Gina Titus Honored as the Italian-American Woman of the Year
A little bit of normalcy has returned to the Italian-American Woman of the Year Award. Last year, the Italian-American Soccer League of New York (IASL) honored Cathy O’Brien, who is 100% Irish-American, as its Woman of the Year. Cathy, the Operations Administrator of the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA), was honored for her support and enthusiastic commitment to the Olympic Development Program (ODP) trips to Italy.
For 2015, Gina Titus was honored as the Italian-American Woman of the Year in a ceremony on January 25 at Russo’s on the Bay in Howard Beach. Despite her last name not ending in a vowel, Gina is 100% Italian-American as her father’s surname, Mincone, is from the small town of Orsogna, and her mother’s surname is Fazzolari from Calabria. Gina is married with three children and has been involved in the world’s most popular sport, called “calcio” in Italy, for over three decades.
Gina started playing in a recreational women’s league in Setauket, Long Island, where she still lives. At that time, she helped organize skill clinics for female parent/coaches to learn the sport and build a community team. As coach to her daughters’ intramural and travel team, the Stony Brook Panthers, for 12 seasons, Gina became involved in the Stony Brook Soccer Club of the Long Island Junior Soccer League (LIJSL). She became tournament director in the 2001 inaugural year of the Long Island Soccer Shoot-Out, a youth tournament created in partnership with the Sachem Youth Soccer League and continued in this role until 2014. Gina assisted at Ward Melville High School as a girl’s assistant coach from 1996 to 1998 and has been the Stony Brook women’s club teams schedule coordinator for 14 years. She has served on the Stony Brook Board of Directors since 2001.
Two decades ago, Gina received a call from then LIJSL President ooking for new volunteers and has served through the years as a division supervisor, LIJSL Convention Chairperson and later committee volunteer. She started an annual cleat drive during the LIJSL Convention and arranged for the distribution of the donated items to children around the world. Organizations such as Save the Children, Kick for Nick and Eurosport have all been helped through the years by Gina’s volunteering.
In addition to soccer, this Renaissance Woman and her husband own a printing company in Huntington plus she writes poems, recently wrote a family musical and is having music she wrote produced this winter. Congratulations to Gina, the Italian-American Woman of the Year!
With over 100,000 youth soccer players––both boys and girls––and more than 25,000 volunteers, the non-profit Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) stretches from Montauk Point, Long Island to the Canadian border. Members are affiliated with 11 leagues throughout the association, which covers the entire state of New York east of Route 81. ENYYSA exists to promote and enhance the game of soccer for children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 19 years old, and to encourage the healthy development of youth players, coaches, referees and administrators.
All levels of soccer are offered––from intramural, travel team and premier players as well as Special Children. No child who wants to play soccer is turned away. ENYYSA is a proud member of the United States Soccer Federation and United States Youth Soccer Association.