In Pawling Youth Hockey, Jim Sage and J. P. White were teammates all the way through from Mites to Bantams. They are shown here outside the rink at Trinity-Pawling School in March of 1977. (Photo courtesy of the Sage Family)
Pawling Youth Hockey remembers a friend with the Thomas J. Sage, Jr. Sportsmanship Award
Pawling Youth Hockey was a way of life for the family of Tom, Eileen, Stephanie and Jim Sage
Tom Sage on the ice at Trinity-Pawling School during one of the many practices he ran at all levels of Pawling Youth Hockey. (Photo courtesy of Sage Family)
By John M. Benson
April 12, 2007
The story of the Sage family is closely interwoven with the story of Pawling Youth Hockey, as Tom Sage and his wife Eileen and their children Stephanie and Jim became involved with the organization when it was very much in its infancy.
Tom Sage was a farmboy. Born on April 19, 1941, he grew up with his sister Cathy and parents Mary and Thomas on the family dairy farm in Pawling. The Sage dairy farm spread out over 410 acres of rolling hills straddling Old Route 55 just west of the Burr family farm that is now Murrow Park. The site of the farm is marked by what is now Sage Road. The former family home is the residence that stands today on the southeast corner of Sage Road and Old Route 55. Tom and his friends attended the one-room Woodinville School on Dodge Road through the sixth grade, and completed the rest of the way through high school in what is now the elementary school.
Speaking for the family in 2004 at the services for his father, Tom’s son Jim delivered the eulogy in which he said in part, “As many of you know, my father grew up here in Pawling on a family run farm. As a child my grandmother Sage used to tell me tales about what life was like on that farm. What is obvious to me when I marry these stories with my father’s personality is how much of an impact his parent’s and his life on that farm had on him. My father typically out of bed before the sun came up, putting in a few hours of chores with his father before he had was given a reprieve in the form of school and sports practice, after which he would return home and immediately rejoin his father in finishing the day’s work. This pattern repeated over and over again established what became one of my father’s most distinguished characteristics, his work ethic. My dad, ever since I could remember, was a man who woke up ever morning with a full agenda that he was looking forward to tackling, especially if it required him to be with his family or outside working up a little sweat. Put into sports terms as I am want to do with many things, you would say that my father had a great motor, meaning that he played every down hard, and he never took one off. He could just go and go and he was amazingly consistent in his effort. I have often received compliments about my own work ethic from coaches, teachers and employers, which I appreciate, but I also know that my effort pales in comparison to his.”
Jim recently tied together the roles of his father, the work ethic, and ice hockey with Pawling Youth Hockey.
“I believe that ice hockey was the canvas in which my father was able to teach and instill in me his own values of hard work, discipline, determination, teamwork and humble pride that ended up becoming the foundation for my own values,” Jim said. “The lessons that I learned with him playing hockey served me well not only in sports but more importantly in life. For that reason, I have obvious affection for the game and an even greater one for my father for his dedication and the investment that he made in me.”
Tom married his high school sweetheart, Eileen Weisel of Pawling on September 15, 1962. Eileen, like Tom, is a lifetime resident of Pawling. They have two children, Jim born in 1967 and Stephanie born in 1972.
Tom started coaching as soon as Jim was six and old enough to play. The couple first took up residence in the apartment above the Albermac Theater, and later moved the family to the current home on Coulter Avenue. Tom passed away suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack on September 25, 2004, and Eileen continues to live in the home that has always been an open house for all of Stephanie’s and Jim’s friends and neighbors.
Stephanie was five years her brother’s junior, but she was with the family at the games when Jim began playing at the age of six. By the time she was just seven years of age, she was keeping the score sheets, running the clock, and managing the penalty box. Eileen Sage would later recall how Tom began driving a tractor on the farm at the age of five, when he was too small for neighbors to see behind the hay bales. Stephanie was in her father’s image, as the diminutive seven-year-old hurried from task to task among the trees that were her father and brother and the teams on the ice for Pawling Youth Hockey.
