointment when it came to Craig Brierley’s boys swimming team, which not only went undefeated in league competition, but won the League II meet, and finished second in the county. Further, Tom Cohill, who coaches the Hurricanes, said they were, “pound for pound, the strongest Y team in the state.”
Yet not everything was rosy sports-wise, of course, in 2019. East Hampton High School’s football, wrestling, and boys lacrosse programs continued to struggle when it came to numbers, though, at least in the cases of wrestling and football, there’s been a spike lately, enough for Joe McKee, who coached a 5-1 junior varsity team this fall, to envision a varsity and jayvee in 2020. And the wrestling team has a competitor, albeit most are inexperienced, in each weight this season.
Moreover, it seems a matter of time, not much time, I’ve been told, before baseball, softball (the under-11 girls were regional champs), girls lacrosse, girls soccer, and girls basketball attain to the level at which boys soccer, boys basketball, girls tennis, boys tennis, cross-country, and golf (though it didn’t win a banner this fall as it usually does) compete.
Speaking of cross-country, Diane O’Donnell’s girls, for the first time ever, were county Class B champions. And numbers mattered little — with seven on the roster, it had been her “smallest and best” team, the veteran coach said.
It was also the year in which cross-country, whose meets generally have been contested at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park, came home, as it were, to a course laid out on the high school’s athletic fields.
Individually, there was good news too inasmuch as Nick West, the leading collegiate soccer scorer in the nation as a Messiah College senior, signed in August to play professionally with Stumptown Athletic in Charlotte, N.C., the first soccer player from here to turn pro. Brandon Johnson followed suit recently, becoming the first East Hamptoner to play rugby professionally, with the Austin (Tex.) Huns.
Kevin Bunce Sr., who’s been mentoring Johnson, and a number of other young rugby players here, says skill in the sport can open doors when it comes to obtaining college scholarships and to playing internationally. He also touts the sport as a safer alternative to football. “Linemen especially love it because they get to carry the ball,” he says.
So, back to the beginning, when it was noted that sport and generosity go hand in hand here, and that “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game:”
“To me,” said Julie Ratner, the founder of Ellen’s Run, “the race is not about who wins. To me the breast cancer survivors are the heroes . . . the sheroes. These women are brave and bold and they should be celebrated.”