Holy Trinity Moves on from Coach Gino Tassone and His Staff

Holy Trinity names Cain Mack as Head Coach

As you know, a Coach Mack was appointed to be the head coach of the Holy Trinity football program in mid-February, not that anyone not following this page would know. I have not seen anything from Holy Trinity regarding his appointment. This is strange, considering this season is the 60th anniversary of Holy Trinity and the Holy Trinity football team. You would think that there would be more fanfare.

Now that we are officially a month into his tenure, I have gotten some questions from parents at Trinity, alumni, and other programs from around the league. After doing some digging, I can say that a few things with pretty full confidence. At Coach Mack’s first football meeting at the beginning of March, the Titan football program had 21 players and their families show up. I suspect the number will actually be lower come the summer. Though it is common sense, the Titans will not field a JV team and only plan to field a Varsity squad this coming year. This has, as you may expect, brought up again the NYCHSFL transfer rules into focus. As you know, students transferring past their freshman year have some very strong restrictions.

See them below:

• If you are a freshman, the NYCHSFL allows you to transfer to another member school and you are eligible immediately.
• After your freshman year, if you transfer to another member school, you are ineligible to play for 1 season in NYCHSFL games+playoffs.
• There are no such restrictions if you choose to transfer to non-member schools, whether it is private or public and vice-versa.
• The only exception is if your school’s football program folds. If you transfer after that, you are eligible immediately.
• There are a list of exceptions, of course, but they are too specific to mention are really for extenuating circumstances.

We had this exact situation play out last year with many Moore Catholic players transferring to Curtis, Erasmus Hall, and Tottenville to be eligible immediately. Josiah Jones, a freshman two seasons ago, transferred to St. Peter’s and was eligible that season. Miles Sinclair transferred after Moore Catholic folded, and was eligible.

Coach Mack is working to fill out his coaching staff and get prepared for Fall 2026. As we go further into the offseason, I am hearing that offseason workouts are not going super well, and that the administration at Holy Trinity is banking on getting a surge of late enrollees and transfers in the summer. From my perspective, counting on that is dangerous. I am unsure how this team can function with just 21 players, considering they have a very difficult schedule and a lot of their best players graduated. This reminds me of Moore Catholic, though circumstances are different, going into the summer with about 20 players only to fold in mid-July, and we know how that affected the 2025 season in terms of scheduling and seeding.

This page, and I suspect the NYCHSFL, does NOT want to deal with this again, so I see something of a triple option situation with all three scenarios not being great options for the league.

1. Trust Holy Trinity to field a varsity team. Though being the number 1 seed of the ‘AA-2’, Holy Trinity plays the likes of Kellenberg, St. Francis Prep, and Xaverian, all ‘AA-1’ teams. I am concerned for the health and safety of the kids on that team.
2. Reseed and place Holy Trinity as the 22 seed. Though this does not solve the issue of their ability to field a team, but it does put Holy Trinity on the appropriate level.
3. Compel Holy Trinity to fold, and reshuffle the schedule. This is very late in the game to reshuffle schedules, and it would create a lot more work for the existing programs and the league, but it would preserve the 7 game schedule and allow for seeding to function appropriately.

Of course, the league could just wait and see, but I think they would be better served being proactive in dealing with this situation.

What do you think? Am I missing some context? Let me know!