Stephanie enjoyed the game with her father, and recalls the bond between them forged around ice hockey: “My dad and I loved to watch ice hockey together. When Jim was playing at Skidmore, we would drive up to Saratoga to watch a game, and drive back the same day. We often watched games on television together. When Mark Messier played for the Rangers, at the beginning of one particular season there were rumors that this might be Messier’s final year playing hockey. When the tickets went on sale, I bought tickets to the final home game, because my dad and I would not miss Messier’s final home game. No one knew for sure whether it was his last time on the home ice, but after the game, he skated around the ice and waved and bowed to the crowd as everyone was cheering and chanting his name. He didn’t announce his retirement that night, but he did before the next season started. So, I took my dad to the game not really knowing but thinking it might be Messier’s last home game, and it turned out that it was his last home game. My dad passed away the following September, before that next hockey season and before Messier announced his retirement.”
When Tom passed away, the family requested that in lieu of flowers, a donation be sent in Tom’s name to Pawling Youth Hockey. The family members were confident that Tom’s memory would be best honored by this support for Pawling Youth Hockey, the organization that Tom loved and served for more than 30 years as coach, treasurer and president.
At the time of Tom’s passing, Pawling Youth Hockey officials including the Board of Directors and President Keith Clarkson approached the family and proposed that a perpetual award be initiated to be called the Thomas. J. Sage Sportsmanship Award. The recipient would be a Bantam player who exemplified the attributes that embody the mission of Tom Sage and Pawling Youth Hockey. The Bantams are the players in the seventh and eighth grades.
The inscription on the perpetual plaque on display in the Tirrell Rink at Trinity-Pawling school reads as follows:
“Thomas J. Sage, Jr. Sportsmanship Award
This award is named in honor of a man who dedicated over 30 years to his life to Pawling Hockey, having served as a Coach, Member of the Board of Directors, President and Treasurer. Tom’s leadership, dedication and sense of fair play will forever impact the participants of Pawling Hockey. The players named below have demonstrated the highest levels of sportsmanship, leadership and dedication to their team.”
Johnnie Bellucci was selected for the honor for the just concluded season of 2007, following Joey Leonaggeo in 2006 and Josh Paugh in 2005. The name of each is inscribed on the perpetual plaque at the Trinity-Pawling ice rink.
Eileen, Stephanie, Jim and many friends, former players and associates have spoken recently about the life and character of this man, Tom Sage, who is remembered by all as an irrepressibly optimistic, affirmative and positive presence.
Chad Burhance was a close friend and teammate of Jim’s in Pawling Youth Hockey on the teams coached by Tom Sage, from the time the kids were six years old and just beginning, all the way to the Bantam and high school championships that were both won in the year of 1982-1983.
When asked about Tom Sage, Burhance said, “I was a close friend with the entire family. The Sages had an open house all the time, and we could just drop in and out. In fact, I lived on the street behind them, on Smith Street, so I didn’t even use the traditional entry. I used to cut through the backyard, hop over a fence, and go in that way. I played all sports with Jim when we were growing up, so Tom was also my Little League coach, my soccer coach, surrogate father much of the time, all of those things. The great thing about Mr. Sage was that it wasn’t just about winning. Here was a guy who not only loved being around the guys, but was a great mentor of the guys. A lot of those young boys walked away with not only a better respect and understanding for the game, but also a better understanding of how you need to lead your life.”
Glenn Carey was a classmate of Burhance. The two of them were one year younger than Jim Sage, and played for Tom and with Jim all the way through the levels of Pawling Youth Hockey. Carey said of Tom Sage and the atmosphere of those times, “I remember Tom Sage as someone who gave of his time for this local program. He volunteered countless hours, not only on the ice but also off the ice helping to manage the program. Being involved in ice hockey is a big commitment. If you are going to be involved as a parent or a coach, it takes up a lot of your free time outside of work, and he gave of that time. We would have early practices at 6:00 in the morning, and practices late in the evening at 9:00 or 10:00 at night. The parents who gave this time, like Tom Sage, were also taking care of their own families and working all day, so it takes special people who are willing to give of that time, and he was one of them. Not only did he give then, but he also continued to give the time even after Jim was out of the program, and for many years he stayed involved with ice hockey. He was still the treasurer when he passed away.
“We all became like a family. We spent a lot of time together outside of hockey. Their house was always open to all of us kids. As I said, we were all like a family even outside of hockey, and we spent a lot of time over there. When it was summer or winter we were playing street hockey in the driveway. As a coach and teacher of ice hockey, he was always soft-spoken and encouraging, always positive and optimistic.”
