McCarthy Earns Three
Post-Season Awards
Huntington senior John McCarthy closed out his final season with the Blue Devil basketball team by earning three post-season awards for his fine play and performance in the classroom. The teenager is headed to James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia in the fall.
The 6'3" McCarthy averaged 12 points and 11.2 rebounds per game from his forward position. Huntington head coach Brian Carey said the senior was "consistently the best competitor on our team, averaging a double-double for the season."
The teenager earned All-League and Academic All-County honors along with receiving a scholarship award from the Western Suffolk County Officials Assn. The scholarship process required a review of McCarthy's academic transcript and athletic achievements and the submission of an essay.
McCarthy crafted an essay that discussed some of the lessons he learned last summer while working in the Huntington School District's buildings and grounds department. A supervisor routinely spoke with the teenager about working hard in school, surrounding himself with good people and pursuing his personal and professional goals. The supervisor explained that he himself had an opportunity to go to college and play baseball and he passed it by, regretting it ever since.
McCarthy plans to major in environmental science and try-out for the men's volleyball team at James Madison University in the fall. His mother, Huntington District Director of Physical Education, Health and Interscholastic Athletics Georgia D. McCarthy is a 1986 JMU graduate.
Immediately following the conclusion of the current school year and Huntington's commencement exercises, McCarthy is traveling to New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii with some classmates and students from Virginia and California. New Zealand is said to be in the forefront of environmental science and technology and the senior is "psyched" about seeing how that country differs from the United States.