After coaching 34 years of coaching at the Wheatley School, Bernie Hintz figured it was time to hang up his spikes six years ago.

The long-time New Hyde Park resident outlasted some lean years after leading his first Wheatley squad to a 5-5 record in his first year there in 1972, then enduring a decade of losing seasons before succeeding in turning that program around in the early 1980s.

The creation of the Albertson Soccer Academy drew top players to the area, and the Wheatley School, and Hintz’s teams consistently battled for top conference honors and took the state title twice – once during a season when it went undefeated and he was named coach of the year.

Hintz had coached top talents such as All-Americans Carlos Mendes, now with the New York Red Bulls after playing for Old Dominion, and Adam Bruh, Wheatley’s all-time leading scorer, who had a career in Europe after playing at the University of Michigan.

But after having soccer as a primary focus of his life for the previous 40 years, his wife Betty told him he was walking away too soon.

Known to players on some of his teams as “Mrs. Coach,” Betty Hintz gave him the same candid analysis about himself that he had come to value from her about his teams.

“You’re not ready to stop coaching. You’ve got too much to give kids. There are kids out there waiting to learn,” she said she told him. “You’ve got a profound knowledge of the game. You’re not done.”

So Hintz, 60, looked into an opening at North Shore High School in Glen Head. And that’s where he’s been coaching for the past five years, reviving what had been a strong soccer program. North Shore isn’t likely to be a threat to win the state title in the foreseeable future. But North Shore’s final win in what was a losing season gave Hintz his 321st win as a coach, the record as the winningest coach.

Hintz said all six losses in his squad’s 4-6-4 record could have gone the other way.

There’s irony of Hintz surpassing former Cold Spring Harbor coaching legend Ralph Witney, a coach Hintz said he was in “total awe” of in younger years, is not lost on him. Witney’s teams regularly walloped Wheatley; one-fifth of his coaching losses came against Cold Spring Harbor. The coach whose record he eclipsed this season counted Hintz’s club as a stepping stone to another conference titles in their early encounters.

Hintz has come full cycle in his coaching career, back to a point of focusing on bringing his players along while they try to win games. He aims to give them valuable experience – rather than thinking about state bragging rights.

“I try to teach them enough soccer so they improve,” Hintz said, adding that he tries to give his players a good time while they play.

He recalls when he hit the 200-victory milestone and breaking the 300-game win barrier is a big deal on a personal level.

“It’s almost unbelievable to me. When I hit 300, I thought ‘that’s phenomenal,” Hintz said.

It’s a different sport these days, with athletes who more frequently letter in more than one varsity sport these days, and who have a dizzying selection of distractions in the digital media era that makes it tougher to keep players focused, Hintz said.

“I don’t know how many more years I have at this. I remember what it was like at Wheatley. I go out there with a different set of goals than I had at Wheatley,” he said.

He’s still been coaching at Wheatley – as the varsity golf coach – for the past 16 years.

Wheatley won its first state soccer title under Hintz in 1983 and the second title – the perfect result in a perfect season – came 21 years later. In between, Wheatley won more conference titles than Hintz could recall, and fielded more than one Long Island title team that didn’t go all the way.

Mendes made All-American 12 years ago, with Bruh’s early success in a star-crossed career that included a serious injury at Michigan.

He can still remember when his goal was to have a winning season at Wheatley, and the realization that doing less is sometimes just what the job requires.

“When you’ve coached as long as I have, and you have a player like Mendes or Bruh, you just want to make sure that they don’t get in their way,” Hintz said.

Even good teams have to catch a break in making the unbroken string that Wheatley recorded in its storied ’04 season. That was a bittersweet year for Wheatley, starting with the sudden death of Craig Grumet, a star defenseman who would have been the team’s captain in his senior year. The team dedicated its season to Grumet and took home the state title.

“When you make a run for a state title, there is one game where you have to be lucky,” Hintz said.

For Wheatley in 2004, it was the game the team topped arch-rival Cold Spring Harbor in the Long Island Championship match 1-0 on a header by Paul de Barros off a corner kick.

That’s the kind of game he said Wheatley played this season against Mattituck in a losing result that could have gone either way, according to Hintz, who added that in the end, Wheatley just didn’t get the breaks in that 3-2 game.

Hintz takes the long view of these things, as he always did while coaching at Wheatley. That was natural then, when he taught the same five- and six-year-old kids as physical education teacher at the North Side School who he’d be coaching in high school a decade later.

He’s thinking about de Barros scoring that header to beat Cold Spring Harbor, and remembers that the memories aren’t just about the guys who scored the big goals or went on to have big careers, and then starts musing about a kid who lost direction and recently died from a drug overdose.

“You do end up losing some kids along the way,” Hintz said.

Hintz counters that thought with a more personal one, describing the moment at Wheatley when his son David, then a junior at Great Neck South, came in at the end of a scoreless match to take a free kick – and struck it for the game’s lone goal.

“It was the greatest moment of my coaching career,” he said, recalling his son bringing it up for months afterwards.

Hintz isn’t planning to alter anything in his routine next season, including the post-game notes he hears from his wife during some memorable dinner hours.

“I’m a source of feedback for Bernie. I hear things from parents that he doesn’t hear. He takes that information and uses it as a coach,” Betty Hintz said

“Dinners are always interesting the day after a game,” said Hintz, who calls his wife “an expert on the school district after 39 years of doing this.”