Eileen Sage recalled the stories of Tom’s youth on the farm, of simple times of basic values, hard work and a close, loving family: "Tom was driving a tractor on the family farm by the time he was five years old. Neighbors would say they couldn’t even see him in the tractor seat for the hay or whatever was piled up on the wagon behind. He attended the one-room schoolhouse known as Woodinville School that is now a home on Dodge Road, getting up early to milk the cows and do the chores on the farm, getting to school on time, and coming home for the evening chores. They were a very close family, and Tom had a wonderful time growing up.”
Lifelong friend Peter Martino shared those early years with Tom and their many friends, beginning their education in the one-room schoolhouse known as Woodinville School on Dodge Road, and moving up to the central school for grades seven to twelve.
Martino recalls of his friend and the times, “Yes, Tommy and I grew up together. I lived down the road a little way south of what used to be the Burr Farm, what is now Murrow Park. I was a year younger than Tom. We went to Woodinville School together, and we each moved up to what is now the elementary school in the seventh grade. I played football and baseball with Tommy, and he played basketball but I didn’t.
“At Woodinville School, we used to play football and baseball out on the field with the cows moving all around us. It was a dairy farm around the school, and we were dodging all the cows and the patties, running around and jumping over whatever was there. It was a one-room school house, and it is still there as part of a house. When you go into Dodge Road, it is the second house on the right up on the hill. That is the old schoolhouse and the field was up behind it.
“Tommy’s son Jim was older than my son Tony. Tommy is the one who talked me into putting my son Tony into the program, and my son just fell in love with it.”
Tony certainly did fall in love with ice hockey, as Jim Sage says Tony was the finest hockey player to come out of Pawling Youth Hockey. Both played at The Gunnery, and Tony moved on to play at Brown University in the prestigious Ivy League. Jim played ice hockey at Skidmore College, as he and three of his teammates played ice hockey in college.
“I first knew Tom in the very first grades in school,” Martino says. “He had to work very hard on the farm, helping his father milk the cows and get hay and doing the chores around the farm, plus playing his sports and doing his schoolwork. We would come home from football or baseball practice late after school, and he would still have his chores to do and then his homework. On weekends, he would help his dad on the farm.
“Yeah, Tommy was just an old farmboy. He was a good old boy. He was always positive and he loved his friends and his family. He was a very, very good man, and a very, very good friend, always there for you and for everybody. From the time he was young, he was always very disciplined and very positive, always feeling good and enjoying life. He enjoyed life right to the end. His son Jim is all of Tommy, too, he has the same discipline and the same love of life.”
The word “family” is mentioned by everyone who talks about Tom Sage, in the context of his own family, and of the way he related to others in school and in Pawling Youth Hockey.
Eileen Sage filled in the story of the Sage family, how Tom’s parents came to Pawling, met, married and started their farm and family: “Tom is a native of Pawling, born and raised in Pawling. His mother Mary was from Danbury. His father Thomas came here as a boy of about 12 years of age and worked at Packard’s Farm, which is on West Main St. up the way from what is now Murrow Park. Tom’s father was an orphan, and he had worked on farms upstate before he came here as a boy. Tom’s mother and father met at a dance, married and bought the farm and house on West Main Street, and that is where they lived and Tom was raised. Tom’s father passed away in 1969 at the age of 63 when he suffered a heart attack, the same age and cause of death as Tom in 2004. Tom’s mother lived in the house until 2001. She lived until 2005 and died when she was 96 years old, the year after the death of her son Tom.”
Tom went off to college to complete his education, but Eileen said he was reticent to leave his parents without his help on the farm. Thomas and Mary insisted that Tom attend college, so he did so, but he was home at every opportunity to help out.
“He was out early every morning doing the chores on the farm, and he actually was still milking the cows when he was in college,” Eileen said. “He told me used to come home from college and he would lose 30 pounds because he would be out there working the farm. He used to pick stones out of the fields to make the ground ready to turn over. They grew hay as feed for their own cows, and the cows grazed on the property. I think they had about 50 cows, which was a lot. His father had originally milked the cows by hand, and he did begin using the machines, but there were certain cows that he continued to milk by hand. Actually, he did a lot of milking by hand, because he didn’t like the machines, and Tom learned to milk the cows from his father.”
Tom was the quarterback on the high school football team, and also played on the basketball and baseball teams. They played basketball at that time in what is now the cafeteria in the elementary school. Jim Tanner also played basketball in that room, and he has said the ceiling was so low, that they had to shoot flat jump shots so they wouldn’t hit the ceiling.
