COFFEY TO JOIN CLINTON IN ROCKLAND COUNTY SPORTS HALL OF FAME
Orangeburg, N.Y. (4/15/16) Dominican College athletic department staff member, Michael Coffey, will be inducted into the Rockland County Sports Hall of Fame this coming Saturday night at the Pearl River Elks Club in Nanuet.
Contributed by Nancy Haggerty of the Journal News (nhaggerty@lohud.com)
Orangeburg, N.Y. (4/15/16) Dominican College athletic department staff member, Michael Coffey, will be inducted into the Rockland County Sports Hall of Fame this coming Saturday night at the Pearl River Elks Club in Nanuet.
Coffey, who serves the department as an assistant men's basketball coach and assistant sports information director, will be the youngest ever living inductee.
Receiving the Joe Holland Lifetime Achievement Award, he will be among nine new Hall of Famers. The Joseph Holland Lifetime Achievement Award was initiated in 2003 and Coffey will be the seventh recipient of the award. The award recognizes the lifelong contributions of individuals to the Rockland County athletic community. It is the sum total of the individual's efforts over the years in a variety of athletic endeavors that merit this special honor.
"I was excited and humbled when I first heard the news," said Coffey.
Coffey has been a life long lover of sports. He played CYO basketball and Little League Baseball before he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 14 and was relegated to a wheelchair. But he has never stopped loving or contributing to sports.
This isn’t his first honor. The 2006 Pearl River High School grad earlier received the Lanks Pirate of the Year Award for contributions to Pearl River’s sports program.
He got his start as a sideline contributor in high school, maybe because Coffey never looked at himself as being different. His folks, Gerianne and Mike, he said, have always treated him just like they’ve treated his younger brother, Matthew, and sister, Michele.
“I don’t let it get in the way of anything,” he said of his physical condition. “I think of it this way: Would you rather feel sorry for yourself or just do what you enjoy doing?”
Athletics have always been something Coffey has enjoyed doing, whether playing, analyzing or coaching. In fact, he said he can’t think of a sport that doesn’t interest him.
Looking to fulfill a school community-service requirement, Coffey began helping with the baseball team in the spring of his sophomore year. Then it was football, then basketball.
“One thing led to another,” he said.
Basketball coach Jerry Houston gave Coffey increased responsibilities as time went on.
Before Coffey left Pearl River, he was analyzing opponents’ game tapes to help scout.
He went on to Dominican, where he served as men’s basketball team manager all four years. But he was so good that after he graduated in 2010, instead of becoming a teacher, he accepted an offer to be one of head coach Joe Clinton’s assistants. In part, he analyzes tape, oversees strength and conditioning and works on defensive schemes.
Coffey, who also holds a master's in sports management, subsequently took on the added role of assistant SID at the Orangeburg school.
He enters the hall of fame wishing another inductee, former Clarkstown South basketball standout Joe McGuinness, who later coached at Albertus Magnus and served as athletic director at Tappan Zee and Albertus Magnus, was going to be there with him. McGuinness is also no stranger to Dominican College as he also served on Coach Clinton's staff.
McGuinness died in February of cancer but Coffey, a friend of the McGuinness family, said, “I’m really happy to share the night with him and his family.”
It was hall of fame board member Dan White who nominated Coffey, writing that he “never complains and always encourages others.” He “inspires, motivates and sets a positive example,” he further said.
"I never would have thought I'd be inducted into something like this," Coffey said. "To be able to share this honor with Joe McGuiness and Joe Clinton is truly something special."
The Hall of Fame was founded by Joseph "Joe" Holland in 1973. At that time he was Rockland County Clerk, and he later served as a New York State Senator, based in New City. He founded the Hall of Fame "to honor outstanding professional and amateur sportsmen and women, living and deceased, who have gained prominence while living in Rockland County, or who have brought fame and recognition to Rockland because of their athletic prominence."