After 30 years at the helm of the Garden City Trojans football team, legendary Hall of Fame Head Coach Tom Flatley has decided to call it quits. His .849 winning percentage is the highest in Long Island history and his 264 wins ranks second behind only Bethpage’s Howie Vogts.
The team is coming off another strong 9-2 season in which they were defeated by Franklin Square’s H. Frank Carey High School in the Nassau County title, which begs the question—why is now the time to hang up the clipboard?
“I’m 75 years old,” said Flatley. “I didn’t think I had the energy to put in the amount of time necessary to do the job anymore,” he said.
When asked how much time is necessary to be successful at this high-stress job, Flatley simply said, “if you do it right, it’s a lot of time,” he added.
The Garden City Trojans have been the model of consistency since Flatley took over in 1985. He has led them to an unprecedented 18 Nassau County titles, seven undefeated seasons, five Long Island Championships and four Rutgers Cups.
Additionally, he is the only coach to have won a Long Island Championship in both lacrosse and football.
Despite every program longing to have that type of consistency, nobody has been able to duplicate the type Hall of Fame production.
There’s been a few things that have separated them from the rest of the pack in Flatley’s opinion.
The consistency with the coaching staff has been tremendous. They have three assistant coaches who have been with him for years and he has the utmost trust in all of them. One of the assistants, Rich Smith, has been with the program even longer (50 years) than Flatley.
That type of continuity is rare in high school and very valuable. Then there’s the players on the field.
“We’ve been lucky to have a run of good kids,” Flatley said. “We’ve had a good run of athletes. They are very intelligent—they get things done in minimal amount of time, he said.
He noted that many of their best players are dual-sport athletes. While this would normally present challenges in terms of preparation time, he relies on the regular season practices to teach his players new plays and formations.
“Football practice can be boring, running the same plays over and over,” the retired coach said. “We add things as the season goes on to keep them alert. Kids tend to get bored with practice—especially the ones not starting,” he said.
Judging by the success, the Trojan players are certainly not getting bored with success and neither is Flatley—although he rarely shows emotion. He is famous for his stoic demeanor but don’t confuse that for being aloof.
Flatley stated that his proudest moments as coach came “when we were underdogs.” Two notable cases are 1993 when they overcame West Islip 14-9 and 2012 when they defeated heavily-favored Riverhead 29-16.
In both of those cases, “we gave away numbers in terms of enrollment. Those are big schools,” he said.
The 2012 team was led by QB Brett Stewart, one of Flatley’s favorite players.
“He is a warrior,” he said of Stewart, who is playing at Princeton University now. He noted that many of his former players will continue to show up at the games after they graduate—sometimes to watch their own kids.
Now that the days of drawing up plays are over for Flatley, he stated he will enjoy his retirement with his family and spend lots of time at his upstate New York home.
There’s no telling if the success will transition post-Flatley era in Garden City, but there is no doubt his 30-year run was undeniable and featured unprecedented success for the Trojans.
