Shoreham-Wading River football to play game Saturday
Shoreham-Wading River football players watch as EMS crew members tend to Tom Cutinella, who was injured in the third quarter of a Suffolk Division IV game against John Glenn High School, and later died, on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014. Credit: James Escher
Shoreham-Wading River High School football coach Matt Millheiser knows there will be tough days ahead as he and his team try to cope with the death of Tom Cutinella. The comfort, he said, is knowing the team won't have to go through it alone.
Millheiser said after a meeting on Monday the team decided as a group to continue their season on Saturday. They will wear '54' stickers -- Cutinella's number -- on their helmets.
"This is a very delicate and sensitive time for all of us," Millheiser said. "The road ahead is going to be very difficult for everyone, and we'll need each other.
"It's so raw and emotional. It's not something any of us has ever dealt with -- no one has. We're very concerned about our players and what they're going to be feeling."
Millheiser said the players discussed at the Monday meeting if they felt they were ready to return to the football field.
"We decided to play and that we're in this together," Millheiser said Tuesday. "We were all in unison."
This week's game was originally scheduled to be played at Wyandanch, but will be moved to Shoreham's home field at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Wyandanch athletic director Tom Williams agreed to move the game in the best interests of the Shoreham community.
"It's a heartfelt decision that the whole coaching staff and our athletes believe was the right thing to do," Williams said. "We lost an important piece to the football family and it was a good opportunity for our community to see the empathy that our student-athletes have for others. It's the least we can do. This has been very emotional for everyone. Our guys were in shock."
The Shoreham-Wading River team will practice Wednesday in preparation for Saturday's game.
"We don't know what's going to happen beyond this week," Millheiser said. "It's one day at a time for us."
Gregg Sarra is Newsday's high school sports editor and has been on the beat since the mid-1980s.
