Southampton's Darren Phillips Is Named New York State Athletic Director of the Year

Southampton Athletic Director Darren Phillips was recognized with a big honor earlier this fall, as he was named by the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance as the Director of the Year in September.

He was presented with the award at the association’s annual conference on November 17 in Verona, New York.

Phillips is in his 23rd year as athletic director at Southampton, and in that time, he has overseen the growth and addition of a wide range of programs, from interscholastic sports to unique offerings in physical education classes, all with the goal of enriching health and wellness for students.

Phillips said he feels “really honored” to receive the award, but gave credit to his staff, saying it has been a true team effort.

“I’m getting the award but this is a recognition of the entire PE and health program that’s continued to strive for excellence and has tried to get better and better over the past 23 years,” he said. “The most important thing has been hiring really good people, because they do the work every day. I am just here to facilitate and make things happen.”

During Phillips’s more than two-decade tenure at Southampton, the district has offered a wide and diverse range of physical education opportunities for all students. Since 2013, the school has offered an ever expanding unified sports program, where athletes with developmental disabilities can practice and compete alongside other members of the student population, and also on basketball, bowling, and track and field teams. Unified physical education classes and unified sports teams are part of that program. The unified phys ed classes have been a success at the high school level, and there are plans in the works to expand them to the intermediate school and possibly even the elementary school in years to come.

Under Phillips’s direction, the district has also offered an after-school boxing club, led by Chris DeRosa of Hill Street Boxing, who is also a social worker. It has been a “home run,” according to Phillips.

“We’ve had more kids every year and it just keeps growing,” Phillips said. “More and more kids want to be part of it, not just for the fitness, but also because it has a whole social-emotional learning piece to it, where they can talk about issues with things that might be bothering them. It wasn’t my idea, but I just wanted to make sure we could make it happen.”

Over the years, the district has taken students to water safety classes at the East Hampton YMCA’s indoor pool, has offered Zumba and yoga, and more.

Providing those kinds of unique opportunities is key, Phillips said, because he and the rest of the staff realize that not every student will enjoy traditional competitive sports typically offered in physical education classes, but every student needs and deserves some form of physical education.

“Without personal health and wellness, it doesn’t matter what you do. If you don’t know how to take care of yourself, it won’t matter,” Phillips said of why physical education is so crucial for students. “Our goal is to make sure we educate kids to understand the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle physically and emotionally, especially now with phones and screens, and how we know that a sedentary lifestyle contributes to so many diseases. So we try to offer a variety of different things.”

Brian Tenety, one of the district’s longtime physical education teachers, said that Phillips is deserving of recognition from the state because of his commitment to making physical education accessible to all students and because he has done a good job ensuring his staff embraces that philosophy as well.

“Leadership is not about being viewed as the person in charge,” Tenety said. “It’s about inspiring those around you to be great. Darren’s approach to getting it done is very much this style. Over the last 19 years, he has been a major reason I have been able to grow into my role as an educator. He is always student-first and willing to jump in.”

A love for students and for sports is what led Phillips to his career path, although it wasn’t the journey he initially thought he’d take. After graduating from North Babylon High School, Phillips went down south to Wake Forest University in North Carolina, where he was a member of the football team.

After graduating, Phillips initially planned to go to law school, but his experience as an athlete led his heart in a different direction.

“I was on the football team there, and I didn’t really play, but I thought being a college football coach is the life,” he said. “But then I took a step back knowing I wanted to have a family and kids, and that lifestyle wouldn’t be appealing.”

Phillips then went into education, teaching history at a private school in Virginia. He went on to return to Long Island and became an assistant principal, but realized he was not happy in that role. With a yearning to be back in the athletics and physical education world, he applied for the job in Southampton, and was hired by previous superintendent Linda Bruno.

“Like a lot of people who grew up playing sports, it was a big part of my life,” Phillips said. “You come to a point where you have to say, what is my passion? What do I really want to do? I wanted to be involved with sports and coaching kids because of my own personal experiences.

“If you had really good coaches, you realize the impact they made,” Phillips added. “And you hope to have that kind of impact on the kids you coach and teach.”