Sachem once again leads the way for this year’s induction class of the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame.
This year’s inductees from Sachem represent some of the finest alums in district history. They include Rich Cimini, an ESPN reporter, Maria Michta-Coffey, an Olympian, Laura Gentile, an ESPN executive, and Isaac Ramaswamy, the varsity wrestling coach at Sachem East.
The inductees were announced formally at a press conference at the Hyatt Regency in Hauppauge, N.Y. on Wednesday morning, and they will be officially inducted to the hall on May 6.
Cimini, who graduated from Sachem in 1981, served as Editor-in-Chief of the Sachem Harbinger, the school paper at Sachem North until its name change in 2005. He has been covering the New York Jets for various media outlets for nearly 30 years. A former reporter at Newsday and the New York Daily News, Cimini is a fixture of ESPN’s NFL coverage and is a frequent guest on SportsCenter and other network shows.
Michta-Coffey, who graduated from Sachem in 2004, is one of the most internationally decorated athletes to hail from the Sachem community, and the top-ranked racewalker in the United States. Sachem’s first and only Olympic athlete after competing at the 2012 games in London, Michta-Coffey holds numerous indoor and outdoor national records and has won a number of indoor and outdoor national championships.
Gentile graduated from Sachem in 1990. She was an All-Atlantic Coast Conference field hockey player at Duke and a member of the ACC 50th Anniversary field hockey squad. She is Senior Vice President of espnW and women’s initiatives at ESPN.
Ramaswamy graduated from Sachem in 1985 and has been coaching wrestling for almost 30 years. Currently the head varsity wrestling coach at Sachem East, “Swamy”, as he is affectionally known, is an inductee of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and was an alternate for the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team in 1996.
There are more inductees from Sachem in the Suffolk Hall of Fame compared to any other school district in Suffolk. This marks four straight years with at least two or more inductees hailing from Sachem.
The rest of the induction class includes Jill Byers, a former All-American lacrosse player at Northport and current coach at Ohio State, Tom Combs, the Athletic Director at Patchogue-Medford, Chuck Downey, who played on Stony Brook’s first football team in 1984, and Frank Romeo, the first and longtime basketball coach at Comsewogue High School.
Complete 2016 Induction Class
- Jill Byers: Northport alum, lacrosse coach of Ohio Sate
- Rich Cimini: Sachem alum, ESPN reporter
- Tom Combs: Smithtown alum, AD at Pat-Med
- Chuck Downey: Deer Park alum, FDNY Battalion Chief
- Laura Gentle: Sachem alum, ESPN Executive
- Maria Michta-Coffey: Sachem alum, Olympian
- Isaac Ramaswamy: Sachem alum, Sachem wrestling coach
- Frank Romeo: Comsewogue and Suffolk CC basketball coach
Complete list of Sachem inductees in Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame
- John “Jumbo” Elliott (football player), 1993
- Joe Cipp Jr. (football coach), 1996
- David S. Rothenberg (administrator), 1996
- Neal Heaton (baseball player), 1997
- Diane Nelson (equestrian), 2000
- Fred Fusaro (football coach), 2003
- Jack Mahoney (wrestling coach), 2004
- Bill Batewell (baseball coach), 2010
- Risa Zander (basketball coach), 2013
- Jeff Ruland (basketball player), 2013
- Nicole Kaczmarski (basketball player), 2013
- Tom Sabatelle (administrator/athlete), 2014
- Doug Shanahan (lacrosse player), 2014
- Nick Schroeder (interim administrator), 2014
- Ken Freidheim (gymnastics coach), 2015
- Rick Mercurio (lacrosse coach), 2015
- Rich Cimini (media), 2016
- Maria Michta-Coffey (Olympian), 2016
- Laura Gentile (media), 2016
- Isaac Ramaswamy (wrestling coach), 2016
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro