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Another team gets off the Island

Shaun Powell

July 20, 2008

This is nothing like the Baltimore Colts, who sneaked out of town in the middle of the night, but the moving vans are coming this way, anyway. They'll line up outside Weeb Ewbank Hall and form a caravan that will snake its way over the George Washington Bridge, into New Jersey to a place called Florham Park, not to be confused with Floral Park.

Yep, pretty soon, the Jets will wake up and realize they're not in Hempstead anymore.

Nor Long Island, for that matter, the place they've called home through many decades and two leagues. They began holding training camp on the Hofstra campus in 1968, the year of the Guarantee, and will cease permanently in a few weeks. Everything's moving to Jersey: helmets, desks, secretaries, Super Bowl trophy and any old Matt Snell jerseys that might be hanging around the attic.

And once again, the Island will not only lose the Jets, but part of an identity, as well.

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We don't have any professional sports teams anymore, unless you count the Islanders. And, well, OK, the Ducks. And, all right, feel free to insist that Queens is geographically an extension of the Island and therefore the Mets are ours, especially now that they're winning. Bottom line is our community, for whatever reasons, can't support the big leagues anymore, not like we used to. Once the Jets leave, we're officially a sleepy suburb, awakening only when the Islanders reach the Cup playoffs, which at this rate happens as often as when those creepy cicada bugs hatch.

The Jets were a big part of the community. They were neighbors. You could bump into Al Toon or Curtis Martin at the corner store. Chad Pennington lived close by. So did Boomer Esiason, who still does. The Jets didn't bunker down behind gated communities; they were just down the street. Their kids played soccer with your kids. Some lived here year-round during their playing days and a few made the Island their home once they retired.

And they were a positive part of the community, too. You didn't hear much about Jets players being menaces to society. Sure, occasionally, a Mark Gastineau or John Abraham would act a fool but they were aberrations. The Jets were welcome around here. Even when they traded Shea Stadium for the Meadowlands on Sunday afternoons, they kept their home base here and were largely considered Long Island's Football Team.

But now, good luck with your Eric Mangini sightings in two months.

Mostly, though, this is another pro sports defection for the Island. At one point, briefly, we had pro basketball, hockey and football. Now we're down to one, and someday, maybe zero. A rather affluent strip of land stretching from Queens to Montauk couldn't keep the Nets and so far hasn't come up with enough scratch to build a new arena to ensure the Islanders a suitable home for the future. The only sport other than hockey that's supported is lacrosse, not that there's anything wrong with that, and polo in the Hamptons. Whoopee.

On a related subject, the Island isn't exactly pumping out pro athletes by the dozens, either. You'd be hard-pressed to find a comparable place in America that struggles to develop big-time athletes. This wasn't always the case. Jim Brown, still the best NFL player ever, and not a bad lacrosse guy, either, grew up in Manhasset. Julius Erving earned his doctorate in Roosevelt. Vinny Testaverde's from here, and Craig Biggio and Sue Bird. The skating Hughes sisters, too. Otherwise, other than a few fair-to-pretty good baseball players, Long Island is Small Island when it comes to grooming go-to guys. We don't lead the NFL in All-Pro linebackers. We lead Wall Street in traders.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I guess there's another way of looking at the purge of professional sports. Without a stadium, traffic is a breeze on Sunday afternoons, great for whizzing by with the top down. The crumbling Coliseum has plenty of available dates for the circus. And our community isn't going through an agonizing and emotional split the way Green Bay is over Brett Favre.

Furthermore, the sports fix can be satisfied on a Friday night at the local high school football field, or on the Black Course at Bethpage, or by checking out a pro game while sitting in the best seat in the house: your living room.

Still, maybe it's time you stopped by Hempstead in the next few weeks, one last time, before the beloved Jets do what jets do best and take off. This time, without a round trip.