Dan Fisher at WBTA was kind enough to air a story today about The Batavian, interviewing me and Billie, with Pachuco in the studio.
Ameka Cooper at Carlson's Studio shot the portrait picture.
You can listen to Dan's story here (mp3).
The awards will be handed out Saturday night at the Holiday Inn.
Previously, The Batavian ran the following stories on our fellow award winners:
It was the day after the Batavia Blue Devils dropped a first-round Section V playoff game to Aquinas in 1997 that Alex Nesbeth and Mike Glow came to Coach Myron "Buddy" Brasky and said, "Next year, we're going to win the sectionals."
Brasky looked at his junior players, shrugged, and said, "yeah, OK."
"No, Coach," Nesbeth said. "We're going to do it. We're going to do whatever it takes."
The Blue Devils hadn't so much as won its division in years and years, and Brasky, in his seventh season as head coach, had just posted his first winning campaign, leading the team to a 11-10 record.
From the day Brasky took over, the naysayers told the young coach the Blue Devils would never win another championship in basketball. Batavia was too small of a school in a big-school division. There was just no way to beat the big boys from Monroe County.
An 11-10 season wasn't exactly a prelude to proving the skeptics wrong, but Nesbeth and three of his teammates decided it was high time to do just that.
"That’s when I was teaching at Jackson School," Brasky said. "It was the middle of winter and those kids -- there were four of them -- they would walk from the high school to Jackson School and do skill work with me. Almost every day, from about 3:30 to 5. We had a small, tiny gym, just two baskets, and they worked and worked and worked."
The next season, the Blue Devils posted an impressive 20-4 record. But more importantly, they won a Section V title -- the first of three titles the Blue Devils posted in Brasky's 20 years as the team's head coach.
"The Pride is Alive."
That was the motto Brasky coined for the team when he took over as coach prior to the 1990-91 season.
The Batavia-born-and-bred athletics fanatic never forgot the glory years of Blue Devils basketball from his young days -- the years of John Walton, the Wescotts, Bruce Beswick and Billy Monroe.
But by the time Brasky was the starting point guard, the glory years, the pride, were starting to fade.
"When I played here, we were just average," Brasky said. "We weren’t great. That’s where it started going down a little bit, and after I graduated, it went way down."
Brasky enrolled at GCC after graduation and then transferred to SUNY Cortland. He completed his degree in Physical Education and soon after moved to Denver, where he worked for health clubs. From there, he moved back to Buffalo.
Then a coaching and teaching position opened in Batavia. This is what Brasky had always wanted to do.
As an athlete, he gravitated toward the leadership positions on teams -- quarterback in football, catcher in baseball, point guard in basketball. He hung close to his coaches. He didn't strive to be the star of the team. He liked the leadership role and he looked up to the men that molded the teams he played on.
"I’ve known since I was 10 years old I wanted to be a coach," Brasky said.
But it wasn't easy taking over Blue Devils basketball. It was a program that wasn't in the habit of posting winning records -- the team would win only two games in Brasky's second season -- but the coach said he knew the spirit was there. "The pride is alive," he kept telling his players. There was a tradition to Batavia basketball, and Brasky was determined to bring it back.
Since that first winning season in 1997, the Blue Devils have not dipped into double-figure losses. They've won eight division titles and are on a run of 14 consecutive winning seasons.
Brasky credits the young athletes for their willingness to work hard, to work year around, but they're only willing to make that committment, Brasky said, because "the pride is alive."
"Now the kids (have) bought in," Brasky said. "We won. They want to be part of a winner."
Just in basketball alone, Brasky probably interacts with more than 250 students in the community every year. Besides the regular varsity season, Brasky coaches basketball year round, including summer camps and clinics. Every step of the way, he stresses that it isn't just about winning. It's about developing the habits that make young men succeed in life.
"I try to instill that all of this hard work you’re doing is not just to win basketball," Brasky said. "That’s part of it. We want to win. But these are habits that you’re going to carry on the rest of your life. These habits of hard work, and dedication, and loyalty and commitment – those are what companies look for. You will be a success in life if you can get these values."
No matter how important the game, Brasky said -- miss a practice, break a rule, and you're not likely to play. That isn't a position that is always popular with fans or parents, but it's the only way, Brasky said, to teach players to be winners both on and off the court.
“I made a decision early in my career that I would never put winning over doing what ‘s right for the kids,” Brasky said.
It's an ethic that has paid off. In the application to the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce for Brasky's 2009 Geneseean of the Year Award, student after student said they learned the value of hard work from Brasky and it has helped them be more successful in life.
