By Laura Amato
The section of 204th Street between 32nd Avenue and 203rd Place in Bayside will soon have a brand-new name.
Queens Community Board 11 unanimously approved the renaming of the section to honor late Bayside High School softball and basketball coach Stephen Piorkowski Monday. The section, which lies next to the Commodores’ softball field, will now be known as Coach Stephen Piorkowski Way.
Piorkowski, who died at age 54 in 2015 after a three-year battle with cancer, was a major part of the Bayside community, coaching and teaching at the school for over two decades. His lasting impact on his students and his student-athletes was the spark behind the rally to rename the road.
“He was an amazing guy and it’s hard to put it into such small words,” said Gayle Bernstein, who played four sports under Piorkowski from 2000 to 2004. “He was like a second father to us. He made all of us who we are today and we all owe a little bit to him.”
Bernstein and her brother, Matthew Silverstein, put pen to paper several months ago, looking to jump-start the official process. Silverstein, who is the Democratic State Committeeman for the 26th Assembly District, wrote to CB 11 seeking to get the rename put to a public hearing.
It didn’t take long for the community to rally behind the idea.
In addition to Bernstein and Silverstein, dozens of Piorkowski’s former student athletes gathered in the cafeteria of Middle School 158 to show their support. Many of them sported their old softball jerseys, standing in front of CB 11 to remember Piorkowski. They called him “Coach P” when they talked, reminiscing about how he would be the first on the field and the last off it, how he always had time for his players and, most importantly, how he pushed them to be their very best.
“If you’re a woman and you want to come and play sports in Queens and in New York City, you come to Bayside because he has built the Bayside athletic proram for girls into the premiere institute in the city,” Silverstein said. “Thousands of our children have gone on to scholarships and to play in NCAA sports in all divisions. He took a program that nobody wanted to go to and now people come from all over the city of New York and the world to play at Bayside.”
Piorkowski’s accomplishments are numerous. He racked up championships and led his teams to their fair share of titles. His most impressive characteristic, however, was his dedication to his teams. Piorkowski returned to coach just four months after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma in January 2012 and even rallied back from being wheelchair-bound with a broken neck to be with his squads.
Now, Piorkowski’s accomplishments have been immortalized, right where they should be—on the sideline of the Bayside High School fields.
“It means everything,” Bernstein said. “When you think of Bayside High School, you think of Stephen Piorkowski.”
