An off-season full of coaching turnover in Section III football has spread to Cicero-North Syracuse, who again is searching for a new head coach.
The district announced on Tuesday that it was not retaining Joe Sindoni, who had coached the Northstars in 2013 and 2014 and brought the program back to the sectional playoffs after a long absence.
Sindoni said that the district fired him because he had interviewed for the head coaching job at Christian Brothers Academy, where he graduated in 1992 and served 13 years as an assistant.
Casey Brown, a teacher in the North Syracuse job and a current CBA assistant, was announced on March 13 as the successor at CBA to Joe Casamento, who left after 16 seasons to take an administrative post at a school in Washington, D.C.
Sindoni came to C-NS after a three-year stint at Skaneateles, where he led the Lakers to the 2012 sectional Class C championship. He inherited a program that had fallen to the bottom of the Class AA ranks and had seen a fair amount of turmoil between players, parents and administration.
With a staff that included C-NS veterans plus CBA colleagues like Tim Brown and Tim Lee as coordinators, Sindoni helped to increase participation at all levels, including 60 players on last fall’s varsity roster, double the number of 2012, and helped to organize a new booster club for the program.
A small controversy emerged early in the 2014 season, when Sindoni had to miss the season opener against Fayetteville-Manlius in the Carrier Dome because his players had wore pads (but had not used them in contact drills) a day before they were allowed to do so.
Still, C-NS won that game over F-M, went 3-4 in the regular season and reached the sectional playoffs. But beset by injuries at the quarterback spot and other places, the Northstars lost, 46-13, to Liverpool in the opening round.
No replacement has yet been named. C-NS athletic director Tim Bednarski, in a statement, said that, while wanting to go in a different direction, the district “will be interested in pursuing candidates with a record of involvement with successful programs”.
This is the third Section III Class AA team to have a coaching change in the last three months. Casamento stepped down at CBA, replaced by Brown, and Damien Rhodes left F-M, with his predecessor, Paul Muench, returning to that job after a two-year hiatus.
Whoever does take over will find himself in the spotlight right away, as C-NS plays the first game of the the three-day Kickoff Classic at the Carrier Dome Sept. 4, taking on Kingston, followed by another chapter in the “Star Wars Cup” rivalry with Liverpool a week later. Utica Proctor, Auburn, Henninger, F-M and Baldwinsville are also on the schedule.
