Story reprinted from the Syracuse Post-Standard.
Photo pilfered of Kris Sanford-Milburn's Facebook page.
Note all the SARA family in this photo: Coach Dave Reischman, Lynne Pascale, Joey and Jan Peter, Paul and Lorraine Dudzick, Don Plath...who am I missing?
Photo pilfered of Kris Sanford-Milburn's Facebook page.
Note all the SARA family in this photo: Coach Dave Reischman, Lynne Pascale, Joey and Jan Peter, Paul and Lorraine Dudzick, Don Plath...who am I missing?
Liverpool, NY -- Bill Sanford grabs a cup of coffee and folds himself (he’s 6-7) into a comfortable chair at Ophelia’s Place, a Liverpool coffee shop operated by a non-profit that Sanford once helped advise.
We’re there to reconnect. Bill’s up for a big honor: he’s been picked for a Wisdom Keeper award by F.O.C.U.S Greater Syracuse Inc. on June 9. Bill’s got wisdom to spare.
He’s retired after a very successful career as SU’s head rowing coach. He’s also been a county legislator, and chairman of the legislature. He served a term in the state Assembly, too. The list of organizations he’s been involved with, and his awards, is impressive. He founded a small dynasty of rowers. He says his greatest accomplishment was founding of the Syracuse Chargers.
Bill started the Chargers, which puts inner city kids into rowing, swimming and track, with two fellow athletes, Jon Buzzard and Al Bonney. The Chargers are still going strong after close to 40 years.
At 72, Bill’s still stands out in a crowd and is reasonably fit, for his age. He gave up rowing two years ago. He says he works out at a local gym with a trainer six days a week, specializing on weights and cardio exercises.
He focuses on a passage by George Bernard Shaw, from “Man and Superman,’’ that sums up his commitment to our community: “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.”
Bill’s says his mother, Eva, inspired him with her good works in the neighborhood south of downtown Syracuse where he grew up at West Brighton Avenue and Cannon Street “near the butcher shop.” Among other charities Eva collected from neighbors for the “Red Feather” drives of the Community Chest, forerunner of United Way.
The Sanfords raised five boys in Bill’s grandfather’s eight-room house. Grandpa - Eva’s father - was Gardner Compson, a farmer’s son from Seneca County. Bill says Gardner was one of the laborers who “dug the pipeline” that first brought Skaneateles Lake water to Syracuse, in 1893.
Bill graduated from Central High in 1956, where he played basketball. He also played ball in the Army, where he served two years after graduation, and at SU, in his first year. He tells the story of walking on the campus with his brother, Scott, when someone noticed how tall they were.
“Why don’t you try crew?” the guy asked.
“What’s crew?” Bill replied.
He found out.
Bill and other family members made careers of rowing. He rowed himself and coached championship boats. He was first SU’s freshman crew coach, then head varsity coach, starting in 1967. He retired in 2002, after 39 years.
Bill shows me a chart labeled “The Sanfords: First Family of Hudson Valley Rowing,” with 10 boxes for family members who participated in what Bill calls “the champagne of sports.”
This chart of the Sanford rowing dynasty includes Bill, and his brothers: Scott, Paul, and David, as well as daughters, Kris, Jen and Shawn, and nephews and nieces, Tom, Jody, and Christopher. Brother Ted did not row or coach. Brothers David and Scott have died. Scott also had a career as a rowing coach.
Daughter Shawn was SU’s first female coxswain; Jen is coach of the University of Connecticut crew; Kris was SU’s head women’s crew coach for 20 years. She’s now, at 44, enrolled in the St. Joseph’s Hospital nursing school.
“I’ve had quite a run,” Bill says. “There’s never been anyone luckier than me.”
He coached crew at the same time he was an active Republican politician. When he finally was defeated for his state Assembly seat by Democrat Joan Christensen in 2003, he says he realized he’d been putting in 80 to 90-hour weeks.
He started on the county legislature in 1980. He retired in 2002 as chairman. I’m told by someone who watched Bill during his years in the legislature: “He was more successful as a coach. He couldn’t always get everyone in the boat to pull their oars at the same time” at the county leg.
In 2002, he started Brown and Sanford Consultants with former state legislator Hal Brown. It’s a communications company that works on various community projects, including the dispute over the Camillus landfill site and the Onondaga Lake clean-up. Brown’s left the firm, replaced by Craig Milburn, Bill’s son-in-law. They have an office in Liverpool.
Along with creation of the OCC’s Applied Technology Center, the central county library, Justice Center and convention center, Bill’s counts the cleanup of Onondaga Lake as a major accomplishment of his life as politician.
Honeywell, successor of Solvay Process, is set to begin dredging Onondaga Lake in 2112. That will run four years. Then, Onondaga Lake, Bill predicts, will be a “clean, reliable lake,” sparkling with resorts, marinas and edible fish.
This would be quite a change from his lifetime as a crew coach, when he put in “more than 85,000 miles on that lake,” often pushing his crews though the “brown, polluted water.”
The Sanfords lived in the Syracuse University boathouse on the Seneca River outlet during his years as crew coach. They now live in Liverpool village. He regrets loss of the International Regattas that used to open the summer for Central New Yorkers.
