Booster Club’s 8th Annual Dinner Set for October 17
The Huntington Booster Club will hold its eighth annual dinner on Friday, October 17 at 7 p.m. the Huntington Crescent Club. The organization will honor Steve Davis and Linda Roth for their work with the Special Olympics.
Tickets for the dinner are available for $125. Contact Karen Dwyer (karen@meetah.com or 516-578-9533) or Tim Pillion (tpillion@optonline.net or 631-275-3264) for additional information.
The Huntington Booster Club has raised $325,000 for the district’s sports programs over the past eight years. The organization has funded numerous projects at J. Taylor Finley Middle School and Huntington High School. It has awarded tens of thousands of dollars of athletic team grants submitted by coaches. The group has also presented thousands of dollars of sportsmanship scholarships to graduating seniors each spring.
This year’s dinner will begin with a cocktail hour, including hot and cold Hors d'oeuvre and continue with a delicious hot meal followed by dessert and presentations to Mr. Davis and Mrs. Roth and remarks by each of them. Many Huntington alumni and current coaches are expected to attend the affair.
Steve Davis
Over the course of a 32 year teaching career that stretched from 1973 through June 2005, Steve Davis taught in every district school at one time or another. He worked with some legendary figures in the district and has many tales to tell. He’s a great storyteller.
A 1968 graduate of Hicksville High School, where he played on the football and baseball teams, Mr. Davis moved on to SUNY Cortland to pursue his interest in teaching. A physical education major, he earned varsity football and lacrosse letters with the Red Dragons and served as vice president of the student section of the New York State Physical Education and Recreation Association.
“It was as Cortland that my passion for teaching was set in motion,” Mr. Davis said. After earning an undergraduate degree he returned to Long Island. In 1972 he was hired by Huntington to work as a substitute teacher and named assistant football coach at Robert K. Toaz Junior High School. The following year he joined the district’s physical education department as a permanent teacher and assigned to J. Taylor Finley Junior High School.
At Finley, Mr. Davis taught alongside Huntington legends Charlotte Coronato and Peter Sansiviero. He went on to serve as the Falcons’ head football coach, a position he would hold until 1978. Adding to his busy schedule, he also served as the high school’s junior varsity lacrosse coach.
Just six years into his burgeoning career, Mr. Davis was named head varsity lacrosse coach at Huntington High School, taking the reins from Aaron Littmann, a highly regarded coach who had led the Blue Devils to county and Long Island titles.
Mr. Davis served as head coach position for 11 successful seasons. “Looking back on my career today, I am extremely proud of the fact that during my tenure as coach I made it my personal responsibility to ensure that every one my players got the opportunity to play college lacrosse, if they wished to do so,” he said.
Besides teaching and coaching, Mr. Davis coordinated the intramural sports programs at both Finley and Huntington High School during their heyday, when they involved hundreds of students and even drew crowds for championship games. He was the scoreboard operator at football and basketball games for many years and continues to be the timekeeper at Blue Devil wrestling meets.
Upon his retirement from teaching, Mr. Davis decided to get involved with the Long Island chapter of the Special Olympics. In 2011 and 2012 he served as lead coordinator of the LI Special Olympics Spring Games at Huntington High School. “The Special Olympics have become a very important part of my life,” he said.
“Throughout the years Steve’s commitment to our kids and to our community has been undeniable,” said Georgia Deren McCarthy, Huntington’s district director of physical education, health and interscholastic athletics.
Mr. Davis has been married to his wife Angela for 42 years. The couple resides in East Northport. Together they have a son and daughter. Bryan Davis is a vice president at Global Elite Securities in Garden City. Jessica Davis McVetty teaches fourth grade at Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School. She has been on the district’s faculty for 13 years.
Linda Roth
Linda Roth has been a special education teacher, department chairperson and soccer and lacrosse coach for many years. Born in Brooklyn, she moved to Huntington in 1970 and attended Village Green School, Huntington Elementary School, Woodhull Elementary School, J. Taylor Finley Junior High School and Huntington High School, graduating with the Class of 1982.
An outstanding athlete at a young age, Mrs. Roth played on the Finley volleyball, basketball and softball teams and starred on the boys’ soccer team, since there was no girls’ squad at the time.
Mrs. Roth continued her sports career at Huntington High School, playing on the field hockey, volleyball and basketball teams. She captained the first Blue Devil girls’ soccer team as a senior.
The Huntington alum earned an undergraduate degree in business management at Hartwick College in Oneonta and a graduate degree in special education at LIU-C.W. Post. “It was at Post that I realized my passion was working with children, particularly those with special needs,” Mrs. Roth said.
The veteran educator began her teaching career at Finley Middle School in 1992. She obtained a state administrator’s certificate in 2003. She’s coached boys’ and girls’ soccer, tennis, lacrosse and volleyball at Finley and field hockey and lacrosse at the high school.
Consistent with her passion to serve the young people of the community, Mrs. Roth has immersed herself in the Special Olympics program, coaching Huntington High School floor hockey, track and field and snowshoe teams. “The past two winters, the Huntington snowshoe team has enjoyed particularly strong showings at the Special Olympics New York State Winter Games,” she said.
As the Special Olympics program continues to grow in the district, Mrs. Roth will undoubtedly be playing a major role in any future success Huntington’s athletes might achieve.
As a district special education chairperson, Mrs. Roth now has a new goal: to bring a Unified sports program to Huntington. “Unified is a fast-growing initiative that brings people with and without intellectual disabilities together on the same team to compete side-by-side,” she said.
Huntington’s Special Olympians have been honored by the Huntington School Board and Huntington Town Board. Their classmates treat them like celebrities. When the group was recognized during halftime of a basketball game last winter, the teenagers received a standing ovation.
Mrs. Roth said she plans to work nine more years before retiring. That’s an awful lot of time for her Special Olympic athletes to win an additional horde of gold, silver and bronze medals. Considering her energy and enthusiasm and motivational skills, such an outcome seems inevitable.