Northport’s Glue: The Children
In an age of social media it isn’t too difficult to find the division that exists in the USA or on Main Street. The heartbeat of the country exists on every Main Street, and Northport is no exception.
However, Northport is a special place. The students of Northport make everyone put aside their temporary differences and focus on what really matters. Shop in town – it is there where you will find the kids working hard to make a few bucks to save up for prom, put aside money for their college educations, fill up their gas tanks and purchase a sticker to go to the beach.
Browse the hallways in the high school, it is there where you will find artwork that you thought was professionally done. Take a look at the trophy case and you will see countless awards from all different teams and individuals who were all part of something bigger than just being on a team.
Go to a football game on a Saturday afternoon and you will see one of the biggest, and greatest high school marching bands that you could imagine. Then look at the kickline, flag team, and cheer squad, and then at how many players are on the sideline for the team. It is participation unlike anything I have ever seen.
This past year, in the midst of a pandemic there were no exceptions. Northport filled up the trophy room a little more.
Boys Cross Country: Suffolk County champions
Football: League 3 champions
Boys Basketball: Suffolk County champions
Girls Basketball: Runner-ups
Boys Baseball: Made it to the semifinals
Boys Volleyball: Semifinals finish
Girls Softball: Won a playoff game
Boys Wrestling: Ended 6-1
Boys Badminton: Suffolk County champions
Girls Field Hockey: Long Island champions
Boys Lacrosse: After a 2-3 start, 13 straight wins to a Long Island championship
Girls Lacrosse: Long Island champions, undefeated
Countless junior varsity teams had seasons similar to their varsity counterparts, laying a solid groundwork for the future. The kids on these teams are the same kids whose parents were disagreeing about this, that, and the other thing before the game. At the end of the day, it made no difference. The children of Northport are raised by some of the finest people there are. If you ask many parents in this town where they grew up, a great number will tell you that they grew up in the same place. This is a wonderful community to raise children. It always has been, and it always will be. When a town supports their kids, they support its future.
Northport is hard evidence of that.
An "LI Champs x 3" on the fence outside the high school.
Editor’s note: Excitement over the return of high school sports, and the district’s many accomplishments, has been tangible the past couple of months. Even from a distance (my kids are in elementary school), you can feel the power and pride in being a district athlete, or the parents of one, or of watching your child perform during a home field halftime show. Videos and photos shared on social media of these performances, the games themselves, and the celebrations afterward, were a touching tribute to the perseverance of school-aged kids who have made it through what has undoubtedly been a challenging 15 months.
Earlier this week I ran into a fellow mom, who I used to be a class parent with, and who has a daughter on the girls varsity lacrosse team. She relayed to me, while waiting in line at Michael’s, the jubiliance of being in the stands for the girls and boys lacrosse Suffolk County Class A championships, the stands filled with cheering parents and supporters. I felt her joy, the raw emotion of things being close to normal again, of having a child able to experience that kind of camaraderie before graduating and heading off on a whole new adventure. I also felt, in that single neighborly moment, community, commonality, and pride.
She directed me to a post in a local school “discussions” group that highlighted an important sentiment: we’re all in this together and if anyone can remind us of what we have in common during these challenging times, it’s our kids. I reached out to the author of that post, John Mohlmann, and asked him to share in greater detail what inspired him to write it. The piece above is what he sent to the Journal.
The above piece, as well as all pieces that appear with a byline in our “Opinion” section, reflect the opinion of the author only and not necessarily the opinion of the editorial board as a whole.
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