Sports

Former Sachem Hoops Coach Dom Savino Leads Adelphi to NCAA Regionals

Hit college coaching circuit after retiring from Sachem in 2005.

While former Adelphi coach Jim Ferry was dancing with his Long Island University squad at the NCAA Division I tournament, the current Adelphi coach, Dom Savino, was busy trying to go the distance in the Division II rank.

That journey came to an end when the sixth-seeded Panthers lost to Stonehill College, 71-64, in the first round. A Northeast 10 Conference title in his first year as a head college coach, however, has Savino chomping at the bit to go again next year.

Savino was a physical education teacher and coach at Sachem from 1972 to 2005. He was the head boy’s basketball coach from 1997 to the time of his retirement and had stints as a junior high football coach briefly in the 1970s.

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He led Sachem to two Class A Final Fours and was an assistant when Sachem won an Eastern New York Championship in 1987. Savino ranks third all-time in Sachem boy's basketball history with a 71-82 record. In 2005-06 he was an associate head coach at Dowling before heading west on Long Island to Adelphi in Garden City.

As an assistant at Adelphi, Savino had a hand in recruiting much of the current roster. When it was time to fill the void left by James Cosgrove who took the head coaching position at Trinity College in Connecticut, Adelphi players took it upon themselves to meet with athletic director Robert Hartwell to keep Savino in a higher capacity.

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While he misses some minor aspects of the high school game, he’s never been more happy with the game of basketball then he his now.

“This is something I’ve always wanted,” he said. “To be a head college coach in itself is amazing. Everyday is like, ‘wow.’”

A product of football and basketball at Bayport, and in hoops for one season at Southern Connecticut, Savino caught the coaching bug at Sachem.

“I started to develop a real love for the game,” he said.

Like every other coach from the magical historic era from 1971-2005, Savino credits much of his success to the observations he made of former Sachem football coach .

“What people don’t understand was the influence that Fred had on all of us,” said Savino. “He came from coaching in college [at St. Lawrence and Hofstra] and brought that attitude and work ethic, the whole thing that goes with being a college coach. He had the most influence on us all.”

Savino said he has only gone to one Sachem basketball game since his retirement, an early North-East battle when the rivalry first started. It’s more of a time issue with recruiting, playing his own college games during the same time and if he’s not in the office, he’s in the weight room, making sure his student-athletes are meeting academic standards and finally taking a breather at home in Miller Place.

With seniors Richard Byrd and David Akinyooye, both Long Island natives, graduating this spring, Savino will be out on the road recruiting for the next wave of Adelphi talent.

The immediate goal is recapping this year’s success and making a deeper run in the post-season tournament. He couldn’t ask for much more.

“I’m enjoying myself and I enjoy basketball,” he said. “I’m right where I want to be.”


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