The Rockville Centre Little League celebrated the 2025 season with its 72th annual awards dinner last week, at which league Vice President Paul Sewell was honored with the Mort Geller award for his years of dedication to the organization.
Hundreds of young players crowded the Coral House in Baldwin on Nov. 5 for appetizers and dinner. League President Peter Klugewicz announced that the little league teams had won a total of six this year in the Williamsport competitions, as District 30 champions in each of their respective age brackets.
Mayor Francis Murray spoke next. “I’d like to thank Vice President Paul Sewell for his dedication and commitment to the young ladies in the softball,” he said, referring to the league’s softball division. “Thank you so much for all you’ve done playing. I’ve seen how much this league has grown, and I’d like to thank the parents and coaches and the board for all they do to advance this program and teach our children what it's like not just to play sports, but camaraderie and how to really act with one another.”
Nassau County Legislator Scott Davis, a former youth football coach himself, offered some advice to the families in attendance. He told a story of how he got upset one year with his quarterback — who happened to be his son — for throwing an interception, and benched him. “When I went back to work on Monday, sitting at my desk, I thought about that, and I said, ‘That was the worst thing that I could ever have done,’” Davis recalled. “So what I did was I called that young man, and I apologized to that young man. I tried to use it as a lesson that that young man would take with him the rest of his life. And that lesson was that although we are adults, we can make mistakes, too.”
Sewell introduced the next speaker, Leah Boggs, who plays for the professional fast-pitch softball team, the New York Rise. “A star softball player at the University of Virginia, four-year starter one of the top catchers in the (Atlantic Coast Conference), which I can appreciate as a former catcher myself,” Sewell said. “Before her collegiate career, she was a standout multi-sport athlete in high school, playing basketball and volleyball. Today she shares her passion for softball by training inspiring young players in teamwork, dedication and love for the game.”
Boggs talked about her journey as a professional athlete. “I was never the best hitter or the fastest runner or the strongest kid on the field,” she said, “but I love the game, and I worked hard, and I never stopped learning and believing in myself more than anyone else did. I now am entering my third year as a professional athlete. I just finished my first year as a division one assistant coach in the ACC, the same conference that I played in, and today I get to speak to a group of people in the same position that I once was all those years ago.”
The next speaker, Mets pitcher Nolan McLean, had all the kids running up to the stage He told a story about a game after hitting a one slider, a throw faster yet less movement than a curveball. “I remember after that game,” McLean said, “my dad just texted me and said, ‘Hey, I love you,’ and I think that from that moment on, I was like, ‘This baseball thing is awesome. But it’s the relationships you build, not only with your friends and your teammates, of running down the hallways in the hotel and knocking on random people’s doors and running away, but just getting closer to your parents and your coaches and the people who are really wanting what’s best for you, even in the moment, if it doesn’t look like that.”
The young players all gathered to ask McLean questions. Then dozens of selected players from each softball and baseball teams were presented with awards, and as Sewell was honored for his work as vice president of softball as he enters retirement.
“At this time, the most important award that the Rockville Centre Little League presents to anybody — and there is nobody in the history of Rockville Centre Little League, and especially our softball program, that deserves an honor more than our guy, Paul Sewell,” Klugewicz said. “He was the guy that was down there doing all the dirty work that nobody else likes to do. He stepped up, and again, very proud to work side by side with him for probably too many years.”
Sewell a board of directors member from 2013 to 2025 and softball vice president from 2018 to 2025, was honored with the Mort Geller Award — given to long-time volunteers as the highest honor from the Rockville Centre Little League— as described as the “heart and soul” of the softball teams.
For more information on the Rockville Centre Little League, visit RVCLittleLeague.org.