Hintz has been playing soccer since he was nine years old, playing for a team in the old German-American League before he played in school. He recalls his father first taking him to games at the Metropolitan Oval on Metropolitan Avenue in Queens

“I couldn’t believe the size of their thighs,” he said, recalling his first game there. “And when they kicked the ball, it sounded like thunder. And I was sold on soccer.”

He played two years at Queensborough Community College, then finished his college playing career at Adelphi University with a trio of Israeli national team stars, Robey Young, Admad Aruskins and Shuka Palji coached by Mel Less.

An injury prevented Hintz from playing on the U.S. Team Handball team in the 1972 Summer Olympics. That’s why he was available to interview for the North Side teaching job, which led to his long run at Wheatley.

Achieving that victory record while at North Shore has prompted thoughts about that next plateau – and Hintz admits that he’s been projecting how many more seasons he’d have to hang in to coach that 400th win.

Nassau County Executive Edward Managano said said this week 18 more Nassau County municipalities and school districts had expressed interest in joining a cooperative purchasing council aimed at cutting the cost of government by permitting the bulk purchase of goods and services.

But local officials continue to express doubts about just what kind of deal they’re being offered.

“The concept is good. How it’s being implemented is the other issue,” said North Hills Mayor Marvin Natiss.

The Village of North Hills is among a total of 23 Nassau County municipalities school districts that have notified the county of its interest, according to a press release from Mangano’s office last week. But Natiss said North Hills needs more information before agreeing to join.

The Long Island Intergovernmental Purchasing Council was created in August by a joint resolution signed by Managano and Suffolk County Executive. Five municipalities including the Viillage of Mineola expressed an interest in joining shortly after the initiative was announced.

“As we continue to search for ways to save taxpayer dollers, it only makes sense to have more districts and governments join our efforts to protect taxpayers from wasteful spending,” Mangano said in the release. “The invitation stands for all municipalities to join us in this cost-cutting initiative.”

Mangano recently said he believes the county could help school districts offset whatever increased costs they face in the future when the county guarantee of property taxes is eliminated, a move proposed by Mangano that was opposed by school superintendents across the county.

In his press please, Mangano said the the Village of Laurel Hollow, which became the seventh municipality to officially join the consortium, as calling their decisiion a “no-brainer.”

But North Shore officials are not so sure.

Natiss said the purchasing council puts too many constraints on those who sign up. Among those is a restriction on a member of the cooperative buying outside of the cooperative curing their first year of membership.

“There is a constraint,” said Natiss, referring to that first-year rule, which states in its by-laws that a member “cannot issue a request for purchase or solicitation.”

Natiss said the cooperative also aims to restrict its bidding to deals with Long Island vendors, which Natiss sees as another problematic restriction.

“That to me is an issue. If I’m stuck with their low bidder, that’s another issue for me,” Natiss said.

Natiss noted that any member can opt out of the cooperative with 60 days notice, but Natiss seems disinclined to join. North Hills plans to address the issue during its Dec. 15 village board meeting.

“Some of the constraints may become a problem for municipalities,” Natiss said. “Even though the concept it good, we may decide as a group not to do it.”

Great Neck Superintendent of Schools Tom Dolan said that, as he understands it, opting in means being restircted to using the purchasing council as the school district’s sole purchasing agent for the next three years.

“We’re not entirely comfortable delegating our purchasing authority,” Dolan said. “We think we do a pretty good job and we’re not content with giving it away unless some other questions are answered.”

The school district’s attorneys are currently reviewing the purchasing council’s offer, according to Dolan.

Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth said he is pleased the county is focusing on cost savings through its bi-county cooperative, but he also said there are still questions unanswered about the parameters of participating in the cooperative group.

“The concern that’s being raised is if you sign onto this, whether you are committed to all of your purchases through the Long Island Purchasing Council,” Bierwirth said. “What we do right now is we look at a variety of cooperative bids and we pick the best one.”

Bierwirth said Herricks examines bids from BOCES, the state office of general services, and other buying cooperatives, and sometimes can still strike better negotiated deals with local vendors. Bierwirth said he’s interested in finding out more about the purchasing council, but he’s clearly doubtful about said he would be “very reluctant” to have Herricks opt in if purchasing through the cooperative is mandatory.

“Capitalism works in my mind by keeping people on their toes, by not having monopolies,” Bierwirth said, adding that “the ability to keep those coops on their toes, and to keep the people who bid for them on their toes” is what makes his purchasing system work efficiently.

One school board attorney familiar with the terms of LIPC membership said its terms seemed too restrictive.

“I think it’s designed to get everybody signed up and boxed in,” the attorney said.

The attorney said that the LIPC agreement obligates each village or school board to purchase everything through the bi-county cooperative unless it is not in the “best interests” of the respective municipality or school district. That leaves plenty of room for interpretation of what “best interests” means, the attorney said.

“It takes away the discretion,” the attorney said. “You’re locked in unless you can make an argument that it’s not in our best interests for this contract. There are a lot of things that at the very least are unexplained at this point.”

A spokesperson for the county executive’s office said county attorneys are currently reviewing the language in its by-laws with the intention of allaying misgivings among school board officials on certain terms specified by the three-year agreements they would sign

The county lists the villages of Roslyn Harbor, Hewlett Bay Park, Kings Park, Stewart Manor, Plandome Heights, East Rockaway, Lynbrook, Upper Brookville and Long Beach along with North Hills as prospective municipal participants. The East Rockaway, Elmont, Roslyn, Valley Stream, Levittown, Long Beach and Hewlett-Woodmere as school districts that are interested.

