From each month this year, The Daily Gazette sports department is compiling the 10 quotes from our interview subjects that stuck out the most for us, based on how they either made us think or laugh — or some combination of both.
Selected quotes come both from reporting for stories that appeared in The Daily Gazette and interviews associated with episodes of “The Parting Schotts Podcast.” Not all quotes used were previously published.
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“I get a chance to do it and they pay me for it. It’s crazy. I’m a lucky guy.”
— Dwayne Killings, on Nov. 4, regarding his status as a first-year head coach with the UAlbany men’s basketball program before the club’s first game of the 2021-22 season.
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“Just to watch what they were going through, my wife and I kept looking at each other, and we were like, ‘Please, get this done tonight so we don’t have to be like that tomorrow night.’”
— Bob Anderson, on Nov. 4, recalling watching the emotions experienced by the family of Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Max Fried during Game 6 of this year’s World Series — and knowing his son, Shenendehowa High School graduate Ian Anderson, would start the if-necessary Game 7. The Braves won the series in six games; Ian Anderson was the winning pitcher in Game 3.
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“I could write a book about this season, about all the things that’ve gone wrong, or not gone the way we expected.”
— Fonda-Fultonville football coach Sean Thompson, on Nov. 9, described a season in which his team had more than half of its regular-season games either rescheduled or canceled, only for the Braves to make their way to the Section II Class C Super Bowl.
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“I had a tryout [Monday], and we’re here now.”
— RPI placekicker Trevor Bisson, on Nov. 13, who joined the football team five days earlier after finishing his men’s soccer season for the Engineers, then hit the game-winning 36-yard field goal as time expired against Union to give RPI a 19-17 win to claim the Dutchman Shoes Trophy, the Liberty League championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs.
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“I’ve run these roads a thousand times, so it’s cool that there’s a race that runs up Grand [Boulevard] and through Central Park. Yeah, it’s just like being back in high school and running with teammates again, just being on the roads.”
— Niskayuna native Lou Serafini, after winning the MVP Health Care Stockade-athon in Schenectady on Nov. 14
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“Every single player got better every single practice and every single game. It was a team. We didn’t rely on one player.”
— Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake field hockey coach Kelly Vrooman, on Nov. 14, after her team won the program’s first state championship since 1987.
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“It’s huge. I was very lucky to grow up where I grew up [in Oakville, Ontario]. Those resources were so easily available to me. But not every kid has that opportunity, and especially in this area. Even though I’m not from the area, I want to give those kids that opportunity where they can fulfill their dreams, and feel important and better themselves if those opportunities aren’t there.”
— Union hockey senior forward Josh Kosack on his fundraiser for the COCOA House in Schenectady, on Nov. 15
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“A few people mentioned [the 300-win milestone] to me, but I didn’t do it for me. The kids do it. The players do it. That’s their record.”
— Lise Williams, on Nov. 18, on why concluding her coaching career with the Scotia-Glenville girls’ soccer program just a few wins shy of 300 didn’t bother her. A Scotia-Glenville graduate, Williams coached the Tartans for 21 seasons; the program finished 297-76-23 with her at the helm and won three Section II championships.
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“The lights are brighter, but that’s about it.”
— Siena men’s basketball player Andrew Platek, after returning to the Times Union Center on Nov. 22 for the Saints’ home opener against Harvard, his first game there since his Guilderland High team lost to Shenendehowa in the 2015 Section II Class AA championship game.
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“This building is always in my heart.”
— Mark Sausville, on Nov. 30, regarding coaching his Scotia-Glenville boys’ basketball team at Schenectady High School, where Sausville was the head coach for a dozen years and led the Patriots to the 2001 state championship.
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