Quin ran activities at the chronically underfunded PAL, everything from baseball at long-gone Merrill Field in West Brighton to teen nights at the organization center in Tottenville. He was also the person who drove the results of the track meets and bowling competitions to the Advance offices so kids could see their names in the paper the next day, just as he was the one working behind the scenes at Cromwell Center when that was one of the few places kids could go and play hoops on the Island. When he left that job, and the NYPD, in the late 1960s, it was as the Island’s “Mr. PAL” and everyone knew it. From there, Quin, who in a typical old-time Island sports connection happens to be big leaguer Terry Crowley’s godfather, found himself taking a job for almost no pay in the athletic department at what was then Staten Island Community College. The job description was pretty much blank at the new school, which gave the now middle-aged man the ability to mold his work into days and evenings of helping out coaches and players in all the almost invisible ways that are necessary to get sporting events off the ground. “An incredible guy,” says Evan Pickman, who coached the Dolphin men’s basketball team to six straight CUNY titles at one point in a career that included a 127-42 record. “Jeff would set up the gym, run the clock, be a friend to the kids. And all in a quiet, gentlemanly way that made him a role model just by being around. “He was the person you went to at the college if you wanted to get something done,” recalled Pickman. “He was a great friend who always had the coaches’ backs.” A quarter-century after Quin first took the CSI job, Jeff Ford, a 1,000-point scorer at Curtis High School and one of his several ballplaying grandchildren, was a guard for the Dolphins and their brand new young coach, Tony Petosa. Now, with that half-century of good works indelibly stamped on his resume, it’s 13 great grandchildren that the former Island PAL director keeps track, just as he used to keep an eye on everyone’s else’s kids all those years ago. *****
Give the Yankees front office credit for thinking big in the Michael Pineda-for-Jesus Montero deal. The name of the game is always pitching, and if Pineda is the arm they think he is, Friday’s trade is a mighty plus for the next couple of seasons in the Bronx.
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