But thus far, the initiative has the villages of Mineola, Patchogue and Northport and the towns of Oyster Bay and Brookhaven are the charter members. The Laurel Hollow Village Board opted in last week, according to the county executive’s office.

“In this tough economy, any time we can bring various levels of government together to provide real savings to our taxpayers, we’re doing the right thing,” said Mineola Mayor Jack Martins after Mineola did last month.

From the perspective of Mineola Village Clerk Joseph Scalero, it simply give Mineola more latitude on seeking good purchasing options.

“By having more options, it gives us more opportunities for savings. This is one more avenue that you can opt into,” Scalero said.

Mineola still does have the option to take bids outside of the purchasing council, according to Scalero, who said the cooperative also has a mechanism to enable members to initiate requests for proposal that could translate into a collective purchase among purchasing council members.

“One of the unique features of this is that they’ve put in a mechanism, not only for a bid to go out, but for targeted specifications,” Scalero said.

The purchasing council states that any member can opt out of any bid it puts out. So far, it has provided its fledgling membership a bid request for multipurpose office paper. It has another bid in the coming up, for road salt to melt ice on roadways.

“Salt is salt,” said Scalero. “If they can get a price for 1,000 tons of salt and divide it up, we all pay the same price based on that number of tons.”

After 400 hours of research, Wheatley senior Sonya Prasad could become the first student in the school’s history to win the national Siemens Math, Science and Technology competition this weekend in Washington, DC.

“I’m a little worn out,” Prasad said as she sat in a lab room at Wheatley to discuss the topic that put her in the finals – a study of engineering nanoscale biosensors to enable relatively easy detection of pancreatic cancer.

Prasad is part of a three-student team that undertook the research that put them in the running among five other team finalists in the competition. She and her project partners, Nikhil Mehandru of Roslyn High School and Santosh Narayan from Munster High School in Munster, IN, formulated and conducted their research during seven weeks at a Stony Brook research lab this past summer.

She is one of several outstanding Wheatley science students who have gone through a series of lab experiences since middle school that put them in the running for a $100,000 college scholarship.

Prasad said she and her partners selected pancreatic cancer because it has a particularly high mortality rate. Their objective was to find a relatively inexpensive detection method using biomarkers to collect data on the toxicity of extremely tiny particles in pancreatic cancer cells.

“The method we used to detect cancer is fairly new,” she said.

Prasad said she is “definitely nervous” about the outcome of the competition. But win, lose or draw she said she is is contemplating following in her parents footsteps and to pursue a career in medicine or some scientific field. Prasad’s mother, Nalini, is an anesthesiologist and her father, Kris, is an engineer,

Just entering an elite science competition like Siemens is good college resume grist. And like many of her science-minded peers, Prasad demonstrates other conspicuous talents: she won a place as a vocalist in the upcoming NYSSMA state competition.

Prasad is one of an elite group of highly motivated students who seek lab work opportunities and express their competitive natures through their academic work.

“Part of it is you want kids who are bright enough so they can learn what they need to know to present their projects,” said Doreen D’Angelo, one of Wheatley’s two lab science teachers who direct the exceptional students. “The other thing is, these kids are very competitive.”

Wheatley juniors Alan Czermerinski and Tom Wang were named Siemens semi-finalists for their work on using oxygenated and de-oxygenated hemoglobin cells to detect the flu virus. They plan to extend their research to use another form of hemoglobin, the stuff blood cells are built from, to detect high levels of blood sugar or diabetes.

“We work toward coming to Siemens. That program is geared to just teaching itself,” said Czermerinski.

Both he and Wang aspire to careers in biological engineering. They collaborated on their project developed during lab work at Stony Brook with Kelsey McKenna of Southside High School

And both students are also musicians. Wang plays the clarinet, while Czermerinski plays french horn and will be joining Prasad at the NYSSMA state music competition.

Wheatley junior Lambert Chu was named a Siemens semi-finalist for his work with a partner from the Philips Academy in Massachusetts on determining the genetic effect of morphine on cancerous and non-cancerous cells.

Chu and his partner built on prior research with morphine in this vein by exposing healthy and unhealthy cells to various morphine dilutions.

“What morphine does is destroy cells to inhibit tumors from growing,” Chu said, adding that he stumbled upon related research while at the research lab at CUNY Old Westbury this past summer.

Wheatley juniors Arjun Balakumar and Sean Oh gained recognition as Siemens semi-finalists by exploring the effects of Docosahexanaenoic Acid (DHA) and Lithium Chloride on Alzheimer’s Disease.

They had a toxic substance, 4NP, known to “stress” cells, Oh said, leading to Alzheimer’s. Using 4NP to do just that, Oh and Balakumar were able to demonstrate that the combination of DHA and Lithium Chloride reduced the plaque that builds up in arteries to cause Alzheimer’s Disease.

“It was a synergetic response. They work best when combined together,” said Oh.

Oh said he plans to continue doing research on Alzheimer’s and the immune system, and wants to major in neuroscience.

Consistent with the profiles of his fellow Siemens standouts, Oh also has a musical side: he plays cello and guitar.

