Gregg Sarra
Induction Year: 2012
Category: Journalism & Media
Location: Newfield and Connetquot

Gregg Sarra is a longtime journalist at Newsday. He has been instrumental in expanding Newsday’s coverage of high school sports beyond the traditional palette of content. The Newsday High School Sports Editor has worked at Newsday since 1985 and was Long Island’s Executive Producer for MSG Varsity for five years. He is known as “Mr. High School Sports” on Long Island, having devoted his life’s work to the local sports scene. Sarra has covered all sports across Long Island, including most of New York’s professional sports teams, including the Yankees, Mets, Jets and Giants. Sarra was a three-sport athlete at Newfield High School and an all-star baseball player at Dowling College where he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration.

He produced the award-winning television documentary, On Common Ground, a contrast of baseball in the Dominican Republic and the United States in 1999. He was named Newspaper Man of the Year 23 times by the various Nassau and Suffolk County High School Coaches Associations, and received the Bob Zellner Award in 1999 from the Long Island Friends of Wrestling. He was recognized with the Hunter Lowe Media Award presented by the New York State High School Football Coaches Association as the state’s sportswriter of the year four times. He was inducted into the Dowling College Hall of Fame in 2004. He was the Suffolk County Police Athletic League’s Man of the Year in 2014 for 25 years of volunteer work with kids. He earned an Emmy for his documentary Tragedy to Triumph about Long Beach wrestler Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez, who overcame a near-death experience to win a state championship.

The National Football Foundation has named their Long Island Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year Awards since 2022 in his honor, presenting the winners with the “Sarra Trophy.” 

He is widely known as an accomplished athlete and highly successful youth coach in baseball and football. He is a member of the Long Island Stan Musial Hall of Fame, Men’s Senior Baseball League Hall of Fame and the Long Island Flag Football Hall of Fame. Sarra and his wife, Katherine, of 37 years, reside in the Connetquot School District. They have four children, Gregg Jr. [Kristen], Emily [Steve], Jeff (Meghan], and Natalie [William], and three grandchildren, Nolan, Nora, and Phoebe.