83-year-old RSC Hall of Fame Athlete Hits the Hardwood Again for Alumni Game
ALBANY - At 83, Sam Greco, founder and CEO of Greco Construction Inc., was old enough to have been the father of the oldest participant in the Russell Sage College men's basketball game on Saturday, but that didn't stop him from suiting up for a brief trip up and down the court.
"I started in 1962 and graduated in 1964, so it's been a while," Greco said before Sage's alumni game on the Albany campus. "I enjoy coming back, and hopefully, I can encourage the rest of these alumni guys to keep coming to the games. They see somebody who has been here that long ago, it's all good."
Between 1963 and 1965, Sam Greco regularly appeared in the sports pages as a standout basketball player at Junior College of Albany (now Russell Sage College). Articles called the 5'8" guard the "Little Giant." He was inducted into the RSC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015.
Greco graduated from Sage with an associate degree in 1965. A multi-sport athlete, he then had notable brushes with professional baseball — including an offer from the San Francisco Giants and a tryout with the New York Yankees — before he founded Greco Construction and MMC Millwork in 1977. In 2011, he returned to Sage to complete his bachelor's degree in Business Administration.
He played basketball in community leagues into his 60s and played baseball into his 50s. More recently, his love of athletics compelled him to donate to the start-up costs of the women's flag football team at Sage, the first intercollegiate women's flag team in the Capital Region.
Now he wants to inspire more former student-athletes to continue to engage in sports at the college. So among the 25 players who took the floor on Saturday, with the next-oldest alum being a 1989 graduate, Greco was enjoying the feel of the basketball popping off the hardwood into his hands again.
"A tremendous competitor with the heart of a lion, Sam was one of the fiercest rebounders that JCA basketball has ever seen," said Brian Barnes, RSC Head Men's Basketball Coach. "The Hall of Famer is just a tremendous supporter of not only men's basketball, but flag football, the Athletic Department and Russell Sage College as a whole. Thank you, Sam."