The meets had to move from Onondaga Lake in 1991 due to flooding and now work under a different schedule of alternating sites. Our lake is unlikely to be one of them. “It will never be the same,” Bill says, with a sigh.
Bill and Nancy Sanford have been married 49 years. They met in Kirk Park, when both were neighborhood kids. “She was my high school sweetheart,” Bill says.
He’s still in touch the rowing. Their house overlooks Onondaga Lake. “I can hear the coxswains working our their teams,” Bill says, wistfully.
We’re there to reconnect. Bill’s up for a big honor: he’s been picked for a Wisdom Keeper award by F.O.C.U.S Greater Syracuse Inc. on June 9. Bill’s got wisdom to spare.
He’s retired after a very successful career as SU’s head rowing coach. He’s also been a county legislator, and chairman of the legislature. He served a term in the state Assembly, too. The list of organizations he’s been involved with, and his awards, is impressive. He founded a small dynasty of rowers. He says his greatest accomplishment was founding of the Syracuse Chargers.
Bill started the Chargers, which puts inner city kids into rowing, swimming and track, with two fellow athletes, Jon Buzzard and Al Bonney. The Chargers are still going strong after close to 40 years.
At 72, Bill’s still stands out in a crowd and is reasonably fit, for his age. He gave up rowing two years ago. He says he works out at a local gym with a trainer six days a week, specializing on weights and cardio exercises.
He focuses on a passage by George Bernard Shaw, from “Man and Superman,’’ that sums up his commitment to our community: “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.”
Bill’s says his mother, Eva, inspired him with her good works in the neighborhood south of downtown Syracuse where he grew up at West Brighton Avenue and Cannon Street “near the butcher shop.” Among other charities Eva collected from neighbors for the “Red Feather” drives of the Community Chest, forerunner of United Way.
The Sanfords raised five boys in Bill’s grandfather’s eight-room house. Grandpa - Eva’s father - was Gardner Compson, a farmer’s son from Seneca County. Bill says Gardner was one of the laborers who “dug the pipeline” that first brought Skaneateles Lake water to Syracuse, in 1893.
Bill graduated from Central High in 1956, where he played basketball. He also played ball in the Army, where he served two years after graduation, and at SU, in his first year. He tells the story of walking on the campus with his brother, Scott, when someone noticed how tall they were.
“Why don’t you try crew?” the guy asked.
“What’s crew?” Bill replied.
He found out.
Bill and other family members made careers of rowing. He rowed himself and coached championship boats. He was first SU’s freshman crew coach, then head varsity coach, starting in 1967. He retired in 2002, after 39 years.
Bill shows me a chart labeled “The Sanfords: First Family of Hudson Valley Rowing,” with 10 boxes for family members who participated in what Bill calls “the champagne of sports.”
This chart of the Sanford rowing dynasty includes Bill, and his brothers: Scott, Paul, and David, as well as daughters, Kris, Jen and Shawn, and nephews and nieces, Tom, Jody, and Christopher. Brother Ted did not row or coach. Brothers David and Scott have died. Scott also had a career as a rowing coach.
Daughter Shawn was SU’s first female coxswain; Jen is coach of the University of Connecticut crew; Kris was SU’s head women’s crew coach for 20 years. She’s now, at 44, enrolled in the St. Joseph’s Hospital nursing school.
“I’ve had quite a run,” Bill says. “There’s never been anyone luckier than me.”
He coached crew at the same time he was an active Republican politician. When he finally was defeated for his state Assembly seat by Democrat Joan Christensen in 2003, he says he realized he’d been putting in 80 to 90-hour weeks.
He started on the county legislature in 1980. He retired in 2002 as chairman. I’m told by someone who watched Bill during his years in the legislature: “He was more successful as a coach. He couldn’t always get everyone in the boat to pull their oars at the same time” at the county leg.
In 2002, he started Brown and Sanford Consultants with former state legislator Hal Brown. It’s a communications company that works on various community projects, including the dispute over the Camillus landfill site and the Onondaga Lake clean-up. Brown’s left the firm, replaced by Craig Milburn, Bill’s son-in-law. They have an office in Liverpool.
Along with creation of the OCC’s Applied Technology Center, the central county library, Justice Center and convention center, Bill’s counts the cleanup of Onondaga Lake as a major accomplishment of his life as politician.
Honeywell, successor of Solvay Process, is set to begin dredging Onondaga Lake in 2112. That will run four years. Then, Onondaga Lake, Bill predicts, will be a “clean, reliable lake,” sparkling with resorts, marinas and edible fish.
This would be quite a change from his lifetime as a crew coach, when he put in “more than 85,000 miles on that lake,” often pushing his crews though the “brown, polluted water.”
The Sanfords lived in the Syracuse University boathouse on the Seneca River outlet during his years as crew coach. They now live in Liverpool village. He regrets loss of the International Regattas that used to open the summer for Central New Yorkers.
The meets had to move from Onondaga Lake in 1991 due to flooding and now work under a different schedule of alternating sites. Our lake is unlikely to be one of them. “It will never be the same,” Bill says, with a sigh.
Bill and Nancy Sanford have been married 49 years. They met in Kirk Park, when both were neighborhood kids. “She was my high school sweetheart,” Bill says.
He’s still in touch the rowing. Their house overlooks Onondaga Lake. “I can hear the coxswains working our their teams,” Bill says, wistfully.
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