Jim Tedisco doesn't remember everything about Tuesday, Dec. 29, 1970.
It was windy, cold. The winter temperature hit only 21 in Schenectady. And his Union College basketball team was leading the University at Albany 66-65, with just over a minute left in the game.
Tedisco, the Dutchmen's hotshot guard, was fouled by one of the Great Danes. He stepped to the foul line, made two shots and gave Union a 68-65 edge – a lead the team never relinquished.
With the win, Union took the 1970 Capital District Basketball Tournament, a hoop party that also brought together Siena and RPI. Tedisco was named most valuable player, and took home a small golden man on a wooden base, right arm outstretched, basketball in the palm.
Almost 36 years later, the college basketball star from Rotterdam has become the Republican leader in the state Assembly. The trophy from 1970 is also in Albany – on a table behind Tedisco's desk.
“I could never throw them out,” said Tedisco, 55, of the hundreds of trophies won during his high school and college days, and in later years. “To me, they're meaningful, they're a big part of my life.”
As athletes age, many give up games they love. Another decision comes later – the fate of silverand gold-colored mementos won on fields and courts of honor.
Some entomb softball, golfing and bowling figurines in cardboard boxes, burying them in basement corners. That's what happened to a lot of Tedisco's trophies, and he hated to do it.
The assemblyman keeps a few at work as reminders of past glory. Two silver bowls, each with a little tarnish, were given to Tedisco in 1971 and 1972, when he was named the nation's Division III player of the year.
LITTLE PIECES OF HISTORY
Schenectady clinical psychologist Rudy Nydegger offers a good reason people keep sports awards.
“It's kind of a tangible attachment to a point in your life that's probably worth remembering,” said Nydegger, also a psychology professor at Union College. “So in that sense, it's just a little piece of history there. Throwing them away, of course, becomes almost like a break with the past, disassociating yourself from your history, and probably that's hard to do.”
Nothing wrong with showing them off. Professional athletes may have display cases or rooms for their awards; when friends and family visit, they often want to see the hardware.
Pieces from the past can do more than just decorate an office. “Somebody might say, ‘You know what? I keep it out there because it's always a good thing to kind of break the ice and get a conversation started,' ” Nydegger said.
Tedisco knows the stories behind his trophies, and likes to tell them. One 1968 tribute in his office came from Sports Illustrated, who named the Bishop Gibbons High School senior a “face in the crowd” for scoring 55 points in a game.
“Back then, it was a lot of points,” Tedisco said. “No three-pointers. It was a night where everything I threw up went in the basket. I think I was like 19 for 21; I don't think I missed a foul shot.”
Tedisco also has two basketballs in his Assembly trophy assembly. One marked his 1,000 th career point at Union; he got the other after becoming Union's all-time scoring leader in 1971.
He doesn't keep them to hang onto the past. “These trophies represent hours bouncing a basketball, shoveling snow off a basketball court,” he said. They represent something else, too -competition, working together as a team and knowing your role on a team – all things Tedisco said he learned in uniform.