BY GREGG SARRA
For those of you who celebrate awards at every level, here's another attempt by the New York State Sportswriters Association to select the All-State football teams at the schools with the larger enrollments. Let me first, congratulate the boys who were honored by the committee's selection. And if I may -- allow me to commiserate with the ones who were not selected.
The NYSSWA tries to identify the top players from all sections of the state. I don't know who they speak to about our players on Long Island, but they do miss many outstanding players each year. And we don't participate in the state championships sho what's the measuring stick here.
This year, Jordany Diejuste of Patchogue-Medford and Brock Jackolski of Floyd were selected to the Class AA first team offense. Diejuste was the Zellner Award winner given to Suffolk's top lineman and Jackolski was the Hansen Award winner given to Suffolk's top player. Those two were no-brainers. Some guy in Japan could have placed those two on the first team.
St. Anthony's Scott Vallone and East Meadow's Alex Rivas were picked for the Class AA first team defense. Again, easy pickings! Vallone was the Defensive player of the year in the CHSFL and the Rivas earned the Thorp Award given to Nassau's top player. Wow, those guys went out on a limb with those picks.
Congratulations to Sayville's Billy O'Connor for his selection to the first team defense in the Class A along with Lawrence lineman Keith Goodluck. Both had fabulous high school careers.
And there were some Long Island players sprinkled among the second, third and fourth teams in Class AA and second and third teams in Class A.
The one that really irked me was the choice for fourth team offense for East Islip's Rob Calabrese. Ok, I know it's tough, the All-Long Island team is hard enough to pick. But fourth team in the state for a kid like Calabrese, NO WAY!
Calabrese is one of the finest high school football players we've seen in a very long time. He was a two-way starter, equally important on both side sof the ball and headed to Central Florida. He led East Islip to an 11-0 record, the Long Island Class II championship over Lawrence, the defending champion, and he broke all of Boomer Esiason's records.
Pleeeeaassseee!!!!!
Comments (1)
was under the impression these are compiled by Neil Kerr of section 3 and John Moriello of NYSSWA with the input of sportswriters from each region...this would include yourself and others from Newsday...is this not the case?