The Huntington Booster Club will hold its twelfth annual dinner on Wednesday, November 7 at 7 p.m. at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury. The organization will honor Georgia D. McCarthy, Huntington UFSD’s director of physical education, health and interscholastic athletics and a Blue Devil alum.
Tickets for the dinner are available for $125. Reservations can be made online at www.huntingtonboosterclub.com. Click on the link on the left side of the page for Annual Dinner and then on the Register Online link in red type. It only takes a couple of minutes to register for an account and submit payment. You can also mail a check payable to the Huntington Booster Club to PO Box 2294, Huntington, NY 11743.
Contact Patti Weber (pcw1127@optonline.net) or Tim Pillion (tim.pillion@gmail.com or 631-275-3264) for additional information.
Huntington Director of Physical Education, Health and Athletics Georgia D. McCarthy.
The Huntington Booster Club has raised more than $800,000 for the district’s sports programs over the past 12 years. The organization has funded numerous projects at J. Taylor Finley Middle School and Huntington High School and awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in athletic team grants submitted by coaches. The group has also presented thousands of dollars in sportsmanship scholarships to graduating seniors each spring.
This year’s dinner will begin with a cocktail hour, including hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, specialty stations and pasta bar and continue with a delicious hot meal. Dinner choices include, eggplant rollatini, seafood paella, pepper steak and penne Pomodoro and orecchiette with sausage along with salad. Dessert will consist of a “make your own sundae bar” and All American style cookies. There is an open bar throughout the evening. There will also be a DJ spinning tunes and an expensive dance floor available. The gala will run from 7-11 p.m.
The evening will include a presentation in honor of Ms. McCarthy and remarks by her. Many Huntington alumni and current coaches are expected to attend the affair.
Ms. McCarthy has been Huntington’s district director of health, physical education and athletics since 2002. She began her career in the district in 1992 as a physical education teacher at Flower Hill and later worked at Huntington Intermediate and the high school.
A member of Huntington High School’s Class of 1982, Ms. McCarthy was an outstanding athlete and earned a full NCAA Division I scholarship to James Madison University, graduating in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications.
Ms. McCarthy was employed by ABC Television in Virginia, handling sports logging and writing duties and later held a similar position with NBC in New York before ultimately deciding to pursue a career in education.
Adelphi University awarded Ms. McCarthy a master’s degree in physical education in 1990. Her first teaching job was at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, where she also coached varsity girls’ basketball and soccer and junior varsity softball.
At Huntington, Ms. McCarthy coached the Blue Devil JV girls’ basketball team for five seasons and won four Coach of the Year Awards. She also coached the boys’ JV team, volunteered with the boys’ varsity squad, served as JV softball coach and coached boys’ varsity volleyball. She has been active on the college level, too, first as Adelphi’s head women’s tennis coach and then as a graduate assistant in the women’s basketball program.
After teaching for 12 years, Ms. McCarthy earned her state administrative certification through Dowling College in 2002. In addition to her other duties, she is Huntington’s coordinator of driver education and chairperson of the district’s Comprehensive Health Advisory Council.
Ms. McCarthy takes pride in personally knowing almost all of the students participating in the district’s athletic program. She is a frequent visitor to Huntington’s gyms and fields and is a constant presence at meets and games.
Section XI’s female Athletic Council representative for Conference II, Ms. McCarthy also serves as the Conference II vice president. She is Section XI’s representative on the New York State Public High School Athletic Association’s modified (middle school/junior high school) committee.
A member of Section XI’s official’s negotiations, finance, sportsmanship and eligibility committees, Ms. McCarthy is also a President’s Committee member. She is the Suffolk County Athletic Directors’ Association vice president.
A love for sports led Ms. McCarthy to develop a summer lacrosse and basketball camp on Long Island’s East End, which she directed for nine years and which grew to become one of the premier programs in the northeast. She was an AAU basketball coach for many years.
Ms. McCarthy’s father, Ray Deren once held the same position in Huntington that she now does and she regularly credits him for a lengthy list of innovations and accomplishments on behalf of the physical education and athletic programs, as well as for her own success. She started an annual scholarship in his name and presents it each year at the Blue Devil senior athletic awards dinner.
Nominated for Suffolk County Athletic Director of the Year in 2018, Ms. McCarthy has two sons who are Huntington High School graduates; John, a graduate of James Madison University and a current graduate student at Pratt Institute and Kenny, a JMU senior.
