The wait is over — Preston Carey picks University of Georgia
By Steven Zaitz
Preston Carey, a high school football star who grew up in East Northport, turned stately Oheka Castle into his own personal ‘Dawg Pound’, announcing his commitment to play for the University of Georgia this past Monday.
In a setting fit for a fairy tale, this press conference/red carpet celebration brought to a close the much publicized selection process, which led to over 50 Division I scholarship offers for Carey. These offers started coming to Carey as early as 2022 when he was just a freshman.
But now with half the crowd holding microphones and video equipment and the other half in black tie and ball gowns holding champagne, all were waiting breathlessly for his decision. The 6’5”, 305 pound defensive lineman sat at the dais inside the wood-paneled library of the historic 127-room estate in Huntington on June 30.
As 300 of his friends and ex-teammates partied in an adjacent banquet hall, Carey’s family, along with a phalanx of media squeezed into the small room to witness Carey lift up one of four shiny silver cloches that were spread out on the table in front of him. His dad and youth football coach, Benjamin Carey, sat with him at the table, as the decision reveal was imminent.
Under those cloches were four baseball caps representing the University of Florida, Rutgers University, Auburn University and the University of Georgia.
Along with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, the crowd in the library was treated to a brief video that highlighted his rise from a youth football player in the 495 Long Island Elite program that his father founded, to scenes of his exhaustive underwater workouts and grueling agility drills.
The stylized video also showed clips of his games at St. Anthony’s High School in South Huntington and his current school, the prestigious IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where he has blossomed into a 4-star college recruit. As the video faded to black, Preston thanked everyone for coming and his last words were ‘for the next few years I’ll be going to-’.
The screen went dark.
The library now swelled with anticipation and the lights around the dais shimmered around Carey and his dad. All four hats were now uncovered and everyone in the room knew the time had come.
Carey thanked everyone for coming, then stood and said, “I know why you are all here tonight – to find out where I’ll be going to college; it’s the University of Georgia. Go Dawgs!”
He pumped his fist a few times, put on the red and black Georgia hat that lay in front of him, and hugged his father as the room exploded with applause.
Benjamin Carey, who along with Half Hollow Hills West coach Gerald Filardi, runs the 495 Elite Football Academy, was brimming with pride for his son.
“It has been such a long journey and sometimes very difficult and this night was just bittersweet,” said Benjamin Carey, who is renowned for his ‘no participation trophies’ approach to football. “It was a celebration of winning. We overcame the odds and built something special and all these people here tonight are in some way part of it.”
Preston Carey started playing youth football around the age of five. He started as a quarterback, but as he grew, switched over to lineman. His academic journey started at Fifth Avenue Elementary School in East Northport and went to Long Island Lutheran Middle School before joining the St. Anthony Friars as a freshman in 2022. He was 6’3” and 280 pounds as a ninth-grader and that year, he and his Friars won the Catholic League State championship over St. Francis Prep on Thanksgiving weekend in Buffalo, NY.
Soon after, college offers started to roll in. The first one was from LSU,then Western Illinois, and Penn State, Michigan and many other schools of this ilk over the past three years. In that time, Carey has grown not only in size and strength, but as a person, a student, a teammate and a man.
In an interview with Varsity Media, just moments after the announcement, he was already thinking about what he has to do next.
“This feels really good, but there is still a lot of work to be done and I’m excited to get back in the gym,” he said as waves of media and well-wishers brushed past him. “That’s why I’m where I am today.”
Carey will play for IMG Academy for one more season and matriculate to UGA, which is in the city of Athens and has produced household football names such as Fran Tarkenton, Herschel Walker, Matthew Stafford, Roquan Smith and Richard Seymour. Seymour was a dominant defensive lineman for the Patriots in the early 2000s, winning three Super Bowls. D-Liners Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis both of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Devonte Wyatt, a Green Bay Packer, are also UGA Alum.
“Georgia is ‘Defensive Line University,” Carey said. “They came up to see me as a freshman when I couldn’t make it down there. They have shown me love since they offered me a scholarship when I was in eighth grade and have always believed in my talent, all the way up to now.”
So now, the castle portion of Preston Carey’s fairy tale is complete. However, his dream of being a Bulldog, and playing on one of college football’s biggest stages, and perhaps beyond, has just begun.
