When it Comes to Winners, BFS Athletes Set the Standard

It is perhaps the oldest cliche in sports—it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. “Ho-hum,” might be a response from the casual fan, thinking that winning is everything. However, on Wednesday at Maimonides Park in Coney Island, both the Brooklyn Friends School Varsity Baseball and Varsity Softball teams proved that the expression is less a cliche, and more a truism.

Despite the cool, wet weather throughout the afternoon, both Panthers squads competed for the ISAL Championship. On the scoreboard, they were unsuccessful. Both teams lost to ballclubs that were simply better on this day. York Prep earned the ISAL title in baseball, and Bay Ridge Prep cruised to the softball crown. Congratulations to both of those teams.

However, the student-athletes from BFS never wavered in their sportspersonship, or their spirit, and exhibited the true essence of Blue Pride. No one likes to lose, especially in a championship game after a hard-fought season. Yet, both teams seemed to grasp that there was much to be proud of—evidenced that they earned the right to be playing in the final game of the season, in a minor league baseball stadium that seats 7,000 fans. While the number of onlookers was significantly less than capacity, the cheering and the passion could be heard from the press box. BFS families, colleagues, and students showed up to root, root, root for the home team, and they didn’t win and it was indeed a shame. But for sure there was a sense of class that all of the Panthers showed at the old ball game.

Seniors Piper C., Poppy S., Audrey D., Nico C., Luke C., Harlan K., Duncan P., Sheriff S., closed out their BFS Athletics career as true champions, and will be honored at the Third Annual End of Year Athletics Celebrations on June 1. “Thank you, seniors, for your leadership, commitment, efforts, and the countless memories you’ve helped create for BFS,” said Christian Brown, BFS’ Director of Athletic Program and Vision.

The setting for the games could not have been more Brooklyn—complete with the Atlantic Ocean waves crashing beyond right field, and rollercoasters flanking the famous Coney Island Boardwalk just past the center field fence. The original Nathan’s was just a relay-throw away in left field.

Maimonides Park is the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones of the South Atlantic League—an affiliate of the New York Mets. Other teams that call the stadium home are NYU baseball and the Brooklyn FC men’s and women’s soccer teams. Maimonides Park stands on the old site of Steeplechase Park, an old-time Coney Island amusement park that closed in 1964 amid the deterioration of Coney Island and of the subway routes that ran to the area. It was re-opened as a new ballpark in 2001 as KeySpan Park when Coney Island went through a major upgrade.

So, another spring athletics season has come and gone. BFS had great moments on the fields, tracks, courts, and courses. The Panthers won some, and lost some, but all-told it was just another season where we witnessed that Blue Pride Runs Deep, and Friends are in fact Forever. And that, my friends, is not a cliche—it is a truism.

David Gardella, BFS Director of Athletics Operations & Management and Head Coach of the Varsity Softball Team, sent a quote to his players following the game that summed the season  up best: “It’s not about being better than someone else, it’s about being better than you were the day before.”