Carle Place's Ryan Leary to play football and basketball at Pace University
Carle Place guard Ryan leary drives the paint for two points against Mattituck in the Long Island Class B finals, Sunday, March 16, 2025 at Farmingdale State College.
Senior Ryan Leary, Carle Place’s all-time scoring leader in boys basketball, announced his commitment to Pace University for both football and basketball on Instagram on Feb. 13. He told Newsday that the option to play both sports provided him “the best of both worlds.”
“I feel like I have an untapped potential on the football field, and I didn’t want to waste that,” Leary said. “And I just love basketball — I’ve played it my whole life — and I didn’t want to give that up, either. I’ll be able to play two sports, which I think I’m going to love, and it’s a great school, too.”
Leary won a petition with the state to play both football and soccer in the fall after being told by the district he could not participate fully in both, leading him to sit out most of the soccer season while he played on the gridiron. He rejoined the soccer team on Oct. 15 against West Hempstead, tallying two goals, two assists and a goal in a penalty shootout across four games to help the Frogs capture their eighth consecutive county title.
Leary holds the school’s basketball scoring record with 1,937 points and counting as he takes the top-seeded Frogs into the Nassau Class B semifinal against No. 4 Oyster Bay on Sunday at 5 p.m. He leads Long Island with 29.9 points per game, and in 2025 he helped Carle Place win its first Long Island title in 20 years.
“I knew I wanted to play basketball, and I wasn’t getting the looks I thought I should be getting,” Leary said. “But when football came around, it gave me a new opportunity to be able to play.”
Leary joined the varsity football team as a kicker in 2024 — the same season he had 17 goals and 16 assists as he led the boys soccer team to its first state Class B title since 2013 — before taking on a bigger role as a wide receiver in 2025. He posted 1,513 all-purpose yards and 15 touchdowns, adding three interceptions, five field goals and 22 PATs.
He will play for Pace as a wide receiver and possibly as the team’s kicker.
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
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