Politics pervades the season.

Even Thanksgiving, which is regularly reinterpreted to justify the prevailing political themes of the day.

Thanksgiving has been portrayed as a day of ecumenical gathering but one which suggested the supremacy of the Pilgrims over the (savage) Native Americans, who are depicted in an early painting as sharing the bounty of the Pilgrims’ harvest.

In fact, the first Thanksgiving was a three-day feast held in Plymouth in the fall of 1621, sometime between September 21 and November 11. The Pilgrims – 52 English people – were joined (and vastly outnumbered) by about 90 of the local Wampanoag tribe, including Chief Massasoit, who likely brought much of the feast that was enjoyed by all.

Within two more generations of the First Thanksgiving, the whites would annihilate Massasoit’s grandchildren in Prince Philip’s War. Since 1970, the Wampanoag and other native tribes in the Plymouth area have held an anti-Thanksgiving event, “The Day of Mourning.”

Today, the Wampanoag people are a little more forgiving. They write that after generations of eradicating Indians from most of the European settlements, the First Thanksgiving seemed to be an example “of the respect that was possible once, if only for the brief span of a single generation in a single place, between two different cultures and as a vision of what may again be possible someday among people of goodwill.”

If anything, thanksgiving was a Native American tradition.

“For centuries, the Algonquian Indian peoples of New England practiced rituals of feasting and giving thanks throughout the year – in every season, for every harvest,” reports Old Sturbridge Village.

Colonial communities’ Thanksgiving celebrations were more sporadic, and were organized around harvest time. “Even though Thanksgiving wasn’t an official holiday in early New England, it was still a favorite time for family gatherings, feasts, and weddings, since the harvest was done, and farm families had time to celebrate and give thanks.”

Moving forward, Thanksgiving became a day for national pride, as in 1789, when President George Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26 to be “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer,” to especially give thanks for the opportunity to form a new nation and the establishment of a new constitution. But even then, there was no annual, national holiday.

From the early 1820s, Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and author of the famous “Mary Had a Little Lamb” nursery rhyme, envisioned a national, annual Thanksgiving holiday as a way to infuse hope and belief in the nation and the Constitution.

Then, at a time when the nation was torn asunder, Thanksgiving became a day for unity.

During the Civil War, Lincoln embraced this concept as a way to bring the nation together. On October 3, 1863, Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation that declared the last Thursday in November (based on Washington’s date) to be a day of “thanksgiving and praise.” For the first time, Thanksgiving became a national, annual holiday with a specific date.

By the 1890s, there was a new objective for the Thanksgiving holiday, as a way to assimilate the waves of immigrants who were needed to man America’s booming, industrializing economy.

It is fascinating to learn from Karin Goldstein, curator of Original Collections at Plimoth Plantation, which re-creates the Pilgrim settlement, that it was the Daughters of the American Revolution who, in 1921, came up with the idea of injecting the story of the First Thanksgiving as an expression of American ideals – of coming to America for a better life – into public school curriculum, complete with activities like turkey cut-outs.

I imagine at the time the immigrants thought the lesson of Thanksgiving was that America is a nation of immigrants, the Pilgrims included, who came to the New Land for opportunity and freedom.

But with immigrant-bashing of recent years, the moral of the Thanksgiving holiday changed yet again, to confer the legitimacy of European Christian domination over the native people, who only two generations removed from that 1621 harvest feast, were already battling to displace from the land they now claimed a divine right to possess.

This year, we hear about the Tea Party revising the story, yet again, to be a parable of the supremacy of Capitalism over Socialism – suggesting that the Pilgrims began in the New World as socialists but because of the failure of that system, was overthrown by capitalism.

But we checked with the historians at Plimoth Plantation – who I regard as the keepers of the truth regarding Thanksgiving.

The early Pilgrims – who were not all Puritans and did not all come for religious freedom – came mainly for land and opportunity. Europe had a system of primogeniture – where the eldest son inherited all the property – and there was no land to be had. Their voyage to the New World was financed by creditors and were contractually bound to stay together, work together, to pay them off. Their contract was set to expire in seven years, in spring, 1628. (When you visit Plimoth Plantation, where interpreters take on the persona of actual historic figures of the Colony, you hear how anxious they are to set off on their own.)

In fact, they were not able to completely pay off their debt – many died, meaning there was less labor to get the work done, and two of the ships with goods they were sending back to England to repay their debts were taken by pirates.

But it is utter nonsense that they intended to create a socialist society, and it was its failure that resulted in rejecting it in favor of capitalism. The pilgrims never intended to remain a communal society; on the other hand, working together is how they were able to survive those first difficult years. And even today, the essence of our communities is that there are public squares and parks and roads, “the commons” that belong to all.

I choose the version of Thanksgiving that reminds us of these key themes: a nation of immigrants who value the American ideals of freedom and opportunity and diversity.

In that spirit, Congressman Gary Ackerman is circulating a letter among House Democrats urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to schedule a floor vote on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) during the lame-duck session of Congress, which is set to resume the week of Nov. 29. The letter, which Ackerman began to circulate late Thursday, currently has more than 40 co-signers.   

The DREAM Act would enable undocumented children – who were brought to the United States before their 16th birthday and have lived in the U.S. for at least five years with no criminal record – to earn permanent legal status, and begin the process towards citizenship through attending college or joining the Armed Forces. The DREAM Act would benefit an estimated 934,000 students presently in elementary or secondary school. Many of these students have no memory of life in a country other than the United States.

