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Bosco’s Corner: Tomahawks make return to gridiron

By Anthony Bosco

I don’t know exactly how thrilled I am about it, but the Long Island Tomahawks are back. The one-time youth football powerhouse is returning to the gridiron this week with a spring workout schedule for six teams the organization is hoping to field for the 2003 season.

Now, let me clarify my position here. Any organization that provides a positive outlet for Queens kids, not to mention giving me fodder for a column, is all right in my book. But I have a historical beef with the Tomahawks that dates back to the glory days of President Ronald Reagan’s second term.

The English pop band Culture Club was on the top of the pops, not the punch line of a joke, pastel was hip and the New York Mets were actually good. It seems so long ago when I was a member of the Bayside Raiders, a neighborhood rival to the re-emerging Tomahawks.

In my years with the Bayside Raiders, when the organization was a fledgling one itself and we won as many football games as Boy George watched, the one team we always got up for was the Tomahawks.

And we played some great games against our foes from Queens Village. I was in my middle teens at that point and wore my hair in a quasi-Mark Gastineau mullet and played nose guard, the position made famous for me by one Joe Klecko. And while I amused myself by thinking I was a good football player, the truth was we stunk something awful.

Luckily for us, the Tomahawks were only a hair better. I remember one game played in Alley Pond Park in the shadow of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center when an already spirited game disintegrated into an all-out brawl when our quarterback — whose name I will keep to myself — decided to shove a defensive lineman after the play had ended.

History has hidden the winner of the brawl from my memory, but I still recall the Tomahawks won the game.

A year later I remember running roughshod over whoever it was lined up against me on the offensive line, recording at least one sack and knocking the opposing quarterback out of the game. Personal victories aside, the Tomahawks won that game, too, and I left the field with a broken bone in my thumb.

So it may not be a complete surprise that when I first read over the press release from the Tomahawks my initial response was to smirk and immediately want to toss the paper into the nearest trash.

I’m joking, of course. What I did was stroll down memory lane and promptly call the man responsible for the resurgence of one of my bitter rivals.

Glen Oaks resident Steve Digilio is the head organizer of the group as well as the head coach of the Midget Division (13-year-olds) team that went 2-10 last year in the Warner Conference, becoming the first Long Island Tomahawks team to play competitively in close to a decade.

Digilio is back again in 2003 with what he is hoping will be a bigger and better return of the organization he was a part of during its heyday in the ’70s and ’80s.

A veteran of the Astoria Rams and Woodside Kings, Digilio, 47, started coaching the Tomahawks in 1973 and stayed with the group till the late ’80s. He very well could have coached against some of the teams on which I played.

He left the organization before it closed its doors in the early ’90s, and he later coached with the College Point Athletic Club for two years before that program merged with the Bayside Raiders. A few years of inactivity was more than enough for Digilio, who, at a friend’s urging, decided to reform the Tomahawks.

“I never really thought I could (restart the program), but I did,” he said. “The rest, as they say, is history. I always said I would like to do it again someday.”

The program dates back more than 50 years, Digilio said, and it has always been in eastern Queens despite its name. But restoring the storied program has been anything but a cake walk. Last year, Digilio’s Midget team fielded only 22 players, and while he is optimistic about the expansion of the program this season, planning for six teams, he only truly expects two or three.

“We’re hoping to have two or three teams this year,” said Digilio, who also sponsors and coaches a team in the Glen Oaks Little League. “I would get as many teams as I could.”

Interest in the organization is high among former players and coaches, Digilio said, citing last year’s dinner at Mateus, a restaurant at 222nd Street and Jamaica Avenue, that went from just a season-ending event to an all-out alumni gathering.

The Tomahawks will hold spring practices over the next three Saturdays in Alley Pond Park, just off Winchester Boulevard and Union Turnpike, from 9 a.m. to noon for football players ages 8 through 16. This Saturday’s practice will be followed by an alumni softball game and barbecue.

The Tomahawks will play against other Warner Conference teams such as the Bayside Raiders, Springfield Rifles, Rosedale Jets, Queens Falcons, Brooklyn Hurricanes, Brooklyn Skyhawks, Kings Bay, Staten Island Warriors, Staten Island Hurricanes, Bronx Rebels and Ridgedale Brewers.

My old wounds and gripes aside, good luck to the Tomahawks. It’s good to see them back.

Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 130.