Tom Corcoran announces retirement as West Islip boys lacrosse coach
West Islip boys lacrosse head coach Tom Corcoran in 2019. Credit: Joseph D. Sullivan
Few boys lacrosse teams took Suffolk by storm the way West Islip did in 2025, winning 11 of its first 12 games and finishing as a county finalist under coach Tom Corcoran. Now, the Lions will be on the prowl for a new head coach.
Corcoran, 57, announced his retirement after leading West Islip to a 14-4 season and a spot on USA Lacrosse’s national public school rankings this past spring.
He leaves after seven seasons, finishing with a 70-34 record and a 2023 Suffolk title. Corcoran said he had planned to keep coaching until he found out that the school district was not bringing back assistant coach Scott Mattera as a physical education teacher.
“To try and find another assistant coach, they’re not in the school. They’re just not there,” said Corcoran, who joined West Islip as an assistant coach in 2015. “I really felt at this point that it was the right time to step out and give it to someone who’s maybe younger. It was a difficult decision.”
A 1986 West Islip alum, Corcoran also taught physical education at Farmingdale High School prior to his retirement.
Corcoran said he’ll spend his newly found free time watching his son Tommy play lacrosse for Molloy while also watching some of the players he once coached, like 2025 graduate Mick Faulkner. The defensive captain said he considers Corcoran “a friend now.”
“I want [people] to know that he was a fantastic coach and person at the same time,” said Faulkner, who will next play at Fairfield. “You don’t have to talk to him about lacrosse all the time, you can talk to him about real life things. I think that was very important.”
Under Corcoran, who took over for longtime coach Scott Craig in 2019, West Islip maintained its 31-season streak of playoff berths. Corcoran pointed to coaching his own son and leading an upstart 2023 team to a county title as highlights of his tenure, along with meeting like-minded coaches along the way.
“I had a lot of pride coaching for West Islip,” Corcoran said. “I love this town. I love the football program, the wrestling program, the lacrosse program, I love everything about it. I have no regrets.”
Faulkner said he’ll always remember Corcoran’s passionate speeches before games in the back hallway at West Islip High School.
“He would always fire us up,” Faulkner said. “It was always something different every week, every game.”
Derek Busking, a 2025 graduate and Newsday All-Long Island second team selection, played four years for Corcoran on varsity and graduated with the fifth-most points in program history (217).
“He’s just someone you want to go to war with every time you play,” Busking said. “He’s always supportive, he just really gave me the confidence to do all the behind-the-back and one-handed stuff. That leads people to success when you have someone on your side like that.”
Busking, who will next play at Siena , recalled a spot in the team’s locker room where the coach would post the practice plan for the day. Corcoran put up a picture of the preseason boys lacrosse rankings, where every other Suffolk coach seeded East Islip atop the county ahead of West Islip.
The only first-seed vote for West Islip came from Corcoran himself, something Busking remembers as a sign of how much the coach supported his players.
“One thing that he preached, ‘Never get too high and never get too low,’ ” Busking said. “He won’t let you get too high on yourself, but he also won’t let you beat yourself up. He was a keep-it-calm guy, because he believed in us at the end of the day.”
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