“Many of these young people have spent almost their entire lives in the United States, now desperately hoping that the DREAM Act would be enacted so they could have the same opportunities to pursue the American dream as their classroom peers,” Ackerman wrote his colleagues. “Unfortunately, they have been held hostage by a national immigration debate that has been both hostile and overtly partisan. 

 “These children are blameless. For many of them, America is the only home they have ever known and English is the only language they speak. Holding these children accountable for an immigration status they did not choose and could not control is grossly unfair. 

 “Now is the best opportunity we may have to pass the DREAM Act. Any further delay imperils the chance for these young people to eventually legalize their status and pursue a higher education,” he wrote.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, the Congress should take up the DREAM Act and pass it.

Each year, Great Neck puts its own stamp on the meaning of Thanksgiving, with a Thanksgiving Interfaith Service, organized by the Great Neck Clergy Association. This year, the service was held at All Saints Episcopal, on Monday, November 21.

And to get a sense of what Native American traditions were like at the time our area was settled by the English, go to Garvies Point (which last weekend had its annual Native American feast). And there is still time to celebrate an 1863 Thanksgiving, just as Lincoln would have had it, at Old Bethpage Village Restoration, Nov. 27 and Nov. 28, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Karen Rubin

There are two sides to every story concerning President Obama, Senate majority leader Reid and outgoing House Speaker Pelosi along with our own senators, Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, and Congressmember Gary Ackerman.

They again attacked Congressional Republicans for holding up funding for extending unemployment benefits.

Virtually all Republican members of Congress support extending unemployment benefits about to expire for over 2 million Americans still out of work.

All they have asked is for President Obama and Congressional Democrats to honor their previous commitments to support “pay-as-you-go” legislation for any new funding programs.

With a trillion dollar plus debt increase this year and total long-term debt exceeding $13 trillion dollars, we can’t borrow forever without dire economic consequences to our economy and nation.

Within a multi trillion dollar federal budget, surely one can find other programs to cut so we can fund another new $12 billion in unemployment benefits extension.

Difficult economic times require real leaders making tough decisions.

That is why voters in 2008 sent President Obama and a Democratic majority to Washington.

If President Obama and Congressional Democrats can’t find the money, perhaps this is why citizens voted for so many new Republican members of Congress in November 2010 who can.

Constituents of Schumer, Gillibrand and Ackerman are waiting for them to tell us how they propose to pick up the tab.

Larry Penner

Great Neck

New Hyde Park native Jessica Merino, a first-year member of the women’s swim team at the University of Scranton, has been named Athlete of the Week for the period ending Nov. 14. Merino, a Holy Trinity Diocesa, captured first place honors in the 50 and 100 meter freestyle races and swam the anchor leg on the 200 medley relay team that finished first as the Royals defeated Goucher College and Juanita College at the Bryon Center to improve to 3-2 on the season.

The players won both the junior and senior games to extend the winless streak for the parents to “0-for-Forever”!

The juniors had a spirited game as the parents tried to conceal their limited skills with a lot of noise. It didn’t help. Six goals sealed their fate. Kevin Chan (three goals), Sammy Duggan (two goals) and one goal by Demond Pearson was more than enough to overcome feeble tallies by Mr. Hinz, Ms. Mininson and Captain Ms. Chan.

Great midfield by Vincent Scifino, Jamie Chan, Alex Laroia and Josh Hom. Charlie Hinz was excellent as the goalie.

The senior match was a little closer. Debbie Chin opened the scoring with the first goal. The parents put on a spurt midway through the first half with goals by Mr. LaPinta and Mr. Egre.

Stefani Egre closed out the 1st half with the tying goal.

The parents put a scare into the players when a penalty shot was called for the parents. It was a bogus call when the referee missed a hand ball by the parents but instead called a hand ball on the players.

However, as expected the penalty shot was pretty weak and wide of the mark to keep the contest tied.

In the closing moments Brett Tirado was able to rocket a blast past the goalie for the winning goal. And the frustration continues.

David Glass was outstanding as his super defense stopped the parents all day.

The stars at midfield were Malik Wilder, Billy Russo, Sebastian Gonzalez, Frankie LaPinta, Matt Saraiva Harrison Stein and Kendall Toomer.

Andrea Matteo pressed tirelessly with her tenacious attacks.

Thanks to all the parents who took that giant step and got on to the ‘pitch’ with their children and now understand it’s not quite as easy as it looks.

Topping off the season was a big, beautiful soccer sheet cake (graciously provided by the Chins). Thank you.

A big thanks to all our coaches: Krys, Jessica, Katie, Matt, John, Jonathan, Danny, Kevin, Matt, Victoria and the Kick Kats (Brittany, Sarahelena, Kayla, Alessia, Gianna, Katya, Olivia, Catherine, Gabriella and Ashley), and Rich and Matt Bursig who could not make it this week.

A special thanks to my assistants, Brian Evers and Mary Jo Bursig. They are the last pieces to the puzzle which makes it all a picture-perfect program!

Keep an eye open for a reunion next spring as we celebrate our 20th anniversary with as many current and former players and coaches as we can contact!

It was a very good game between the New Hyde Park Cheetahs and Syosset Sol.

