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Despina Scully

Jillian Scully, state record-holder in discus. Photo courtesy Debbie Scully

By  Daniel Dunaief

Goal set. Goal accomplished.

Miller Place High School senior and track star Jillian Scully wanted to set a new record in the discus in her final season.

She accomplished her goal this past weekend at the Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Games in White Plains, breaking the 33-year old state record by over two feet when she threw the discus 174 feet, 2 inches away.

At the same time, Scully, 18, now owns the furthest throw by a high school girl in the country.

“I read 174, turned around, looked at my friends, said, ‘I broke the state record,’ jumped around a little bit, had our fun, took a couple of pictures, went home and made myself some cupcakes,” said the typically understated Scully. 

Scully also won the MVP award for the tournament, which reflects both on her remarkable throw and on her willingness to help tournament officials and other competitors.

Scully helped the referees retrieve the discuses and the shot put, a competition she also won on Friday, for other competitors.

An official told her that “you’re not only a good athlete, you’re a good person. This trophy is for special people like you,” Scully said.

After her record setting throw, Scully learned that NASF Nike wanted to provide her with merchandise and funding to support her when she goes to the sneaker and apparel sponsored event in Oregon.

“I’m very excited” about the support, as it is “my first offer of anything,” she said.

Jillian Scully, state record-holder in discus. Photo courtesy Debbie Scully

Scully’s father James shed a few tears when his daughter broke the record.

“It was pretty amazing, to be a parent watching it,” he said. “She’s pretty determined to do what she wants to do. She had it in her head.”

Indeed, Scully said his daughter has been itching to break the record for a while.

“We knew it was coming,” said Jillian’s mother Despina “Debbie” Scully. “She was throwing 170 in practice. We were waiting with bated breath.”

Jillian’s mother was so excited for her daughter that the family “couldn’t form sentences. It didn’t really settle in until we got home.”

That night, Scully returned home and baked the confetti cupcakes she had been saving for the day she claimed the state record.

The weekend wasn’t complete without Scully heading to a field and working with another athlete.

The day after the games, a discus thrower from Mount Sinai reached out to Scully to ask if she’d train with him.

She got up at 8 am, throwing with him for over two hours.

“She loves helping people,” her mother said.

A sunny day, some early fouls

Like many other Saturdays when she has competitions, Scully and her family woke up in a hotel on the day of the record-breaking throw and had an early breakfast.

She arrived at the meet early to watch her teammate compete in the pole vault. She then stood by the track and watched the boys’ discus throw.

One of the competitors threw a personal best, which gave Scully the sense that the conditions might be ripe for her and others.

“A bunch of people” had a personal record, said Scully. “People were up and happy.”

It didn’t hurt that the sun, which was hidden behind rain clouds during the previous day’s soggy shot put competition, was out.

She had a feeling Saturday would be the day for her to reach her goal.

In the preliminary rounds, Scully fouled on her first two throws. She walked over to her parents and told them she wasn’t even going to spin in the circle, minimizing the chance that she’d foul. She knew she’d throw far enough to make it to the next round.

Even without a spin, her deliberate throw was 145 feet, which was further than the second place finisher for the day.

In the finals, her clean throw not only put her in the record books for the state, but also has her ranked 81 in the country, including college students and Olympic athletes. This is the first time Scully has cracked the top 100.

After her record, she reached out to several coaches and to her brother Jimmy, who is a police officer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Bill Hiney, Sully’s personal coach, sent her an image of an Olympic medal.

Hiney, the Assistant Track and Field Coach during the winter and spring seasons for Southold High School, attributed the record to the work she’s put in, to her passion and dedication to the sport, and to her athletic frame.

“I’ve been doing this for 36 years,” said Hiney. “Jillian is just on another planet.”

Ready for more

While Scully is pleased that she met one of her goals, she sees room for improvement in her form.

If she has her way, her current record may not stand for 33 days, as she hopes to use her 6 foot, 1 and 3/4 inch height, to reach or exceed 180 feet.

“I could fix some of the things I messed up,” she said about her throwing technique.

Hiney, who watched a video of her performance, said she didn’t drive all the way through the throw.

“Her right hip was prematurely stopped, when she could have continued putting more energy into the throw,” Hiney said. He believes it won’t be long before she sets another record.

Scully, who is committed to attending LSU in the fall, plans to compete in six more meets before she graduates, including counties, states, state qualifiers and nationals.

Still, even as she looks to build on this throw, Scully has learned to savor and enjoy the moment.

“I try to acknowledge the fact that I accomplished a goal before I start setting the next one,” she said. “I have a tendency to jump from one goal to the next, with nothing in the middle.”

Scully’s current and future achievements are a product of consistent hard work and sacrifice.

Practicing on a field she makes sure is clear in the landing zone of onlookers drawn to the sports of discus and shot put, Scully works on her form over and over again, videotaping as many as 80 throws in a day and critiquing her form.

All the work means that she “misses out on a lot of things,” said Debbie Scully, which includes the athletic awards dinner at school, the last day of school, and the senior class trip, to name a few.

“This is her passion and this is what she wants,” her mother said.