Tom's friend Peter Martino recalls, “When we were all in high school together, we were all a bunch of girls and boys who were very close and we all hung out together, and even now, we have reunions together that Tom always attended and enjoyed. Jim Garrett was our football coach. Every four or five years we get together with him, and we still have a good turnout to this day. We were all just a very close-knit family.”
Tom graduated from Pawling High School in 1958. He then attended Alfred University in Alfred, New York, graduating in 1962 with a degree in Economics and Business. He enjoyed a successful career in banking, in which he was still actively engaged at the time of his passing in 2004.
When he returned from college to Pawling, he married his high school sweetheart Eileen and they lived for the rest of their life together in their hometown.
When their son Jim was six years old, he wanted to play ice hockey, so the entire family joined and became actively involved in the young organization known as Pawling Youth Hockey.
The practices and home games were held at the Terrell Ice Rink at Trinity-Pawling School. The arching roof was there at the time, but the wall to enclose the rink had not been constructed, so the ice was open to the elements. Players and families still talk about the way the wind would whip down off the hill and drop the temperatures on and around the ice to truly challenging levels.
Tom became an assistant coach, learning the game from two outstanding coaches in Pawling Youth Hockey, Rod Collette and Ted Hollander.
The preparation those kids received in Pawling Youth Hockey was remarkable, as according to Jim Sage, nine of his teammates played at prestigious prep schools including The Gunnery, Canterbury and Hotchkiss, and four went on to play college ice hockey.
Jim himself played varsity for all three of his years at The Gunnery, serving as captain his senior year, then played four years at Skidmore College in Saratoga, New York, serving as captain for his final two years. He played one year on the varsity team at Duke while he was in the Duke Business School, then started the Business School team with some friends for his second year there. He continues to play in adult leagues to this day in Connecticut.
He said of the coaching he and his friends received from Rod Collette, “I think Mr. Collette was one of the better coaches I ever had in all of my hockey years and teams. Tactically, Mr. Collette was one of the best. My father was a very good coach, and he knew X’s and O’s, but he wasn’t quite as advanced as Mr. Collette. Mr. Collette was doing stuff that honestly a lot of people weren’t doing, he was very innovative.”
Of his own father’s coaching, he said, “What my dad really knew was the people thing, and he was a good coach as a result of that. I think he always knew when to push me and when to build me back up, and he was that way with all of his players and all of his teams. He played sports, and he wasn’t that removed from being involved. I think because he played a lot of sports himself, he was an athlete, and he could associate that way.”
And ice hockey is a kind of school of hard knocks, a cauldron where sturdy character is fostered. As Jim said, “My dad and I did many sports together, and he coached us in all of them, from football to basketball to baseball, but ice hockey is the one we loved the most. I think that hockey as a sport is not an easy sport. You have to want to play it. You have to practice early in the morning and late at night, you have to be out in the cold, it is a physically and aerobically demanding sport, and I think it teaches a certain level of mental toughness and diligence and the idea that good things come as a result of hard work. They don’t magically appear. And I think hockey fosters a lot of that sense.”
Remembering Tom’s coaching style and his way with the kids, Eileen said, “One year when Tom was coaching the ice hockey, it was when Jim and his friends were very young, and they didn’t have a goalie. Tom said it was simple, he would just put all the names in a hat and draw out a name for each game to play goalie. After that, the whole group of kids, and J.P. White was one of them, no matter what the score was or how the game was going, they always went up and tapped their goalie that is was okay if a goal had been made. At a point, one of the kids actually wanted to play goalie, and that was a great relief for all of the other kids. But from then on, they carried that respect for their goalie, that they knew what a goalie went through, because they had to go through it themselves.
In addition to coaching, Tom undertook to dedicate his time to the administration of Pawling Youth Hockey, serving first as president and later as treasurer for presidents who routinely consulted him for his opinion on all matters of hockey and the organization.
Eileen Sage joined Verna Carey, Marilyn White and many other parents, as they devoted endless hours and tireless energies and activities to the organization.
Tom became president of Pawling Youth Hockey, and dedicated himself to the idea that everyone who wanted to play ice hockey should have the opportunity to play hockey with this organization.
“My father believed that every child should have the opportunity to play the game,” Stephanie recalls. “You don’t build a team around superstars. I think his favorite kids were probably the ones who were not the superstars. He loved to see them go out on the ice and do their best, he liked kids who tried their hardest. If he could have gotten every kid to play hockey he would have. Friends would come over to the house and if their kids were old enough, my dad would give them a stick and a puck and have them out playing in our driveway around the net he had built in our backyard.”