Syosset Sol with a two-point lead over NHP Cheetahs for the first place division title. Both teams have not lost a match all season and this was a great position for the Cheetahs to play the undefeated team in the last game.

The Cheetahs were practicing very hard. They knew what they were up against.

The Cheetahs have played phenomenal in every game, improving each game with passing, controlling and trapping of the ball.

Communication was great on the field between players.

Irene Krische in goal for the game against Syosset made excellent saves, deflects and placed the Syosset offenders off course where their shots were just wide of the net at times.

Coming out of goal and forcing the player to go wide made it difficult for Syosset to score.

Daniela O’Modie in mid-defense broke up many attempts at goal from Syosset, then switching the field of play to pass to her fellow defenders Paulina Papadoniou and Channing Woo, who then would clear the ball up the field.

Great defensive plays by Channing Woo as she stayed close to the opponent and quickly faking the throw-ins.

Syosset came up with two goals but not for long as Olivia Lappin kicks a beautiful high corner kick directly in front of the net where Andrea Waldron in position was able to get her foot on the ball and blast a nice shot in goal.

Great Corner Kick Olivia! Nice Goal Andrea!

Team Cheetahs should be very proud as to get a first goal by the Syosset Sol as not one team in the division had scored upon them all season.

Great teamwork!

Excellent mid field play by Kaitlyn Louie who stayed aggressive throughout the game.

Samantha Bravo, Lauren Hessler, Kassidy Keefe and Kristina Horan played very well on the attack with nice passes and shots on goal.

Team Cheetahs took second in their division as they fell short 3-1 against Syosset.

Team Cheetahs had a great first season thanks to all their hard work and dedication.

Thank You to our great coaches: Michael Horan, Gabe Bravo & Peter Papadoniou for all your support, great insight, your time, dedication and hard work.

A special thanks to Trainer Efi who worked with each and every player each week, showed Team Cheetahs how to stay focused, positive, to have fun and that you can do it.

Thank You!

We missed teammate Julia Feldman .

The 9-year-old Chiefs shutout the Inwood Buccaneers 13-0 at home in the Nassau County Semifinals, and advanced to the Nassau County Championship Game versus Garden City.

The victory brings the Chiefs Winning Record to 7-2.

The Chiefs’ defensive line of Kevin Parente (one fumble recovery), Nick Monteforte, Austin Krasinski, William McCreery, Joe Martello, Michael Sinisi, Spenser Warantz, Ryan Calderone, Jeremy Samuel and Philip Arnold kept the pressure on Inwood’s Offense.

The linebackers Michael O’Connell and Matt Sluka played lights out defense.

The Chiefs’ safety Lance Costa with cornerbacks Andrew Casoria, Thomas Albig and Jack Duff (one interception, touchdown) finished off the Buccaneers.

The Chiefs, behind Quarterback O’Connell (one touchdown run) and Running Back Sluka (one extra point run) moved the ball up and down the field with precision running.

The Chiefs again this week moved the ball behind the offensive line centered by Michael Laginestra and anchored by Patrick McTiernan, Anthony Giunta, Dylan Vincenti, Andrew Cho and Tight End Jason Eccher.

All the boys played and contributed. An injured Andrew Khafif was on the sidelines rooting his team on to Victory. Scoring is summarized below:

• Michael O’Connell 50 yard Touchdown Run (Xpoint Failed)

• Jack Duff 29 Yard Interception Return Touchdown (Matt Sluka Xpoint Run)

At halftime of the Long Island Championship game against Mattituck, the Wheatley Wildcats soccer team was on unfamiliar ground, losing 2-0.

Sophomore goalkeeper Eric Orologio and his teammates were feeling a bit stunned, but they knew they weren’t out of the match yet.

“I was in disbelief. We were the better team,” Orologio recalled. “I knew in my heart we were going to come back.”

Before the half ended, team captain Jake Butwin was already thinking about how to lead Wheatley’s comeback.

“We came out flat. Towards the end of the half, I said to myself ‘I have to take control of this game’,” he said.

Butwin did just that. After leading Wheatley in scoring with 17 goals during the regular season, he didn’t doubt himself or his team’s ability to play a strong second half. Coach Steve Cadet took his star striker aside at halftime and told him to stop passing the ball off, to draw the defense to him and find openings to feed his teammates the ball.

Butwin followed his coach’s direction, registering an assist on his team’s first goal in the second half. Butwin himself scored the tying goal. The Mattituck goalie stopped two breakaway chances by Alex Butwin, Jake’s younger brother. And Orologio just couldn’t stop a nearly perfect shot by a Mattituck striker, and the Wheatley season ended on the short end of a 3-2 score, short of their goal to win a state championship.

But Wheatley compiled an exemplary record, losing only one regular season match, and beating the Carle Place team that topped them by a 2-1 score to capture the county championship in their class C conference before losing to Mattituck.

They had handed a talented Friends Academy team its only loss in a 3-2 thriller with Butwin deftly completing a hat trick. Butwin, on his way to Duke University next year, was named to the All-State team, with a shot at being named an All-American.

“Aside from his skill, he’s just like having another coach on the field,” Cadet said.

Butwin is modest about his talent, crediting his teammates with creating scoring opportunities for him. His brother Alex, a midfielder, was one of his elder brother’s adept supporting cast, recording four assists by feeding his brother the ball.

That was the most efficient method to enable Wheatley to finish, according to the younger Butwin. “I just get him the ball. That’s the easiest way,” Alex said.

