They Built It, and People Came: SYS Celebrates 20th Anniversary

More than 20 years ago, Mark Antilety, Scott Johnson, J. Andreassi and several other parents were in a frustrating situation.

Their young children, and many of their peers, were eager and enthusiastic about participating in youth sports — baseball, basketball, soccer, football — but finding adequate space and time for them to play proved challenging. Getting time on the basketball court was a particularly uphill battle, with most schools in the area only able to provide limited court time for youth teams, often at inconvenient hours.

They joined forces with the simple idea of trying to raise money to build a modest basketball facility — but Andreassi urged the group to be more ambitious than that.

That’s how Southampton Youth Services, and the Southampton Town Recreation Center, was born.

With several other individuals, the group created a nonprofit, Southampton Youth Services, and made a pitch to the Southampton Town Board and Vince Cannuscio, town supervisor at the time, to give them 50 acres of town-owned property off Majors Path in North Sea to build an indoor recreational facility for the youth in the community.

The group raised the $3 million needed to construct the facility, which was initially 30,000 square feet, through a combination of donations and pledges from local individuals, families and businesses, as well as a $1 million loan from Bridgehampton National Bank.

At the urging of Andreassi, the group recruited to the SYS board several local residents with expertise in various industries that would benefit the project — landscape architects, attorneys, environmental experts, carpenters and more — who helped keep costs down by donating time and services from their own businesses, free of charge, to help the project come together.

On November 14, 2001, a group of children from the community, with shovels in hand, and under the watchful eye of SYS board members and elected officials, including State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., were the official groundbreakers for the building. The facility officially opened in June 2003.

Upon completion of the construction, SYS gifted the building to the town, which became the owner of the facility. SYS has a 99-year lease agreement with the town to manage the facility in what has been a productive public-private partnership.

The Southampton Town Recreation Center — or “the SYS” as it is often commonly referred to, as a nod to the organization that made it a reality — will officially mark its 20th anniversary with a celebration event on June 3, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The day will include soccer and squash clinics, a fitness demonstration, and other fun performances and activities for kids and families. There will be an entrance fee of $10 for adults, and kids get in for free.

What SYS has become over the past two decades has exceeded even the biggest expectations the original founders had for the facility.

It is hard to overstate what the facility has meant to various and varied groups of people in the community throughout the years. It has been a vital resource for so many families and organizations, particularly in the winter months.

Southampton resident Michelle Malone is a mother of three boys who all graduated from Southampton High School in recent years, and excelled at multiple sports while they were students there. She said the SYS was a lifeline for her in the colder months when her boys were elementary school age. She would load them into her car, and bring along a ball, and set them loose on the multi-purpose indoor court, throwing the ball around and allowing them to burn off energy during the winter months when they had spent too much time cooped up in the house.

Scott Johnson, the current executive director, said he recalled seeing her come in during that time.

“If it was a day when it was raining, they’d come in with their little yellow rubber boots on, like ducklings in a row,” he said. “They’d stay for a few hours, playing. Parents really need that, too.”

As community needs grew, so did the facility. The multipurpose court allowed several youth and even adult league teams a place to play and practice several sports indoors, including basketball, soccer, field hockey, lacrosse and more.

An elevated track has given people of all ages, including seniors, a place to walk and exercise during cold months, or in the case of bad weather, and it’s also been a popular feature for parents who take their children to the facility for games or practices, allowing them to get some exercise in while watching their children play.

The facility also features two regulation-size high school basketball courts, which can also double as volleyball courts, and there is an additional basketball court that can be set up in the multipurpose arena.

The building initially had an indoor batting cage with pitching machines and golf center, but evolved to meet community needs, and that space was converted to host after-school programs. The SYS welcomed a new tenant recently, giving space for programming to the Flying Point Foundation, a local nonprofit that provides support and services to people with autism and their families. It has hosted preschool programs, fitness classes, karate classes, and more.

In 2007, the facility added an additional 10,000 square feet to construct indoor squash courts and a gymnastics room. The building is currently 65,000 square feet, and also includes an outdoor pool, where summer swim lessons routinely sell out quickly, as well as tennis courts and pickleball courts. There are also plans in place to add additional outdoor basketball and tennis courts.

Johnson and several of the original founders refer to the iconic line from the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” when talking about SYS.

“You can talk about ‘Field of Dreams,’ ‘Build it and they will come,’ but we didn’t know if they would come,” Johnson said. “We were all new at this. But to take a step back and see what we’ve been able to accomplish, it’s way beyond mine and anyone’s wildest dreams. We’re the heart of the recreational community for the entire community of Southampton.”

Johnson, who loves all sports but calls himself a “basketball guy” at heart, said it’s been especially gratifying to see how the facility has been able to support the local hoops community and how it has played a role in helping mold players across the East End.

“I’ve coached and refereed, and to see third- and fourth-graders who played in our leagues here, and now I get to see them while officiating at the varsity level and see what they’ve become, that’s really fulfilling for me,” he said.

Like Johnson, Antilety has marveled at how SYS has evolved, remembering the days when the earliest outlines of the vision the founding group had were sketched out on napkins and pieces of paper during meetings held at the library or Town Hall.

“It exceeded all of our visions by a long shot,” he said.

He added that having so many different individuals with important professional skills involved in the process was key. “It was the right place, at the right time, with the right people,” he said. “You wouldn’t see something like this happen today.”

Andreassi is the one who Antilety and Johnson credited with having the larger vision for what SYS could be, and for being a strong leader in doing what needed to be done to make it happen. Andreassi said activism in preventing the town from going forward with initial plans to turn the land into a composting site was key, and he added that the failure of the Town Board to approve a community pool in Hampton Bays that had been advocated for in the community prior to SYS advocating for the rec center may have led to a sense of guilt on behalf of the board, and a willingness to try and make another recreationally-based facility a reality for the town.

“They approved it in just five weeks,” Andreassi said. “I think the Town Board felt bad we weren’t able to get a pool and do something for recreation for the kids so they allowed us to go forward with this.

“People stepped up at the right time,” he added.

Johnson and other people who remain involved with SYS, including current Board President Kevin O’Connell, are dedicated to continuing to step up for the community.

“Our mission has always been to provide a safe place to play, dream, grow and learn,” Johnson said. “We will continue to strive to meet that goal every day.”