Robert Cincotta

Robert Cincotta has been a teacher at Hempstead High School since 1985. In addition to teaching, Cincotta coaches the Hempstead baseball team. During his years at Hempstead, Cincotta has been involved in a variety of worthy projects.

One such project is teaching his baseball team the value of community service and academic success in school. Because of Cincotta, these young men build houses for the poor and needy through Habitat for Humanity, visit ill children in hospitals, raise money for scholarships and are successful students. The latter accomplishment is the one Cincotta is most proud of, especially after Hempstead High was labeled "Crisis High" for consistently ranking at the bottom of every statistical measure of performance for area schools. Although only one out of every three students at Hempstead High graduates, all of Cincotta's players not only graduate, but many do so with honors. This is mainly attributed to Cincotta's 'no pass, no play' policy.

Every year, Cincotta hosts the Grand Slam Baseball Event, another project that he has undertaken. This event, created and planned by Cincotta, helps raise scholarship money for worthy Hempstead students. The Eugene Grant Scholarship (in memory of the slain Hempstead coach) is endowed by the funds raised at the event. The coach was shot dead, in 1992, while breaking up a fight between two students at the high school. The event is a tremendous source of community pride. In its fourth year, Wilson Sporting Goods chose it as a finalist in the Best Baseball Promotions Contest.