Southold High School’s Sadowski, soccer coach set to retire

Andrew Sadowski felt it was the right time to move on.

Sadowski, the dean of Suffolk County boys soccer coaches who forged a historic career, has retired as a teacher and coach at Southold High School.

“It’s been 36 years teaching, so it’s time,” Sadowski said. “I think you get to that point, and you need to change. You want to do something different. My wife and I, we’ve hit that point in our careers.”

Sadowski’s wife, Rosie, is a special education teacher. The couple will move to near Charlotte, N.C., to be close to their two children. Their daughter, Emma, is due with their first grandchild in September.

After directing the Settlers for 31 years, the 61-year-old Sadowski is ninth on the county’s career victories list, guiding the team to a 322-177-30 record. During his tenure, Southold captured 11 county titles — nine in Class C, two in Class D.

Last fall, the Settlers lost to Greenport in the Class C final.

“Probably the most difficult thing was telling my juniors, soon to be seniors, that I was retiring, just because we all know that athletes, they build their careers to their senior year,” Sadowski said. “But I’m very confident that they’ll be successful this season without me.”

Southold is expected to hire a new head coach soon. The Settlers kick off their fall season at Port Jefferson on Sept. 4.

Asked what Southold soccer meant to him, Sadowski replied, “It means the love of football. It means incredible connections with players and their families. It means I hope that I’ve had a positive impact on their thought processes and the way they handle situations.”

Soccer was always in Sadowski’s blood. His father played at Farmingdale State. A cousin of his grandmother competed for Birmingham City in England. He started playing as a five-year-old in Glen Cove, N.Y.

After graduating from Marist College, Sadowski was hired as a history teacher at Southold. In 1994, Sadowski was named as a junior varsity soccer coach. Head coach Eddie Greco took a job elsewhere, and Sadowski wound up guiding the varsity and JV squads in the preseason before getting the top job. He became the seventh coach in the program’s 60-year history.

Sadowski admitted he had many memorable moments as a coach, before singling out his coaching debut, a 1-0 non-league win over Riverhead. “I clearly understood what I was taking over with the tradition of Southold soccer and all of their successes prior to me,” he said. “I felt that maybe that I have an opportunity to continue the success of the program.”

Which he did.

To appreciate Sadowski’s accomplishments, not many coaches have lasted that three decades. Some Suffolk soccer programs have gone through as many as 10 head coaches in the last quarter century.

“I see it as a challenge each season to build and develop a team that is competitive as the prior team, and to continuously work to even be better,” he told the Suffolk Times in 2018. “Certainly, coaching has changed. The mindset of kids has changed, not only in Southold, but everywhere. I enjoy the sport. This is what I do. I am a fan. I look forward to watching and suffering through Tottenham Hotspur games.”

Sadowski also was the boys varsity tennis coach for the past 20 years and the bowling and track coach each for a year. He coached varsity teams over 53 seasons.

While Sadowski might be best known to the sporting community as a coach, he made an impact on more students as a teacher.

“I wanted to focus on colonial American history,” he said. “But when you get certified to teach history in secondary education, you have to have to be able to teach world history as well. Because of the nature of teaching in Southold, I got to do both. I really came to enjoy my global history class.” 

Throughout the years, Sadowski has been gratified by former students who have reached out to him.

“I’m going to miss my time with my students,” Sadowski said. “As my career progressed, I have reconnected with many of my former students. I’m going to miss those relationships. I had at least three or four former students that are teachers in the school district.

“I’m getting emails from people that I haven’t heard from in several years. The comments were that ‘We didn’t really understand what you were trying to do until years later, until we were older.’ Isn’t that the point of education? Of course, it’s the subject matter that we teach. That’s just an avenue to teach about life and living and what’s important.”