Puricelli will be remembered for the young lives he touched

Wyatt Jennings performance Sunday will always be remembered

Thirty-one years ago I wrote that Pete Puricelli would be remembered.

I had no idea how much.

It was 1993 and his Fort Edward team had made the state tournament for the second straight year.

He was 48-4 over those two seasons and Puricelli was a young man, just 36. He was just getting started. The future was bright.

But Fort Edward was a bit different about its basketball.

Making the tournament wasn't good enough for many.

Pete Puricelli found that out.

After the team lost in 1992, it was essential to win in 1993.

There were rumors throughout the next season that if Puricelli didn't win the state title, he would be fired.

It's a ridiculous, unrealistic demand for any coach. The talent changes year to year and some luck is required along the way.

With eight seconds left against Tuckahoe in the state semifinals, Fort Edward trailed by two. Chris Boucher grabbed a missed foul shot, streaked up the court and heaved up a desperation 3-pointer that kissed the glass, clanged against the front of the rim and dribbled out.

Fort Edward had lost.

Pete Puricelli found the Fort Edward athletic director and told him he was resigning before he could be fired.

He told the players in the locker room and one of them told me.

Puricelli asked me to keep it quiet, but the information spread quickly around the Civic Center.

"Each of the last two years is going to be special," Puricelli said that day. "But this year's team maybe even more so because they played the game at such an emotional level. That's the way I am, too."

Pete never lost that passion.

Pete never stopped coaching.

But maybe more importantly, he never stopped preparing young athletes for the life ahead.

After leaving Fort Edward, Pete was back at the state tournament as a volunteer. He never returned as a coach.

"I always loved coming here as a spectator," Puricelli said after the final Fort Edward defeat in 1993, "and I loved it as a coach."

He found other ways to make a difference.

He coached boys and girls at every level, helped out at SUNY Adirondack, started an AAU program in the summer and in recent years coached the modified team in Lake George.

Twenty years ago sportswriter Brett Orzechowski wrote a column by Puricelli's summer AAU basketball program.

AAU was synonymous with dirty money and shady characters at the time, so Puricelli restored a little integrity with his Adirondack program locally.

He taught life.

Reminded his players most were big fish in a small pond.

Showed parents that very few of their children would merit a college scholarship.

He offered players a chance to develop their game against better competition and experience a little travel around the region.

The program grew quickly to five teams.

He may not have won a state basketball title, but he did change lives.

"This man helped many people grow, and was such a positive influence in the community," Matty Shiel wrote on Facebook this weekend. "He once told me that he respected me for my grit and hustle. Pete would keep contact occasionally over the past 10 years. He reached out when my father passed. This man was my basketball coach for the one year that I played AAU basketball, but it turns out he was a coach for life."

That's what Fort Edward missed.

"Anyone who knew him, loved him," Lori Bullard Foote wrote this weekend. "My family met him in 2001 when he coached my oldest son in AAU basketball. When one of the AAU team members was killed in a car accident, Coach P embraced his AAU team and lifted them through a difficult time in their teenage years. He became a beloved extension of our family.   Coach P was a coach, a mentor, a friend, a source of endless support through thick and thin, and an adopted member of my family. His love was unconditional."

Yeah, Pete Puricelli will be remembered.

But in 1993, I had no the state tournament experience would be an afterthought.

It seemed appropriate for Pete to leave us in the middle of the biggest basketball weekend of the year on the very day Glens Falls High won the state championship.

I couldn't help but wonder if Pete's early AAU programs had some small role for some of those Glens Falls players.

Pete Puricelli’s presence was felt one final time at Cool Insuring Arena on Sunday.

So after the national anthem on Sunday afternoon, the announcer asked everyone to stand again. He reported the death of long-time tournament volunteer Pete Puricelli and they posted his photo on the arena scoreboard. I don't remember all the words but they didn't seem to be enough. There was a moment of silence and polite applause. I stood clapping a little longer than most.

And then the basketball continued and little North Warren - another local tournament - won a state title. That was part of Pete's ultimate goal: To make local basketball better. My guess is that Pete's AAU program had something to do with that this weekend.

On Feb. 4, Pete posted a note on his Facebook page from one of the girls on his Lake George modified team:

"Hey Coach I just wanted to tell you that I'm am so happy that you were my coach for my first year of basketball, you have taught me how to be a leader and how to be a good teammate but the thing I most think about is all of those talks that you had with us to be a good person in life, it has brought me so much closer with people on my team that I barely even talked to before. I just want you to know that I will never forget you and I will always keep that promise."

Pete commented: "That my friends is what it's all about. It's why I do what I do."

I can't think of a better epitaph.

One final thought

In August 2021, I noticed on Facebook that Pete Puricelli had completed a life-long pursuit of visiting all the Major League Baseball ballparks.

I called Pete up and we talked about his ballpark visits and his love for baseball. While he was a life-long basketball coach, I never knew about his passion for baseball.

At one point, he summed up his passion for baseball like this:

"Baseball was the first thing that I loved,” Pete said. “Since then, occasionally the people in the game let you down; players, owners sometimes they let you down, but the game itself has never let me down. Good baseball looks the same as it did 50 years ago to me.”

It has never been said any better.

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Wyatt Jennings (right) of North Warren had the game of a lifetime Sunday at the Cool Insuring Arena with a 29-point performance that earned North Warren the state title and Jennings MVP honors.

One final game

The final game of the state tournament may have been the best game all weekend.

North Warren was battling Sackett's Harbor for the Class D championship. Class D often produces performances of a lower caliber and it can be especially noticeable after watching the Class AAA title game earlier in the day, but not this Sunday.

I need to point out the performance of one Wyatt Jennings for North Warren.

Wyatt is a bit stocky, slower afoot than most of the players at the state tourney level and not someone the other team's defense worries about.

Sackett's Harbor paid for that Sunday.

Also note, that Jennings scored just three points in the semifinals the day before.

So when Jennings fired up a 3-point shot from 25 or so feet in the first quarter Sunday - what we call Joe Girard-range in Glens Falls _  I was screaming "nooooo" from the stands. It would be generous to call Jennings' shot a "jumper." Jennings plants his two feet 25 feet from the rim and heaves the ball from behind his head.

His first three shots missed.

Then, he hit one.

Then, he hit another.

He had six 3-pointers in the first half and 18 of North Warren's 32 points. He was keeping them in the game.

Jennings hit three more in the second half - I had him hitting 9 of 10 at one point but that may be off - and all were from 25 feet or more. He put North Warren on his substantial shoulders and carried them to the state championship.

He finished with 29 points - nine 3-pointers and one 2-pointer (he also missed two foul shots) - and his nine 3-pointers were a Class D tournament record.

He was named the Class D MVP. And he is only a junior.

Has Wyatt Jennings ever had a game like that before?

I don't know, but I kind of doubt it.

The unexpected is another reason to love the state basketball tournament and I had never seen anything like the performance of Wyatt Jennings on Sunday.

Wyatt Jennings made it onto the big screen at the Cool Insuring Arena on Sunday.

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Tourney attendance

The attendance on Saturday when Glens Falls played was over 4,100 which is close to a sellout for the day.

The attendance for the four days of the tournament was over 18,000 or twice what it was a year ago.