Sports

Football: Porters get a new coach, and keep an old one

Mike Buck coaching his first game at Mercy. (Credit: Katharine Schroeder)
Former NFL quarterback Mike Buck, shown coaching his first game at Bishop McGann-Mercy in 2014, is the new coach of the Greenport Porters . (Credit: Katharine Schroeder)

The Greenport/Southold/Mattituck high school football team has a new head coach, and it hasn’t lost its old one. 

Mike Buck, a former NFL quarterback who coached Bishop McGann-Mercy last year, has taken over the Porters’ top coaching job. Meanwhile, his predecessor, Jack Martilotta, will remain on the coaching staff as an assistant. The new coaching arrangement was outlined by Greenport’s athletic director, Jim Caliendo, in a letter to parents of players.

Buck, who played for Sayville High School and the University of Maine, was drafted in the sixth round of the National Football League draft by the New Orleans Saints in 1990. He later played for the Saints as well as the Arizona Cardinals and the Miami Dolphins.

Last year, in his first and only season at McGann-Mercy, Buck coached the Monarchs into the playoffs. They lost in a Suffolk County Division IV qualifying-round game to Elwood/John Glenn and went 4-5. In May, McGann-Mercy announced that the coach Buck had replaced at the Riverhead school, Jeff Doroski, would return to his former post as head coach. Doroski had coached the Monarchs for three years, from 2011 to 2013.

In the letter to the parents, Caliendo took note of Buck’s “impressive” résumé, and indicated that Martilotta played a role in bringing Buck to Greenport.

“Coach Martilotta was instrumental in recommending Mr. Buck for this job,” Caliendo wrote. “This shows Coach Martilotta’s love and dedication to the Greenport-Southold-Mattituck football family. We are all appreciative of Jack Martilotta’s drive to have our football program succeed.”

During the five years in which he coached the Porters, Martilotta twice took them to the playoffs. Because of a shortage of players, the Porters did not play their final two scheduled regular-season games last year, finishing with a 2-6 record. The Porters went 14-28 under Martilotta.

Martilotta is being retained as one of the assistant coaches, the others being John Tramontana, Timothy McArdle and Greg Tulley.

The undated letter did not indicate the reason for the coaching change.

Caliendo, Buck and Martilotta did not immediately return phone calls.

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