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From ‘Runt’ to Fitness Pied Piper

De Matteo has added sports teams by the dozens to MAT

By Max Sarinsky

John De Matteo didn’t move far when he quit his job on Wall Street eight years ago to become athletic director at P.S. 126 in Chinatown. But the two jobs could have been a world apart.

“I knew I wanted to be in a school that didn’t really have anything,” De Matteo said about his decision. The school had almost no competitive sports program at the time, but De Matteo set his sights high.

“I said I wanted to build a sports program like they have in the suburbs,” he said.

So he did, and then some.

The school, also called Manhattan Academy of Technology, currently has over 50 sports teams in over two dozen different sports—from soccer and baseball to non-traditional sports including surfing, cycling and table tennis. De Matteo said that 95 percent of students in the K-8 school participate on a sports team.

De Matteo attended elementary school in the Bronx and said that, unlike most physical education teachers, he did not stand out athletically. He credited this experience with his drive to increase participation in sports.

“I was a scrawny little runt of a kid,” he said. “I feel for these children because I was one of them.”

De Matteo, 37, enforces a strict policy against cutting students from teams. In class, he often teaches students simpler and more accessible versions of popular sports, like volleyball with beach balls.

“Old-school phys ed is over,” he said. “If we don’t make it fun, we’re going to lose our children.”

In a recent 5th-grade class, De Matteo split the class in two teams and led them in a game involving rolling beanbags at other players’ feet. Players who were hit by a moving beanbag had to do step-ups or jumping jacks before reentering the game.

With assistance via a grant from the National Football League, De Matteo converted a former supply closet into a fitness room with exercise bikes connected to video game consoles (students who pedal most quickly move fastest in the game). He said that at a time when students were more likely to play video games in their spare time than sports, it was important to cater the activity to their interests.

Susan Crowson, whose son Ben is in 6th grade, described Ben’s experience on the basketball team, noting that teamwork was constantly reinforced. De Matteo did not coach the team, she said, but his philosophy reigned.

“There were 23 kids on the middle-school basketball team and everybody played the same amount,” she said. “[De Matteo] motivates his kids and just really makes them want to try… He brings them all together as a team.”

Jake Jiler, an 8th-grade student and a member of several sports teams, said that physical education with De Matteo is “different from my old school.” He explained, “We did the same five things at gym.”

De Matteo said that his next big goal is to expand athletic opportunities to students across the city. He has already founded nine middle-school sports leagues and organizes a track and field meet that draws thousands of participants from over 200 schools. His mission, he said, is to teach students that sports are about more than competition and that, at heart, are about cooperation.

As Crowson explained, “He’s using sports as a tool to teach kids what’s really important.”

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John De Matteo
P.S. 126/I.S. 126-Manhattan Academy of Technology
80 Catherine St.