East Islip's Parkinson thrilled to be playing for LI title

While preparing for the Franklin football team’s postseason game on Dec. 11 of last year, defensive end Cooper Parkinson learned some stunning news.

In six months, he would be moving from El Paso, Texas — the city he’d called home since the age of 5 — to Long Island for his senior year.

Long Island not only was about 2,200 miles away but was a part of the country that Parkinson, part of a military family, knew almost nothing about.

But there was one inevitable aspect that he looked forward to in the upcoming relocation.

"Honestly, I was shocked but happy," Parkinson told Newsday on Friday. "I really needed a change of scenery around me. I really wanted to experience the cold weather."

Nearly a calendar year since first hearing of the impending relocation, he’ll have the opportunity to play in possibly the coldest weather of his life. Parkinson has helped lead East Islip to the Long Island Class III championship game against Plainedge at Hofstra on Friday.

While high school football in Texas is renowned for some of the highest levels of competition in the nation, Parkinson’s initial outlook on the Long Island version of the game was quite positive.

"My expectations were very high," he said. "Texas is definitely known for amazing football. I’ve put a lot of time into the game, so I had high expectations for East Islip."

Parkinson said some similarities between the two regions were clear from the jump.

"The game compares very well," he said. "The reason I love East Islip is because everyone comes to the game and supports us. That’s just like in Texas. Everyone comes to the games, and I love how it’s the exact same thing."

He gave his new home crowd a remarkable play to exult about on Thursday. With the Suffolk Division III championship game tied at 21 and Sayville at the East Islip 1-yard line, Parkinson burst through the line, recovered a fumble that resulted from an errant snap, shed a tackle in the open field and went 96 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with 2:46 left in the third quarter.

It proved to be an immense swing in momentum for East Islip, which went on to win the game in dramatic fashion, 35-28, on quarterback Derek Burrell’s 31-yard touchdown run with 19 seconds remaining.

"I was just supposed to pinch down and contain my gap," Parkinson said. "I saw the ball up in the air and I just shot through the middle and luckily I was able to get three fingers on the ball, pick it up and run it back for the touchdown. I had so much adrenaline and I was definitely not going down."

The game-changing play represented the type of player Parkinson has been since joining East Islip five months ago.

"He’s been a really good player and doing a lot of the dirty work for us all year," East Islip coach Sal J. Ciampi said. "He made a play that’s going to go down in history for the county championships in terms of defensive plays. It really swung the momentum of the game and gave us an opportunity to pull it out."

Ciampi said Parkinson, who initially played both linebacker and defensive end, is primarily focused on helping the team reach its goal of winning a Long Island championship this season.

"He immediately said that he was willing to go wherever we wanted to put him," Ciampi said. "He didn’t care and just wanted to do whatever was best for the team."

Almost a year after learning he’d be moving across the country, Parkinson feels privileged to have this rare opportunity as East Islip looks to earn its first Long Island crown since 2007.

"It’s an honor," he said. "A lot of my teammates have been chasing this game for so long, and to help them get there means the world to me."