He’s hoping to follow his brother to Duke after his senior year at Wheatley.

“It’d be cool,” he said.

Coach Cadet first saw Orologio play on a U-16 Albertson Soccer Academy team before the young goalkeeper started for Wheatley as a freshman, and Cadet had heard about the talented Butwin brothers. The Albertson Academy is a private soccer school that fields teams in a development league that competes with squads of promising players committed to Major League Soccer squads

With seven shutouts in his freshman year and six shutouts in the campaign just completed, Cadet is expecting Orologio to lead a more mature defense next season for a Wheatley team that will have 16 players returning. That includes standout center defender B.J. Shiela, who, along with Orologio, was the backbone of Wheatley’s staunch defense.

“Our goalie will be a year older and we’ll be much stronger on defense next year. He’s the real deal,” Cadet said.

Orologio has the advantage of growing up with a personal coach, his father Ottadio, who played in Italy in his younger days. He still competes in an amateur league today.

Orologio’s older brother Gregory, a defender like his father, helped lead Wheatley to a state title in 2006.

Now the Orologio soccer partriarch focuses on his 16-year-old son, who has aspirations of making it to the professional level of play. He said his son always has a good attitude and he encourages him to maintain that, whatever the game result.

“The important thing I tell him after every game is to keep your head up,” the elder Orologio said.

Time will tell whether his son can make that cut, according to Ottadio Orologio, who sees soccer as much more than just a game.

“Soccer is a sport, but it’s a discipline. It’s a way of living,” he said. “If you’re not sloppy and you do it right, it will help you in life with everything else.”

Jake Butwin plans to apply that discipline to his studies at Duke, dismissing any professional soccer aspirations.

Meanwhile, his younger brother Alex, who plays on the same Albertson Academy team with the youngest Orologio, hopes to step up and improve on his record of four goals scored this season. And for that dynamic duo and their teammates, they’ll wait ‘til next year, with high expectations.

It may be a small village in Great Neck, but the Village of Thomaston plays a major role in the Long Island Rail Road’s plans to upgrade the Port Washington line and, ultimately, connect to Grand Central Terminal.

Long Island Rail Road President Helena Williams said Thomaston is key juncture on the Port Washington line because line goes from two tracks to one in Great Neck and there is no other turnaround until a train reaches Port Washington.

“The LIRR is excited for its customers to have east side access into Manhattan,” Williams said. “We need to get the railroad ready to use two terminals and we are identifying track adjustments in order to provide our customers with more trains to Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal.”

The Long Island Rail Road’s plan ran into roadblock last week when Village of Thomaston Mayor Stern and village residents raised concerns about the railroad’s $40 million plan to replace the Colonial Road Bridge and extend an existing pocket track that allows trains to turnaround by 1,200 feet to accommodate a 12-car train. The existing pocket track that allows the LIRR to turn a 10-car train around before Port Washington ends behind the house at 15 Shadow Lane. The proposed pocket track extension of 1,200 feet would reach the intersection of Windsor Road and St. George Road

Stern’s objection at a public meeting at village hall that the extension of the pocket track would impact too many residents, prompting a pointed response from Williams and other LIRR officials who claimed that Stern had been aware of the plan for months and had consistently voiced support.

Williams said a longer pocket track at Great Neck would ensure that more trains would be available on the LIRR’s second busiest branch, increasing service and reliability on the line.

“Immediate access into Grand Central Terminal from Long Island would save commuters 20 minutes to get to work,” Williams said. “We are conscious of Port Washington branch customers because they have high property values and we understand they depend on the LIRR for property values. Faster and more train rides will keep homes on Long Island filled, which is important for the vibrancy of the region.”

The Long Island Rail Road currently stops only on Manhattan’s west side at Penn Station with about half of the rail road’s commuters travel to the east side of Manhattan either by subway or bus after arriving at Penn Station. Williams said the LIRR to add east side access into Grand Central Terminal in 2016.

Williams said in several meetings with public officials Stern only asked that the pocket track be fully landscaped, which she said will take place by planting evergreen and arbor vitae trees at the pocket track.

But at a Nov. 17 meeting at Village Hall in Thomaston with LIRR officials and about 100 Thomaston residents, Stern began the meeting by expressing concern that this project would impact village homeowners.

“I see and understand what the LIRR is trying to do and it is good for the railroad, but bad for the community,” Stern said. “Residents who live near the pocket track now already complain about the noise and extending it further will only annoy more homeowners. I would approve improving service into Manhattan, but don’t want my residents impacted by this project.”

Williams said the pocket track would be used during the morning and evening rush hour commutes and would not be a storage facility to hold trains overnight. Williams said a turn around consists of the engineer performing a brake test to see if the train meets Federal Railroad Administration requirements and does not make any noise, especially since it is located in a deep ravine.

At the Nov. 17 meeting, residents asked the LIRR to think of alternative sites for the pocket track not near their homes. Williams said the LIRR will examine alternative suggestions under federal guidelines of the national environmental procedure that could take five to six months to evaluate.

Williams said Great Neck is a prominent location to extend the pocket track because it has reverse commuters and would provide people with more flexibility and seat opportunities when using the LIRR. She said not having a longer pocket track would only harm LIRR customers who use the Great Neck rail road station.