"Coach Buddy Brasky shared with me the passion to be the best you can be in life," wrote Scott "Par Par" Partridge (Class 1997). "Every practice, every game, every scrimmage we took part in was completed with 100-percent effort -- if not, then we enjoyed running suicides until we did. I have learned from Coach Brasky that hard work and dedication pays off. Those who push themselves as hard as they can will reap the rewards in the end. The quote, 'The Pride Is Alive,' was printed on our shirts and through playing for coach, I took that to heart. Have pride in who you are and what you do -- give it your all and you have nothing to regret."
Brasky said he was moved by all the testimonials from former players, just as he is when he sees those young men out in the community or at games.
"You hope you're making an impact on kids," Brasky said. "They never tell you that until they get to be like 25 years old. A lot of times, they will see me out -- I'll be at dinner -- and they'll be with their girlfriends and they'll come over to the table, or a lot of them will come and see me before a game, or wait until after, so we can talk -- that's a very, very rewarding part of the job."
It was hard -- even 43 years later -- for Mary Sardou to retell the story of her husband's passing and what it meant for 13-year-old Tom.
"When my husband passed, we sat in the funeral home for three days," Mary says, and then stops, pushing back tears. "I'm sorry," she says.
"You started the story, ma. You've got to finish it," says Tom, now 56, as we sit in the dining room of the Rose Garden Bowl/Viking Valhalla Restaurant in Bergen, talking over a plate of wings about the history of Genesee County's 2009 Business of the Year.
Doc and Mary Sardou bought the Rose Garden Restaurant -- 30 years in business at the time -- in 1954, added a bowling alley three years later and renamed it Viking Valhalla in 1966. They had some rough times as young entrepreneurs, working hard, trying to raise two sons, and dealing with the region's changing business climate. But it was the death of Tom's father that may have been the biggest challenge for the family to overcome.
"Everybody," says Mary, trying to start again, "everybody who walked up to us said to him ... 'now you’re the man of the house. You’re the man.' I’m sure that just stuck in his mind. It stuck in mine. I think he felt very obligated to stay with me."
"Did that have an impact on you?"
"Absolutely," says Tom. "That was drilled into me. When I went into high school I knew what my course in life would be. It was going to be running a business."
Tom Sardou did what many teenage boys did -- he went to school, made the wresting team and even dreamed of being a cop. But after graduation, he didn't enter the University of Buffalo or RIT or even GCC. Sardou started a different education program: "the college of hard knocks," as he puts it.
First, Sardou took a job at Gates Bowl as a night manager so he could learn the bowling business. The next year, at age 19, Tom started running, with his mother, the restaurant and bowling lanes.
And he's been at it, seven days a week, ever since.
"I do enjoy it," Tom says. "There’s times when I would like a little more time off than I get. There’s times when I wake up in the morning and say, 'geez, I’d like to call in sick today.'"
Hard work and innovation to adjust to an ever-changing business climate pretty much define Viking Valhalla and the Sardous.
At 82, Mary Sardou still comes to the restaurant every day to take care of the books and look over the operation. Tom took a special interest in the bowling business, even serving for years as president of the area's bowling operators association, and manages the restaurant along with his wife, Chris -- who met Tom, where else, at the Viking Valhalla.
When Mary, Tom and Chris attend the chamber's award ceremony Saturday evening, it will be the first time ever that at least one of them was not at Viking Vahalla on a weekend night.
That's quite a bit of dedication for a restaurant Mary wasn't sure she even wanted her husband to buy when they first saw it. She didn't even want to go inside after they drove from their home in Fairport to look at it. "We came all this way," Doc said. "We might as well take a look."
Her first day of work at the restaurant began minutes later, when she saw the owner's wife needed help with the dishes.
At first, the couple paid weekly rent on the restaurant. Doc cooked and Mary tended bar, pregnant with their son, George.
Doc happened to meet one of the county's richest men at the time, Oakfield's G. Sherwin Haxton. Haxton came into the bar one day to meet Mary. He decided the Sardous seemed like decent, hard-working people. He decided to help them out. Mary calls Haxton, "our angel."
“He liked us," Mary said. "He went to bat for us. He went to the Columbia Bank in Rochester and he talked to the owner of the bank and told him to give us the loan, and he did.”
The loan helped them expand.
Winters for a restaurant along Buffalo Road in Bergen were dead. In the late '50s, there were no snowmobilers riding up to your front door looking for a brew and a burger, and with Batavia Downs closed for the season, there was very little Rochester-to-Batavia traffic. The Sardous had to figure out a way to bring in business during the cold, snowy months.