As president, Tom found innovative ways to make the game affordable for the families of the children who wanted to play.
Equipment was expensive, and Eileen recalls, “There weren’t many sporting goods stores around. It was hard for some of the parents to get to them. Tom knew the guy who ran Arlington Sporting Goods Store. Tom got to talking with him about all of this, and the man said, ‘Oh, I’ve got a bunch of stuff.’ So, Tom would take his van up there and he would get last year’s models of stuff, of hockey gear of all sorts. The guy would give it to him and tell Tom to sell it for whatever he could sell it for. Tom would bring it to the house, and by now it would be 9:00 at night, we would put it in the garage and separate it into categories, labeled for maybe a couple of bucks for skates, and the families would come in and pick out their gear. Then the next Sunday would be swap day, and I think that gave a lot of kids the chance to play hockey. No child was ever refused, everyone who wanted to play got to play.”
With ice time at an expensive premium and the cost of equipment and travel and other expenses, Eileen, Verna Carey, Marilyn White and all the parents worked hard to make it affordable.
Verna Carey and Eileen Sage began to make up coffee and baked goods and sandwiches to sell at the ice rink during games, but there was no place to be inside, as the rink had not yet been enclosed. They set up a card table outside the rink and sold the goodies, but it was a challenge, as there was no protection from the freezing elements.
“It was so cold that the coffee would freeze, so we would wrap it in blankets to try to keep it warm,” Verna Carey said. “It was a good time in our lives, for all of us, we had such great experiences together. I had three sons in hockey and one son in basketball. Bill played basketball, and Danny, Kevin and Glenn all played ice hockey. Glenn played on the Bantams and other teams with Jim Sage when Tom was coaching. We would often go to someone’s house before a game and have dinner. We were all good friends at that time, and the kids were all good friends. We were out in the freezing weather bundling the coffee in blankets and selling sandwiches on that little card table before we built the snack shack, we were driving in caravans for hours each way to and from games, but those were the good times, and we all had such a wonderful time together. Everything about it made us closer as friends and families.”
Tom Sage wanted to get the ladies in out of the cold, so he made arrangements to have the snack shack built, the shack that was later moved inside and was still being used by Pawling Youth Hockey this past 2007 season.
“Tom got the idea that if we could get a couple of businesses in town to donate lumber and all, we could build a snack shack,” Eileen recalls. “Carl Dill from Dill’s Best donated the materials, and Stanley and Eddy Tuz donated their time to build the shack. They were builders, and John and Tom and my father and Peter Martino and other people helped, and they built the shack for us. Bill Blessey did the electrical, and he put up the light. We called it the shack, and we sold cookies and sandwiches and coffee and all. We did well with that, and it was all done with donations. That same shack is the one they moved inside when they closed the rink. We turned the money back into the Pawling Youth Hockey to help pay for the ice time and equipment.”
Travel to the games was a challenge, as most of the opposing teams were some distance away. Kids would pile into the back of Tom Sage’s van or Verna Carey’s station wagon and other family vehicles, all of the cars gathering at the elementary school parking lot, and they would caravan to the games.
Tom would have a dozen or more boys in the back, loud and exuberant as boys will be, but the two hours there and two hours back never seemed to bother him.
“He would have 13 boys in the back of the van for two hours driving to games, and they were boys and they would be raising the devil, but it never bothered him,” Eileen said. “They were long drives, and after the games on the way home, they would be cold and tired because a lot of these rinks were outside, but Tom just seemed to stay calm through it all.”
“Nothing ever really ever bothered my dad,” Stephanie said. “My father was a very calm guy. My father and I loved to watch hockey games together. We watched so many of Jim’s games in person, and we watched a lot of professional games on television. Every so often he would get very mad and you could see it, but nothing really bothered him, including when he had all the players in the back of the van.”
The Sage van was famous, and is among the fond memories of all who rode in it and played for Tom Sage.
Glenn Carey: “Yes, he was a mild-tempered individual, and extremely positive and optimistic by nature. He always had a big Ford Econoline Van that he drove, and he carted a lot of the kids to the games all around the area. Those trips were often a couple of hours each way. We would always stop at McDonald’s on the way home, and that was always a good time.”
