A big jersey to fill

Eight years after he perished at age 31 during the attacks of Sept. 11, former South Side Cyclone Joe Hunter, a New York City firefighter and a South Hempstead volunteer, was remembered by the school’s football team: Lineman Gavin Ahern, one of the team’s captains, was chosen to wear Hunter’s jersey, No. 50, at a moving pregame ceremony last Saturday.

“Instead of retiring his jersey, doing a one-time thing, I felt it would be more important for our kids to share in his virtues every year,” said Paul Mastronardi, South Side’s head football coach and himself a New York City firefighter. “I felt that if we awarded his jersey, his number, to our best player, we could better perpetuate his memory and his spirit.”

Hunter’s parents, Tess and Joseph, accepted a framed photo of their son’s jersey, and were joined on the field by two members of his fire squad, 288 of Maspeth, Queens; uniformed members of the South Hempstead volunteer fire department; a number of neighbors and other family members, including Hunter’s sister, Teresa, her husband, Ron Labo, their children Kelsey, Haley and Joey (who was named after his uncle), and Hunter’s brother, Sean, and his wife, Rosemary. School board President Mark Masin, Trustees Kathy Horace and Liz Dion and the district’s new athletic director, Carol Rosetto, also attended.

Mastronardi said that although the ceremony was a one-time event, from now on the Cyclones’ top player would be honored each year by being chosen to wear Hunter’s jersey. Describing his emphasis on the importance of the “four C’s” — courage, character, commitment and contribution — Mastronardi said that like Hunter, Ahern embodies those characteristics. Perhaps coincidentally, Ahern, a senior who has received a scholarship to play lacrosse at Penn State, plans to become a New York City firefighter.

“This was absolutely wonderful,” Tess Hunter said. “It’s a lot better than retiring [the number]. We were ecstatic when we heard about it, and Joe would have loved it. To us it means the world that his name will be carried on.”

The idea for the ceremony germinated when Mastronardi, who knew Hunter because they had sometimes worked on fire department details together, took over from longtime South Side head coach Walter Denton, also a city firefighter, who is now retired. Mastronardi said that before he took the job, he didn’t know much about South Side or its football program, and had been researching it. When he walked into Denton’s office he saw Hunter’s Mass card and asked why it was there. When Denton told him that Hunter had played for him, Mastronardi recalled, he got goosebumps.

“I thought it was a neat kind of coincidence,” he said. “It actually gave me a little bit more of a connection to the school, and I

felt like this was where I belonged at this point in time.”

Mastronardi said that Ahern is probably the best lineman he has ever coached at the high school level. But more important, said Mastronardi, “He’s one of the finest young men — he’s just a great kid. He stands for the four C’s and that’s why he got the jersey.”

“I’m very excited,” Ahern said. “It’s a privilege and an honor to wear the jersey. The ceremony was great, and the coaching staff and everybody else is a tremendous support to me and the team. I’ll be wearing the number 50 proudly at every game for Joe Hunter.”

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