“If there is no project, service reliability would not increase which would hurt our customers,” Williams said. “We want to increase the number of trains available to our customers if we make improvements, especially those who commute to Great Neck. Not having the pocket track in Great Neck would be a detriment to commuters who begin their trips here.”

Williams said the bridge could not get replaced without extending the pocket track or installing new drainage. The Colonial Road Bridge does not comply with state Department of Transportation sight standards and creates flooding during heavy rainstorms that causes delays on the Port Washington line.

Stern said he has suggestions for the LIRR and is willing to meet with them to discuss the project.

“I would love to talk to them and set up a meeting at anytime,” Stern said. “My residents are unhappy and are not confident the LIRR will listen to them. I will make an effort to present our side and counter their proposal.”

Williams said the LIRR will not move forward with this project until it evaluates all of its alternate suggestions.

“We are trying hard to work with the community to benefit whoever uses the Port Washington line,” Williams said. “We welcome people’s comments and want to hear what they would like us to do. The LIRR will meet with public officials before this project begins.”

Jim McCloat is not going quietly into that good night of retirement as he leaves his position as New Hyde Park Department of Public Works superintendent.

He is raging against a board of trustees that he considers less than competent.

“I wouldn’t let them run a laundrymat,” he said, saying that the board’s intrusive management style tipped the balance in his decision to take early retirement.

There is irony in the fact that he took on a fight with the DPW union in the wake of a garbage strike when he walked in the door 25 years ago, and he’s kicking the door down as he departs.

“They had a war going on,” the former union negotiator said of the first mission on that new job. “I solved that in a hurry.”

Serious health problems also are a factor in the 69-year-old McCloat’s decision to take early retirement based on an incentive the state government offered municipal employees.

A Vietnam veteran who is no stranger to conflict, McCloat said he’s tired of battling the board members. He particularly criticizes the way Mayor Daniel Petruccio and Trustee Robert Lofaro, the board’s DPW liaison, have interacted with him over the past decade.

“I have a difficulty with their ways. They’re micro-managers. They think they know the answers. They only know the questions,” he said. “I don’t like to be micro-managed and I’m out of here. It’s a major reason that I‘m leaving.”

He’s also concerned that the order and efficiency he feels he’s established in the DPW will be in jeopardy after he departs.

“I’m a problem-solver. I’m concerned that this place is liable to really splinter and fall apart,” he said. “I spent a long time building this place up and since they found out I’m leaving, nobody talks to me.”

Among the things he’s established is a snow emergency list of village residents with vital medical needs, residents who are receiving kidney dialysis treatment or cardiac patients who require oxygen tank deliveries. He has made a point of having the streets those people live on plowed first, a practice he said Lofaro questioned in the past.

For his part, Lofaro said McCloat’s criticism of the way the board interacts with him is a matter of perspective.

“That’s his opinion. That’s our responsibility, to oversee his operations,” Lofaro said. “He can call it micro-managing. We call it acting responsibly.”

Lofaro said he was “surprised” at McCloat’s criticism of the board, but suggested that the job had taken its toll.

“We’re still the same board for the past ten years. Maybe after ten years, he’s worn down with people asking what he’s done,” Lofaro said.

Repeated attempts to reach Mayor Petruccio for comment were unsuccessful.

McCloat endorsed the board’s choice of Thomas Gannon, the village’s senior building official, to take over his responsibilities. But he also was critical of the time it took the board to choose his replacement after he told them of his retirement plans in August, and is concerned about preparing his successor adequately in the days before he leaves on Dec. 3.

McCloat suggested that the time it took for the board to interview candidates before settling on Gannon is indicative of what he said he’s experienced: a fractious group of village trustees who have trouble acting decisively.

“I really should have more time, but I’ll do the best I can,” McCloat said.

He credits himself with consistently rising to the occasion in a job that has been a source of pride.

“I like the village. I like helping people. Almost every day I can do something for somebody that I don’t have to do. That’s a great feeling,” McCloat said.

McCloat didn’t expect so much time to elapse before leaving the job.

“I thought I’d be here for a short time,” he recalled.

He had spent nearly 20 years with the AFL-CIO, serving in an elective position as a general chairman handling contract negotiations and arbitration when he left to take the New Hyde Park job in 1985.

His primary motivation at that time was to be closer to his home in Hewlett, and his autistic son, Jimmy.

Among the job accomplishments he cites are creating an improved leaf collection operation with “roll-off” portable metal containers that DPW trucks can fill with leaves, reducing the number of trips needed to transport them to mulching stations. He implemented a weekly leaf collection schedule for the entire village.

“I do the whole village in one day,” he said.

He said he also reduced the cost of the village’s garbage disposal operation by contracting with a private company to dispose of village refuse for $60 per ton – $40 per ton less than what most neighboring municipalities pay for disposing their trash. McCloat also set up a deal for the village to draw on Floral Park’s fuel management system for its vehicles, eliminating the need for New Hyde Park to construct its own system.

McCloat also created a system for cross utilization of the DPW union employees so that they are trained for a variety of jobs, improving the DPW’s efficiency.

“Everybody’s trained in everything,” he said. “When you come from the real world and you see this stuff, you know how things are.”

He won’t be retreating from the real world when he leaves his current job. McCloat be will conducting liability investigations for law firms.

But he also expects to spend more time playing golf. And he will spend more time with his wife Diane and their two sons, Jimmy and Kevin.