After 28 years, St. Dominic playing varsity football
It took 13 years to to turn St. Dominic - Catholic League royalty, once upon a time - into little more than a blurry line in old high school football stat books. It took 22 more for the Bayhawks to stage their resurgence.
St. Dominic will play its first varsity football game since 1988 this afternoon at Bishop Ford High School in Brooklyn. The team, which played a handful of scrimmages last year, has a five-game schedule and will play independently.
"Our future is very bright," athletic director John Corso said. "We wouldn't have done it if we didn't think we could get it up and running and make it respectable."
The Bayhawks are led by Tore Barbaccia, who coached Oyster Bay for six seasons and resigned in 2003, and assistant coach Ed Tini.
The goal, Barbaccia said, is for St. Dominic to eventually fight its way to the CHSFL. "We have to get better," he said. "It's a slow process . . . but we want to get to the point where we can compete with teams like St. John the Baptist."
Despite being a small school, St. Dominic football, which had 40 players try out this year, has an enviable pedigree. The team went undefeated in 1964, 1967 and 1975, and won the Catholic League title in '67. The Bawhawks shared the championship with St. Anthony's in 1975, led by school icon Tony Capozzoli. The Thorp Award-winner started at quarterback, safety, kicker and punter from 1972-75 and went on to play at Penn State.
Though a bid to the Catholic League is Barbaccia's golden ticket, a more immediate possibility is an independent league - an idea that's gained steam this year thanks to the efforts of schools such as Long Island Lutheran to put together something resembling the Island Conference of yore, a fourth Long Island league geared toward football programs that could not compete in Section VIII, XI, or the CHSFL.
"Our biggest battle is numbers," Corso said. "Right now, we can't compete with the likes of St. Anthony's."
As it stands, St. Dominic will have games against Roslyn and Lutheran.
"We're looking into an independent league," Corso said, adding that playing in the CHSFL while the team is still under development would not necessarily be a positive experience. "We've got to crawl before we walk," he said.
