Bayport-Blue Point PAL Football Honored For Sportsmanship

For the second year in a row, the Bayport-Blue Point youth football PAL program has been recognized for its high-level of sportsmanship.

The PAL awarded the organization the Sportsmanship Award for the 2010 season.

“One of the things I try and strive for is, it’s about the kids,” said Dick Shrine, president of the B-BP PAL football program. “It’s not about the final score or a win-loss record.”

With this year’s honor, it's the second time in the organization’s six-year history that it has been recognized.

Shrine, who just finished his second full year as league president, said the award is based on an overall observation of quality that the organization has presented over the course of the year.

“They don’t get any phone calls about us,” Shrine said of the PAL’s decision on awarding the honor. “The officials come back to them at the end of the weekend and report whether they have problems or not. Whether there’s a fight between players or a parent that has to get expelled from the game; they don’t have those calls about us.”

Shrine stated that receiving the award is one of the biggest accomplishments that the league could ever achieve, considering that there are more than 45 PAL programs and 10,000 players involved in Suffolk County.

“It’s not an award for me, the board, the kids or the parents,” Shrine said. “It’s an award for the community; everyone involved has to conduct themselves properly.”

It’s the community that Timothy Mullins, Assistant Superintendent for Personnel and Athletics of Bayport-Blue Point, feels is the base supporting the athletic program as a whole.

“We’re actually in a great spot right now from where we started a few years ago,” Mullins said. “We’ve transformed into a competitive athletic school district and I think the community has done a tremendous job building youth programs, which have served our athletic program tremendously. The community has been huge from an athletic standpoint.”