Chad Burhance: “Ice hockey is a real bear for families, the travel commitments. When we were kids, we would have to travel two or three hours to play a game, and travel back again. There weren’t many local towns around us that had ice hockey, so at a minimum, you were looking at 45 minutes of travel, and often two hours, and our parents got us there. We would caravan to the games. We would all meet up at the elementary school. Mr. Sage would be leading the charge with his blue van, he always had a blue van. We all met there, and many of us were in the back of the Sage van or the Carey’s car. It was a great way to grow up, and we had a lot of fun.”
J. P. White, teammate and friend of Jim Sage, and now the president of Pawling Youth Hockey and coach of the Bantams: “Tom really enjoyed being around all of us, all of the hockey players and friends of Jim’s, and we loved being around him. He used to have a van, a big van, and that way if there was anybody who couldn’t get to the games, he would tell everyone, 'If you can get to my house, I can get you to the game.' I can remember going to games with him when there would be eight or ten of us in the van. He had two seats in the front of the van, and no other seats. That way, you could pile all of the hockey equipment in the van, and all of us would sit on the floor and on top of the equipment, and he always made sure we could all get there.”
The mothers of all the players continued to come up with ideas when Tom was president, and he always encouraged all of their endeavors.
Eileen called up memories of the first Pawling Youth Hockey dinner/dance: “Marilyn White came up with the idea of a dinner/dance, and some people said we wouldn’t be able to do it, but Tom said ‘Marilyn, if you think we can do it, we’ll do it, and I think it is a good idea.’”
Verna Carey, Marilyn White and Eileen Sage formed the committee, and all of the parents took on work assignments. They got together and made their own decorations, arranged for the band and the food at the Trinity-Pawling dining hall, and made it all a grand success in its first year. They actually filled the dining hall and had to cut off the number of people at about 200 because of the capacity of the hall and the fire law.
Stephanie recalls, “The high school players all worked as waiters, Verna’s sons Danny and Kevin, John Loper, Kenny Maclay and all of the kids. The high school team won their league that year, and they won it on the very night of the dinner/dance, so the boys came and worked the dinner/dance right after that game.”
Chad Burhance recalls that because Jim was six months older than he was, Jim would often move up to the next level the year before Chad did. “We could play up one level, and I did each time, but Tom would stay and coach our younger team as well as the older team where Jim was playing, so we had Tom as a coach all the way. He always made that extra effort to coach all of us,” Chad said.
Burhance, who went on to play at Canterbury School, recalls that in about the fifth grade, playing on the Pee Wee level, the kids began to realize they could be pretty good at this game. As he said, “Many places we would go to, they would be asking, ‘Where is this place Pawling?’ We would walk out of there with a win, and now they knew where Pawling was. We started to gain notoriety in that area, ‘These guys are really good!’ There were six or eight guys from those teams who went on to play college ice hockey, including Jim, who played at The Gunnery and went on to play at Skidmore College.”
The Pawling Youth Hockey careers of Tom, Eileen, Stephanie and Jim Sage, and all of Jim’s friends and teammates, reached a crescendo in the season of 1982-1983.
On the Bantam level, the organization was playing for the first time in a league with teams from Connecticut. In that year, the Bantams won the league championship in that league for the first time, while the high-school-age varsity team won the championship for first time in the Mid-Hudson High School Ice Hockey League in Poughkeepsie.
The photo above is taken of that Bantam team, and many of those same boys were playing up on the high school team that won the championship that same year.
All of the boys remember the winning shot of that Bantam championship game, because with about 18 seconds remaining in the deciding game, J. P. White fired a slap shot from his own defensive face-off circle that sailed the length of the ice and whistled past the goalie’s shoulder for the winning score of 4-3. It was an utterly incredible way to consummate the fantastical dream season.
The teams were coached by Rod Collette, Ted Hollander and Tom Sage, and it was an outstanding year for Pawling Youth Hockey.
Burhance remembers the good times, and the role Tom Sage played in his life: “I look back on those times in Pawling Youth Hockey as some of the best days in my life. I just remember the camaraderie, the trips we used to take, the things we used to do, it was a lot of fun and again, it was all orchestrated by Tom. I was very close to Mr. Sage growing up, and I really looked upon him as a surrogate father in a lot of respects, as my father had passed away when I was quite young, and I can always just remember the sheer encouragement that he always gave you. That was the thing. He never had to sit you down and tell you what you did wrong, he would always just tell you, ‘Come on, let’s go!’ That is the kind of guy that you want to stand up for. Tom Sage is one of those people who stepped up and helped me out, and I can only hope that I can do that for kids as I go along, for my kids and for others.”
