'I instantly broke down into tears.' Blind Brook football players mourn their lost season

Blind Brook senior Robert Carey used to look forward to game days with plenty of excitement. Now, Fridays and Saturdays are just filled with dread.

The Trojans didn't have enough players to field their own football team this year, but Carey and his 10 other teammates were hopeful of a merge with Hastings. Unfortunately for them, administrators rejected Blind Brook's proposal this week.

"When I go on Instagram, TikTok, just seeing social media, like the Rye-Harrison game for example and all these other teams getting a chance to play, it really hurts inside," Carey said. "I don't want to open social media to see what's going on and know that I could be out there playing. I'd been filled with excitement and ready to go play with Hastings and have the opportunity to play football one last time.

"I just feel so defeated inside, just that fact that it's over for me."

A second meeting was conducted on Monday with Section 1's executive committee. But the merger was ultimately shot down, effectively ending the seniors' high school careers and leaving all of the Trojans heartbroken.

"I've been playing football since I was 5 years old and starting on varsity since I was in eighth grade," Blind Brook junior Carmine Casino said. "It was terrible to hear the final decision, but I felt Robbie's pain more because he's a senior. It's just devastating to hear that we can't play football."

All-out effort to save the season

Blind Brook, which typically competes in Class C, has fielded a varsity football team in previous years with around 25 players.

The Trojans graduated a large senior class in June that included all-state standout receiver J.P. D'Inverno, now at Sacred Heart University. Carey and Casino were the lone returning starters from last year's team.

The program expected lower roster numbers for 2023 and conducted an all-out recruiting effort to get more kids to sign up for the team.

"I tried reaching out to freshmen, I tried every single kid I could find," Carey said. "On my Instagram, I was DMing kids I didn't even know existed, but we're a small school and most of the kids in our school play soccer and basketball."

A lifeline came just before two-a-days started, when Hastings emerged as a potential school to merge with. Even then, the Trojans tried through summer practices to entice more kids to play.

They began official practices with 16 players, but saw several players quit throughout the week. Despite that, they remained hopeful of a merger with Hastings. There were 10 players left that were ready to be Yellow Jackets.

Some mergers have already been successful in the Lower Hudson Valley. Four are playing this season: Briarcliff/Hamilton, John Jay-Cross River/North Salem, Yonkers Brave and Yonkers Force.

"We all thought we were gonna be able to play, and it turned out that we actually couldn't play," Casino said. "There's a lot of wasted talent and a lot of kids that could have really enjoyed the sport, but now they're losing out on that."

The entire process left the Trojans on standby while other schools kicked off. They clung onto the hope of getting a chance to play.

Blind Brook players received Hastings' playbook and continued to practice after school while they waited for an official decision from Section 1. Coaches even took time to introduce the two sides to one another.

"We were already going through the feeling of missing the first three, four weeks of the season, but I just wanted a chance to play a couple football games left in my life and that chance is gone," Carey said. "It took (Section 1) that long to just say no. I have interest from colleges, and now, I don't have a senior season, so that chance of me playing D-3 ball, there's no chance anymore if I can't play ball."

Trying to move forward after heartbreak

Despite the obstacles they faced throughout preseason and all the no's they encountered throughout their recruiting efforts, Blind Brook players were never discouraged.

It was one thing to go winless for the remainder of the season to better opponents on their schedule, but another to lose the entire possibility of playing due to a majority vote by the Section 1 Executive Committee.

It's been almost a week since players were first notified of the initial recommendation vote by athletic directors last Thursday, and the pain hasn't subsided.

"It's very painful, because I love football − it's my life," Casino said. "Now, we see other teams having the fun that we can't have.

"I'd tell other players to not take anything for granted, you can lose anything at any time. Enjoy the years of football you can play because that year can come where you might not be able to play, like Robbie for his senior year. We've been playing football our whole life or something like that, and this year came and it's just terrible."

Carey still replays the moment coaches interrupted practice to break the news.

"They called us over after a long 10-minute water break, which is not normal, and I was like, 'Alright, I think this is it, we got approved,'" Carey said. "They said it right away that, unfortunately, they shot us down. I instantly broke down into tears. My coaches spoke and they gave us some time. It was one of the hardest nights of my life to have something like that taken away for my senior year and my hopes to play in the future. It was rough."

The Section 1 Executive Committee agreed to take a look at the proposed merger on Monday, since the Athletic Council doesn't meet until next month, and took into consideration the fact that Conference I and II athletic directors voted against it along with several other issues. Timing was a big part of the discussion, along with the potential impact on schedules and postseason tournament play. Ultimately, the Executive Committee refused to approve the proposal.

Administrators from Conference III, which includes Hastings, Blind Brook and other small schools, did vote in support of the merger.

There was some confusion when the athletic directors met last week when the proper enrollment numbers were plugged into the state formula that determines classification of merged programs revealed Hastings would have to move up to Class A for playoffs. It's not against the rules to play the Class B schedule that was already in place, but that would've removed the squad from playoff consideration in Class A. 

The Trojans continue to work out and stay in shape for other sports seasons and to help keep their mind off of the crushing decision. But when Fridays and Saturdays come around, the pain returns too.

"The bigger schools have so many numbers that they have no idea what it's like to be on a small team with few numbers," Carey said. "They have no idea how this makes us feel with them shooting it down. There was no reason for this to have been shot down. They don't seem to see they're ruining a huge part of our lives."

Follow Eugene Rapay on Twitter at @erapay5 and on Instagram at @byeugenerapay.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Blind Brook NY football mourns lost season after Hastings merger denied