Sachem's 1986 Football Team Celebrates 25th Anniversary [Photos]

More than 50 players from Sachem’s 1986 Suffolk County championship and Rutgers Trophy team celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their historic season Friday night at Fred Fusaro Alumni Stadium as the present day Flaming Arrows battled Brentwood to a 56-14 win.

By 1986 the Sachem football program was a clear and definitive powerhouse on Long Island. The Flaming Arrows had appeared in six Suffolk County championship games to that point since 1977, winning four, and had built a reputation on their blue-collar work ethic and hard nose playing style.

Coming off losses in the county finals in 1984 and 1985, Sachem was angry and on a mission, not to mention supporting a senior class that hadn’t lost a game during their time playing football in middle school, freshman or JV.

Remember this was a time when Sachem had 80 players on its roster with starters at almost every position and players focusing on one side of the ball.

“We had great depth,” said former Sachem coach Fred Fusaro. “We had talent, we had numbers, and we had size. We had everything you look for as a coach.”

Sachem cruised through the regular season untouched until Week 6 when Lindenhurst somehow managed to escape with a 15-12 win. That game gave Sachem the necessary motivation to finish the season on top and never look back.

“We had high expectations,” said Dave Shanahan, a starting running back on the 1986 team and the current head football coach at John Glenn High School. “Our expectations were to go to the county championship and win it. The loss made us realize anybody can be beat on any given day. It re-grounded us. We wanted another shot.”

“It was a total shock,” said James Crossan, a senior on the 1986 team and the uncle of current Sachem standouts Dalton and Trent Crossan. “I remember everybody being refocused on the goal. We knew that we could still get to where we wanted to be.”

That next shot came in the semifinals where Sachem beat the Bulldogs definitively, 28-7, and looked forward to their championship opponents in West Islip, who tormented the Flaming Arrows for much of the 1980s, including a year earlier in the Suffolk County finals.

By the end of Sachem’s 14-0 win in the county final that season against the Lions, it was clear the school district had produced one of its greatest teams of all-time. The Flaming Arrows were helped along by a 1-yard touchdown run from Ralph Isernia and 32-yard pass from John Walsh to Gary Comstock.

“The old sachem offense,” Isernia told Newsday, “right up the middle of the other team.”

Shanahan finished with 19 carries and 109 yards in the win. Sachem only allowed 44 points all season, still a program low. Ironically, the Flaming Arrows did not play West Islip again until 2011, a 25-14 Sachem victory.

Shortly after the championship victory, the team waited outside the Water Mill catering hall as the Suffolk County Football Coaches Association had its dinner to unveil that year’s Rutgers Trophy winner.

“When they announced it, it was an amazing feeling and accomplishment for everybody, for the school and for the younger kids who were behind us,” said Anthony Gambino, a senior on that team and an assistant football coach at Sachem East today.

What’s undeniable about that group of Sachem players are their heart and character. It wasn’t a group of clean cut proper players. They were men among boys. They were fierce linemen and grueling offensive threats. They were lightyears ahead of their opponents in terms of size, speed and strength.

“That was a special bunch of kids,” Fusaro said. “Fierce competitors. Tough. We had some street kids. Not everybody was a choirboy. If you have all choirboys you’re not going to win a Rutgers Cup. It’s a very special year for us. When a team wins the Rutgers Cup it’s a tremendous accomplishment."