Hempstead High School Athletics
From Journalism80
Through the years, Hempstead High School as produced a slew of championship teams and prominent athletes. The football program was considered a dynasty in the 1980s and the basketball team has been consistently good for last 30 years.
While the football program experienced loads of success for most of the 20th century, it hasn't been in a Nassau County Championship game since 1992, which the Tigers lost, 7-6, to Farmingdale and hasn't won a county title since 1990, an 11-3 win over Farmingdale.
The Hempstead community today has changed drastically from the days when football first started there in the early 1900s. The socio-economic level of the town has dropped tremendously and its residents are primarily of African-American descent. While surrounding district's such as Freeport and Roosevelt, which have similar racial levels, are extremely successful and have churned out a slew of championships, Hempstead doesn't stack up on the gridiron as it once did.
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Grid Iron History
Long before the success of the 1980s, way back at the turn of the 20th century football was played in Hempstead. The gridiron history is very rich and the original games played are debated about today. Some feel the first games played were in 1899, to which the opposition says were town football games not sponsored or funded by the school district. According to longtime Hempstead statistician and historian, Don Ryan, the team in 1899 played two games a week and went undefeated, only allowing points against Jamaica High School that year. They beat Friends Academy, 16-0, Freeport, 28-0, and Rockville Centre, 18-0.
Hoops
Last week Hempstead lost to a powerful Copiague team in the Long Island Class AA title game at Stony Brook University, so the dominance on the court has been evident for a long time with the Tigers. There has always been a stereotype that schools with more African Americans are better on the basketball court. Freeport and Roosevelt may be good on the football field, but even with many African Americans, they do not compare to Hempstead, which has been a master down hoops lane for quite some time now.
Notable Athletes
There was an array of star studded players that donned the Tiger jersey in the ‘80s. Warren Stith, whose father Walter Sr. played in the 1950s and son Malik played in 2005, was the New York State Player of the Year in 1986 and was 27-0-1 as a starting quarterback. He was dominant in every athletic setting, owning the record for assists in basketball and points for the lacrosse team. His 359 tackles are the most in school history too. Two years later, Reggie Terry was named the New York State Player of the Year and he went on to Syracuse to play football and is the director of football operations there now.
Of course the biggest football star to graduate from Hempstead in the 1980s was Rob Moore. The two-time NFL pro bowler was a second round selection by the New York Jets in the 1990 NFL Supplemental Draft. He played 10 seasons in the NFL, amassing 9, 368 yards, 628 receptions and 49 touchdowns. His best season was in 1997 when he caught 97 passes for 1,584 passes and eight touchdowns. The Moore family has a deep athletic history at Hempstead and the family football tree is one of the most intrinsic in Long Island history.
Rob’s father Charles “Poochie” Moore was the Nassau County triple jump champion in 1965 with a 48’ 8” and Rob captured the same glory in 1986 with a 47’ 8”. Charles was a running back on the 1963 and 1964 teams, Rob played football there in the mid 1980s, his brother Charles Jr., who also played at Syracuse, was there in the 1990s. Their cousin Antoine, the current head coach there was on the team from 1985-87 and played college football at Rutgers. Lamont Hough, the 1988 Thorp Award winner’s dad is a Moore and he has his mother’s last name. And if they didn’t have enough football blood, Antoine’s younger brother Rob “Jam” Moore played there in the 1990s and Hough’s younger brother Marvin was a quarterback for the Tigers briefly and transferred to Freeport where he was a wide receiver. Rob’s younger brother, Brandon, is a linebacker with the San Francisco 49ers now. Moore went to Baldwin High School.
In the early 1900s, Norman Keiser, who was known as famous actor Norman Kerry, was on Hempstead’s 1911 team. He wasn’t known for football at all, but as an actor, Kerry, who changed his German last name because of World War I, flourished during the silent film era in the 1920s. He stared in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, was the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny in the original The Phantom of the Opera in 1925 and took part in 66 other films.
In the 1920s, Olympic gold medalist Leo Seston played at Hempstead. He won the gold medal at the 1932 Olympics and set the world shot put record of 52 feet, ½ inch that same year. Ray Heatherton, best known as the Merry Mailman on television, was another actor to play football for Hempstead.
In the 1930s, the integration of African American athletes began. Zach Embry was the first black varsity football player, while Alveoid Hisbrady was the first black superstar for the team.
The pattern of having someone noteworthy graduate in each decade, having played football at Hempstead, didn’t stop in the 1940s. Bob St. Onge, a quarterback with the Tigers was the MVP of the 1944 National Championship game as a center/linebacker at Army. He later served as an aide to General Douglas MacArthur in Japan during World War II.
NFL Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey was the 1958 Thorp Award winner. He’s arguably the greatest tight end to ever play football and was an integral part of the Baltimore Colts’ offense when Johnny Unitas was the signal caller. Mackey finished his career with 331 receptions, 5,236 receiving yards and 38 touchdowns and was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1992 as only the second pure tight end behind Mike Dikta to be enshrined. He was an All-American at Syracuse and played in Super Bowl V in 1971 when the Colts beat the Cowboys, 16-13.
Hempstead-Garden City Comparison
Garden City is a town of totally different characteristics than Hempstead, yet they border one another. The football team at Garden City, however, is one of the best in Long Island history and has consistently produced winners on the gridiron even in current day, all while having a predominantly white community.
Garden City has won Nassau County championships in 2005, 2004, 2003, 2000, 1999 and 1998, while Hempstead has won none in that time span. The Trojans have also won Long Island titles in 2000 and 2003, a title game Hempstead has never been to, since it only started in 1992.
On the basketball court, however, Hempstead has faired much better than Garden City. The Trojan's last county title in basketball came during the 1957-58 season, while the Tigers have won 21 county titles since 1952 and 15 Long Island titles since 1984.
Trivia
- Darrick Heath was a member of the Tigers in the 1980s and is the head coach of the USA handball team and reached international acclaim in the sport. He was the U.S. Team Handball Male Athlete of the Year in 1993.
- The 2002 football homecoming game was on the road! The home field was having sod pot in and the Tigers were forced to play the game at East Meadow, a 12-7 win. As Don Ryan put it, what an oxymoron!
