Football
Dan Blaine
Dan Blaine, a restaurateur and onetime halfback, built the hometown Stapleton Football Club into the best semi-pro team in the metropolitan area, and then – from 1929 through 1932 – a competitive member of the National Football League. During four mostly middle-of-the-pack seasons, the Stapes hosted the Bears, Packers – and, every Thanksgiving, the New York Giants – at tiny Thompson’s Stadium, highlighted by a 7-6 upset that cost the Giants the 1930 NFL championship.(Read more...)
Dan Boylan Sr.
Before New Dorp High School had a football team, Dan Boylan organized and coached the New Dorp Queens, a sandlot football team that won nine sandlot championships in 15 seasons. Boylan’s Queens went undefeated five times, holding opponents scoreless in three of those seasons, and counted high school teams like St. Cecelia’s of Englewood, N.J. coached by future National Football League coaching legend Vince Lombardi, among their victims.(Read more...)
Mickey Burns
Mickey Burns was a three-sport star at New Dorp High School, where he played a starring role in the football team’s undefeated run to the 1964 city championship; and at Missouri Valley College, where he’s a member of the school’s Hall of Fame. In his 13 seasons as the basketball coach at McKee High School, Burns’ teams won four Staten Island championships, and his 1977 Sea Gulls remain the only public school boys’ team from (Read more...)
Kevin Coyle
Kevin Coyle, an undersized defensive back at Monsignor Farrell High School and the University of Massachusetts, coached at every level of football, including two decades in the National Football League. Coyle spent college stops at Cincinnati, Arkansas, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Holy Cross, Syracuse, Maryland and Fresno State, before becoming the Cincinnati Bengals secondary coach and Miami Dolphins defensive coordinator.(Read more...)
John D’Amato
John D’Amato, a High School All-American linebacker at Monsignor Farrell, played in the Rose Bowl as a freshman at Ohio State. After transferring to Massachusetts to be closer to his family, D’Amato was a two-time All-Yankee Conference player, and helped lead the Minutemen to the NCAA Division II quarterfinals as a junior, and the I-AA championship game as a senior.(Read more...)