Thomas Scully, second from left, and his family out fishing on a boat. Photo from Despina Scully

By Desirée Keegan

Thomas Scully’s life can be summed up by the lyrics of one of his favorite songs, “The Man,” by Aloe Blacc:

I played my cards and I didn’t fold. Well it ain’t that hard when you got soul (this is my world). Somewhere I heard that life is a test. I been through the worst but I still give my best.
God made my mold different from the rest. Then he broke that mold so I know I’m blessed (this is my world).

Thomas, 12, of Miller Place, died on July 7 after a long battle with anaplastic ependymoma, a form of brain cancer. Although he grew increasingly sick over the last few years, Thomas was said to always have a smile on his face, a terrific sense of humor and was always concerned about others.

Thomas Scully and his cat Snowflake. Photo from Despina Scully
Thomas Scully and his cat Snowflake. Photo from Despina Scully

Thomas was so full of life that, even while battling a lung infection the day before he passed, his mother Despina said she put music on, and he was dancing in his bed.

“All the nurses and doctors came running and they were amazed that he was doing that,” she said. “They’d never seen anything like it before, and that was Thomas. He never stopped fighting. He just loved being here. He was strong, resilient and hardheaded, and wasn’t letting anything hold him back. He loved life.”

He also cared deeply for others, and even while fighting his own battles he was more concerned about how others were feeling.

“He always was advising people, talking to people, and here while he’s going through this he was making people happy, always wanting to make people laugh and cracking jokes and doing magic tricks with his friends,” his grandmother Helen Vidal said. “He’s just an incredible, incredible little boy. He was so sweet. He was always so polite, always trying to please everybody, always very in tune with people and always advising people to take care of themselves.”

In his short time, Thomas also made sure to soak in every second of life.

His aunt Joelle Manzo, of Miller Place, sister of Thomas’ father James, said that while the family was vacationing in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., they were boogie boarding prior to a storm. As the waves rolled in and everyone came out of the water, Thomas continued to drift along, taking it all in, Manzo said.

“He wasn’t going to let anything go by without taking it in,” she said. “And I think we should all live like that. We forget to. We take things for granted. We all think that we have time, but we don’t. The talks that Thomas and I had have blown my mind. He was so wise beyond his years.”

Thomas shared many hobbies with his friend Robby Fitton, who he met in 2012 in at North Country Road Middle School.

Thomas eats dinner at Wasabi, his favorite restaurant, with best friend Robby Fitton, at left. Photo from Concetta Fitton
Thomas eats dinner at Wasabi, his favorite restaurant, with best friend Robby Fitton, at left. Photo from Concetta Fitton

“Back before he got very sick we played outside a lot,” Robby said. “He loved baseball. He also loved playing video games, riding around in his golf cart, playing the card game Crazy Eights and going to Wasabi, his favorite restaurant, I felt really bad for him that he had to go through that all and it was upsetting to see him like that because he’s my age and had a very serious sickness.”

But he was there for his friend, and the two continued to get together at least once or twice a week. Once Thomas found himself in the hospital, Robby visited him there, too.

“It was tough seeing him with IVs hanging out of his arms and all the treatments he had to go through, but he always stayed positive,” Robby said. “I thought of him as one of my best friends because if something happened to me he would always call or text me to check and see if I was OK. We’d always be there for each other, that was a big thing with our friendship. He was special in his own way. I miss him.”

Thomas also had a lot of strength, and his mother called his battle “one heck of a ride.”

“He kept us going,” Despina Scully said. “He was our strength. I’m so unbelievably proud and feel so unbelievably blessed to be his mother and to have gotten the time that I had with him. I feel so lucky to be his mom.”

Thomas gives a thumbs-up in his fight against childhood cancer T-shirt. Photo from Despina Scully
Thomas gives a thumbs-up in his fight against childhood cancer T-shirt. Photo from Despina Scully

Those who knew Thomas described him as very humble. His mother said that if you told him you brought him a leaf because you were thinking of him, it’d mean the world to him.

He was also outspoken.

While watching other children with cancer on television, he would ask his mother, “Why can’t I also be on television?” When his mother asked, “What would you say if you were on TV?” his response was to tell everyone, “Hello, world. You need to be kind to each other, embrace and love each other.”

Scully is trying not to let that message go.

“He was never negative — he would always see the good,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to hold onto. I’m getting caught up in being upset that he’s gone and that he’s not coming back and how things happened, and I’m trying not to do that because I can’t get him back. He’s gone. I’m just trying to hold onto all those things that he was trying to tell me while he was here and I was just too busy worry about what medicines and what treatments and where he’s going to go and how we’re going to beat his cancer, and I wasn’t there, like I should have been. I wasn’t hearing him. And now I hear him, and I don’t want to let that go.”

Thomas is survived by his parents James and Despina Scully; his brother James Jr.; his sister Jillian; his grandparents Emerson and Helen Vidal, and James Scully, husband of the late Jean Scully. Religious service was celebrated at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Interment followed at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Port Jefferson. Arrangements entrusted to the care of Branch Funeral Home of Miller Place.