The bowling alley seemed like the right idea.
That worked for a while, but after the Thruway opened, more and more traffic bypassed Bergen. While a lot of family businesses in New York shut down as a result of the Thruway opening, the Sardous were determined to hang on. They worked harder, started hosting more parties and found ways to make ends meet.
While other business owners might have given up, Tom Sardou said, "We've never been of that mindset."
To keep the bowling business going, the Sardous have added leagues to fit into any bowler's schedule, from monthly leagues and morning leagues for mothers to a "wine and cheese league" Chris created to attract people who like to try new, fine wines.
But bowling slows down in the summer when people are more interested in outdoor activities, so Tom added sand volleyball courts in 1993.
The constant tinkering and finding new ways to keep the business going are just part of the family tradition.
"After my husband died, people said, ‘she won’t last six months,’" Mary recalls. "They were thinking I would give up or fall on my face. I’m not sure which. But I was determined to make it.
"This is my whole life."
History. Community. Baseball. Three things Naomi Silver knows something about.
In 1956, 57 years after the Rochester baseball franchise was formed, the St. Louis Cardinals, which had owned and operated the Red Wings for the previous 27 seasons, decided to abandon the city. Naomi's father, Morrie Silver, made it his one-man mission to save baseball for Rochester.
Silver formed Rochester Community Baseball, Inc. In 72 days, Morrie sold enough stock in the team -- 8,882 shares to local investors -- to buy the team from the Cardinals, keeping it from being either shuttered or moved.
Today, Rochester is home to the only minor league baseball team that has operated in the same city since the 1800s.
Batavia is also a historic baseball city. The New York-Penn League was formed in Batavia and Batavia is one of only two cities -- along with Jamestown -- that still has teams connected to those original six franchises.
The Muckdogs trace their lineage to 1939.
It's that history, and the importance of baseball to the community, that attracted Naomi Silver and Red Wings General Manager Dan Mason, to the Muckdogs.
Prior to the 2008 season, the Muckdogs were on the ropes.
The team lost $150,000 in 2007. It seemed nearly certain the NY-Penn League would force the team to move to a larger market. Silver and Mason heard about the dire straits of baseball in Batavia and decided to do something about it.
Rochester Community Baseball stepped in and paid off all of those debts and agreed to operate the team and see if the franchise could once again become a profitable operation.
Fewer than 200 cities in North America have professional baseball teams.
In cities such as Ithica, Elmira and Watertown, baseball fans are bereft each summer of the opportunity to see future stars swat homers the way Ryan Howard did a few years ago at Dwyer Stadium. They miss the joys of showing up at the ballpark and visiting with friends or mentoring grandchildren while watching young pros hone their skills in one of the most storied and historic leagues of professional sports.
"For Batavia to have a team is a great asset," Mason said. "It’s something that a lot of other cities would love to have. The pride that it generates, and the memories it generates for the fans in any minor league community, is something that is a great asset to the quality of life in that town."
Credit Rochester Community Baseball with saving the sport in Batavia, for now. It's the reason the Red Wings will accept a special recognition award Saturday from the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce. But it doesn't guarantee baseball in Batavia in 2011.
Even after winning a championship in 2008, the first year the club fell under Red Wings' management, the team still lost $100,000 in 2009.
This year's campaign is critical, Silver said, in determining the future of baseball in Batavia.
"I would have thought that last year we could have broken even," Silver said. "This year, we most definitely must break even. We should be better than that."
Fan support is important, but minor league teams survive on business sponsorships. At one time, local businesses were very supportive of the Muckdogs, but the sponsorships fell off in recent years. Muckdogs General Manager Travis Sick is working hard -- with help from superfan Russ Salway -- selling corporate sponsorships. The level of local business support, Silver said, will be key to determining the future of the Muckdogs.
"We’ll know in a relatively short time what the outcome will be,” Silver said. "We’ll be able to tell very soon what our sponsorships are going to be like. We won’t know if we’re going to draw more people until the baseball season starts."
It's clear that Silver and Mason care a good deal about baseball, history and community. It's woven into the mission and culture of Red Wings baseball, and it's why there's a Batavia Muckdogs team this year.
Now is the time, according to Silver, for the community to step up the effort to support baseball in Batavia.
"We definitely want to get people involved in this," Silver said. "Everyone has a stake in this in Batavia. Whether you’re a fan that should be making a decision to come out to the ballpark or whether you’re a business and would hate to see baseball leave Batavia, we hope they'll all get out there.
"There’s hardly a community I can imagine," Silver added, "that would want to lose an asset like this."
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