After stepping down as president, Tom Sage continued to serve as treasurer right up to the day of his passing. He worked closely with the succession of men who served as president, and they always consulted him for advice.
Keith Clarkson was the president for four years with Tom Sage as treasurer, and he said of Tom, “Presidents consulted him on all matters of hockey. His guidance was invaluable to me. I dealt with Tom on the financial end of things, but in addition to that, whenever I had a question about any other of the aspects of Pawling Youth Hockey, I would talk with Tom about it, and he would always give me good advice. He was very helpful to me. He was a true gentleman, great to be around, a great sense of humor. He always had a positive attitude. He never looked at things being a big problem. He was just always looking for a solution, as opposed to worrying about the problem.”
Jim Sage echoes that same theme that all of Tom’s friends and family recall, the eternal and indefatigable optimism of Tom Sage: “I think he was definitely an optimist by nature. I think he acknowledged challenges, but he didn’t focus on them. He tended to look at what the next good thing was going to be. He was very much a do-er, so he showed his emotions and his thoughts on things by his actions. He would certainly talk about them, but he was much more inclined to do what he was thinking, versus telling you about it. Yes, I think it does certainly set a high bar, and I think it provides a good template to think about moving forward.”
Tom loved to spend his time with his family, Eileen, Stephanie and Jim. They all fondly recall that Tom never brought his work, that they could never tell if he had a good day or a bad day. He was ready to spend his time with his family and the many organizations to which he belonged.
“One of the lasting images I have,” Jim says, “He had a bad shoulder. I am not quite sure how he injured it originally, but he played softball into his 50’s, and he overplayed it as a young man. I remember many times throwing and hitting the ball until dark, and I knew his shoulder was bothering him, but we would keep at it until we got it right. He seemed to have an tremendous reservoir of energy, and willingness to give it, which as a young child, you can’t replace that.”
Jim gave the eulogy on behalf of the family in the fall of 2004, a tribute to his father, in which he said in part, “When the day came for my father to leave the farm and head off to college himself he originally balked at the idea. He loved his mother and father so much that he was willing to give up the opportunity to attend Alfred University to stay on the farm and help them to keep running it. He told them that he couldn’t leave them there alone. This selflessness and devotion like his work ethic were core parts of my father’s character and they would reveal themselves over and over again in his life to his family, friends and his community.
“Once my sister and I arrived my father turned his devotion to us. He was not a man that typically expressed his feelings in words, instead he would rather show you how he felt by his actions. In this respect, my dad was a giver, and gave his best to us every day. He was very consistent and dependable in that effort. I think one of the most important things that my father offered us was his time. He always had time for us. He would always rearrange his schedule to do something for or with us. I can honestly say that I never remember him saying wait or that he did not have time. The other amazing thing, which I appreciate now that I am older and have my own family, is how he never brought his job home with him. When he walked in that door he was all ours and he would not have had it any other way.
“My dad loved having a daughter, especially one that was nice and smart like he was. Stephanie was a daddy’s girl. He would dote on her the same way he did my mother. A simple sign of my father’s affection for Stephanie was that fact that he would get out of bed early every morning just so he could drop her off at the train before he went to work and then would be there to pick her up when she returned home. While he pampered my sister a bit at times he also raised her to be a sports fan. This effort paid off for him, as she was his constant companion watching games, especially hockey games.
“For me my dad was always my coach. This meant that he not only had to feed the interests of his ambitious son but he also took on the reasonability of managing the other kids who were on the team, many of whom were my friends.
“One of my Dad’s favorite teams was the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, an affiliation that I never completely understood, but none the less I think that in closing it is appropriate that I reference one of the greatest Brooklyn Dodgers of all, Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the color barrier in major league baseball. When Robinson was once asked how he wanted to be remembered, he said that he wanted to be measured by what occurred in between the numbers. What he meant was that the start and end date of your life are not nearly as important as what goes on in between those dates. I believe that my father subscribed to that philosophy, he really enjoyed his life and every day he tried his hardest to get the most out of it and in so doing, crammed a lot into his 63 years. He gave selflessly of himself until finally there was nothing left to give and that great motor just gave out. In looking back on my dad’s life, there was little that was flashy about it, but there was a great deal of substance and much that was meritorious. In my eyes he was a great and good man and someone that I will always be proud to call my father.”
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