On the court, remembering Michael Zangari

Michael Zangari was well known around Glen Cove as a man who was dedicated to the community. He served on the board of the Youth Bureau, as president of the Kiwanis Club and as a coach of CYO basketball. He was also a city councilman, before stepping down in November 2018 due to a cancer diagnosis. He died on April 25, 2021, at age 61. To honor his memory, the Kiwanis Club will once again host its Wheelchair Basketball Tournament on Sept. 28. The event was created in 2017, when Zangari and Phyllis Burnett, the current Kiwanis president, brainstormed ideas for a fundraiser. Burnett said they hatched the idea when Zangari, who used a wheelchair, said he didn’t want to hide his disability like other politicians have, citing President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was diagnosed with polio during his presidency.

Burnett said that those who knew Zangari well called him “Wheels,” because he would “go flying through the city.”
Zangari was used to fighting and pushing through despite his physical limitations. Although he was able to walk for most of his life, he was born with spina bifida, and began using a wheelchair when he was 51. That did not infringe on his activities, however. He was a past commissioner of the Eastern Wheelchair Basketball Conference as well as a CYO coach.
Zangari worked for the United Spinal Association for several years as a senior technician, fitting, servicing and repairing wheelchairs. More recently, he was a medical equipment pricing analyst at Home Medical Equipment. Each year he was also a consultant for the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, which he loved, focusing on the Open’s Wheelchair Championships.
Erik Blackburn, Zangari’s stepson, said that everyone felt comfortable around his stepfather, who had a wide smile that was hard to miss in a crowd.

“He was mostly focused on giving back to the community and nurturing young athletes,” Blackburn said. “Mike was a very safe person for anyone to come to. He would help anybody who needed it.”
Zangari’s family immigrated to Glen Cove from Italy when he was 5. “While America is referred to as the land of opportunity, Glen Cove has always been my city of opportunity,” he wrote in a letter announcing his candidacy for the City Council in 2015. In the letter, he noted that Glen Cove was where he learned to fish, swim and drive, and also where he met his wife, Janice.
Zangari’s community involvement began when he was elected Student Council president at the Henry Viscardi School, in Albertson.
“I have always wanted to make a difference, to use the opportunities this country has given me to inspire others,” he wrote in the 2015 letter. “I cannot complain about problems unless I become part of the solution.”
He was elected to the City Council in 2015, running as a Democrat, and was re-elected in 2017, this time as a member of the Conservative Party, but stepped down the following year.
This year marks the tournament’s third year in the city, after a brief hiatus due to scheduling conflicts and the pandemic. It will take place in the Glen Cove High School gym, starting at 6:30 p.m. next Thursday. The competitors will include a team of Glen Cove first responders and educators, who will play against the New York Rolling Fury, a nonprofit that offer teens with disabilities a way to compete, build self-esteem and raise money for college.
The money collected during the tournament will help fund Kiwanis Club scholarship programs.
Blackburn said that his stepfather had an “indomitable spirit,” and refused to be pigeonholed as a disabled person. “He never wanted anyone to look at him and think that he’s just a person with the disability or that’s a person in a wheelchair,” Blackburn said. “He wanted for them to see something other than that.”