On Long Island fields, Scott Albert Coppola could command a football offense, control a baseball game from the mound and contribute on the basketball court. Coppola, the Connetquot three-sport standout who became a Hofstra baseball captain and spent years coaching and training younger players, died on August 4, 2026. He was 49.

The Raynor & D'Andrea Funeral Homes family notice recorded his birth on January 16, 1977, and identified Deer Park as his home. Born in Port Jefferson and raised in Oakdale, he developed into an athlete whose versatility defined his Connetquot High School years.

As the Thunderbirds' quarterback, Coppola helped win the Suffolk County Division I championship in 1992 and 1994. The 1992 team also captured the Long Island Class I title, beating Farmingdale 27-0. After the second county title, Coppola earned first-team All-Long Island recognition. He also received Suffolk All-League basketball honors in consecutive years.

Baseball brought his defining high school season. Coppola went 12-0 as a senior in 1995, led Connetquot to the New York State Class A championship and was named the state MVP. His career pitching record was 26-2. Anthony Carbonaro, who played travel ball with him from age 13, told Newsday, "He was our everything. A great captain, leader, ace pitcher, big-time hitter, you name it."

That range carried to Hofstra. From 1996 through 1999, Coppola was a four-year baseball letter winner and a two-year captain, contributing at third base and on the mound. In an April 1997 game at Fordham, he collected three hits, drove in two runs and doubled while batting in the heart of Hofstra's order.

Coppola earned a marketing degree in December 2002 after working nearly two years in Hofstra's sports facilities department. A Hofstra University Athletics media guide introduced him as an assistant softball coach and recorded earlier service at the university's All-Star Baseball Camp. In 2010 he returned for a baseball alumni game as a player-coach and pitched two relief innings.

Connetquot inducted Coppola into its Hall of Fame in 2006. Mary Lou Jenney Assante, a retired Connetquot athletic director who had taught him in elementary school, told Newsday that he paired skill with character and leadership. She said the physical education award he received at his sixth-grade graduation was later named for him.

Coppola kept baseball close as a longtime trainer at Baseball Plus in Hicksville, carrying the game from school championships and college captaincy into instruction. He also worked in customer service for Auto Rim Shop in Farmingdale.

His family described another center of his life. Coppola's sister, Kristin Fletcher, said, "My brother’s greatest joy and proudest accomplishment was being a father." The family notice named his wife, Tara, and children, Kasey and Kyle, along with his parents, Albert and Joanne, brother James and sister Kristin. It described family time built around playing catch, hitting baseballs, bumping volleys and backyard competition.

Coppola's record endures in Connetquot's football and baseball championship history, its Hall of Fame and the school award bearing his name. It continues in Hofstra's baseball and coaching records and in the players he trained on Long Island. Those places preserve an athlete who moved from competition to captaincy, then from captaincy to instruction.