East Hampton's Finn Byrnes To Play Football at Stony Brook University

There was a time, not too long ago, when coaches and student-athletes at East Hampton High School had to worry about getting on the field to play varsity football. Becoming and creating a legitimate Division I football player was furthest from anyone’s mind.

Except for Finn Byrnes.

Despite not playing in his first varsity football game until late in his sophomore year — which was a truncated season due to the pandemic — Byrnes put together solid junior and senior seasons for the Bonac football team, and now he is heading to Stony Brook University to play Division I football.

Byrnes, with his parents, siblings, friends, teammates and coaches all in attendance, made it official last week, signing his letter of intent on Thursday, February 2, to play football at Stony Brook. He is the first Bonac football player since Matt Paul in 2008, who played at Temple University, to play Division I football, and joins the likes of others such as Ernie Vorpahl, who played at Lafayette, and the late Kendall Madison who played at the University of Connecticut.

“My main concern was us even having a team coming in my sophomore year,” Byrnes said last week. “We didn’t have anything going for us. I got called up on varsity, and I really haven’t looked back.

“I just kind of knew it was what I wanted,” Byrnes added about playing football in college. “I kind of felt like everything was against us and me. But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

With East Hampton only having a junior varsity team back when he was a freshman, Byrnes didn’t play football at all that year. Turns out that his parents, Brian and Kathy, weren’t exactly fans of football and feared for the safety of their son, like so many other parents do. But his love for the sport eventually won them over.

East Hampton varsity football head coach Joe McKee said that he first came across Byrnes on the basketball court — Byrnes is also a starter on the playoff-bound varsity boys basketball team — but he could tell when Byrnes hit the basketball floor his sophomore year he had to have him on the football team, too. Thanks to some recruiting from former player Kevin Bunce Jr., McKee said, Byrnes signed up for varsity football once it returned in the spring of 2021.

Because it was a condensed season, McKee only put Byrnes on defense as a linebacker, and he excelled at that. But McKee knew that Byrnes had the athleticism to be a running back, so that’s what he almost exclusively played as a junior and senior, and he was a huge focal point of the offense in both seasons. Byrnes accounted for 491 total yards with six touchdowns his junior year, then this past fall as a senior, Byrnes broke out for 1,148 yards and 11 touchdowns, including a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown homecoming weekend against Rocky Point.

“First and foremost, with his work ethic, the sky is the limit for him,” McKee said of Byrnes. “He didn’t really get high quality running back coaching at the high school level, we didn’t really have that type of person coaching with us. He’s going to get that at Stony Brook, and I expect big things from him there. He’s only going to get bigger, stronger, faster, and he’s going to outwork everybody. It’s not going to be easy, there will be a bunch of backs there, but that’s what Division I football is all about. He’ll be starting at the bottom and fighting his way up.”

Both McKee and East Hampton Athletic Director Kathy Masterson agreed that having a player like Byrnes moving on to play at a school such as Stony Brook will do wonders for their football program, which is continuing to build itself back up.

“What this is going to do for this program is just help propel it,” Masterson said. “I’ve been here a year now, and have had time to evaluate everything and Joe McKee and his crew have done an amazing job, from flag football, the 250 kids that we had came out for homecoming, to the huge numbers and success we had this past year on junior high and JV. It’s not going to be next year, but East Hampton is going to start making some noise in football in the coming years, and it’s the work ethic of Finn that’s going to help us and make East Hampton football back into what it used to be. People have bought in, they want it and we’re going to get there. We’ve got the commitment from the coaching staff, the parents, and the community loves it as a well, so we look forward to the future.”

Byrnes said that it’s not lost on him what his accomplishment will do for the team.

“I really feel our record the past few years doesn’t really take into account the work that everyone put in, especially the core guys we’ve had,” he said. “Our coaches even said how close we were to being great, and I feel like this is also a great step in the right direction. Hopefully, I get more kids to play football and bring this program back to what it was. It’s cool now. I’ll be working out in town or something and people are coming up to me, ‘Oh, you’re going to Stony Brook aren’t you?’ Makes me happy to see and hear that.”

Byrnes said he fell in love with Stony Brook after visiting the campus last year. He went on a number of college visits, some Division I and Division III programs. A player on the local Montauk Sharks rugby team as well, Byrnes said he even received some offers to play Division I rugby at schools such as Penn State and out in Arizona.

Ultimately it came down to his love of football.

“Football has my heart and I really couldn’t step away from it,” he said. “Was really a long waiting game, but it all paid off. Love the coaches at Stony Brook, especially the one who recruited me, Bryan Collins. He’s a great guy and it just felt like family there. It felt like great things were going to come from them. And my parents can come to the games.”

Before everyone left last week’s signing, McKee made it a point to reiterate to all in attendance, many of them being friends and teammates of Byrnes, what it took for him to get to this point. He drove that point home again when reached on Sunday.

“I’ve been doing this a really long time now. Finn is one of the hardest workers of anyone I’ve ever come across in my time here,” he said. “He has such a strong work ethic, the time he put in, it’s unmatched. And not only on the football field or the basketball court but in the classroom, too. It’s not easy academic wise to get into a school like Stony Brook, so it’s quite the accomplishment and he should be very proud of himself.”