When asked several years ago by a reporter how he would like to be

remembered as an athlete, Bill Kurisko replied: "Just as a good, all-around

player."

When Nanuet fans let their minds drift back to Kurisko’s heyday with the Golden Knights, they remember

a great all-around player. Whether he was swishing long-range jumpers for Ralph Rogo’s basketball team;

rifling home goals from impossible angles for Dale Abeling’s lacrosse team; or scoring touchdowns in

almost every fashion imaginable for Rich Conklin’s football team, Bill established a record of overall

achievement that few—if any—Golden Knight athletes can match.

In fact, when The Journal-News asked readers in 1988 to vote on the top athletes ever at each Rockland

high school, Bill received the most votes among Nanuet male athletes. Granted, it was only a year after

he had graduated and his exploits were still fresh in people’s minds, but a convincing case can be made

for Bill, the youngest of the nine Kurisko children.

Consider:

In basketball, Bill is the all-time Rockland County scoring leader with 1,444 points over three

varsity seasons (1985-87) and part of another (1984). He is also the Rockland record-holder for

seasonal scoring average, pouring in 30.1 points per game in the 1986-87 season.

In lacrosse, during his junior year in 1986, he set Rockland records for points in a game, 11

(which he accomplished twice) and points in a season, 108. As a senior, he scored 75 goals in 12

games before an ankle injury ended his season, and wound up with career totals of 238 goals and

65 assists. He earned high school All-America honors as a midfielder his senior year, and gained

All-Section accolades three straight years.

In football, he made second-team All-New York State as a safety his senior year, and set the

school record for career interceptions with 17. On offense, he was switched from running back to

quarterback midway through his junior year and became a feared double threat as a sprint-out

and option quarterback. He scored touchdowns in almost every conceivable way—kickoff and

punt returns, and running, catching and throwing the ball.

Helping his teams win was always Bill’s top priority, and more often than not they did. Drive and determination

are intangibles that cannot be taught, and those instincts took over for Bill when a game was

in the balance.

Examples abound to illustrate his take-charge capabilities. For instance, in a lacrosse game against North

Rockland his senior year, Nanuet was trailing by a goal with just three seconds left in regulation. But Bill

fired in a shot from about 40 feet out while lying on his side to send the game into overtime. "When we

needed a goal under pressure, he would get it," Abeling once said. "He never quit…he’d find some way

to pull it out."

In basketball, his favorite sport, the 6-foot-3 shooting guard led the 1986-87 Nanuet squad to an 11-game

winning streak and a share of the League 7 championship, the Golden Knights’ first league title since the

1970s. That season included a 43-point game against Byram Hills and a 39-point game against

Eastchester during which he was removed midway through the third quarter because Nanuet was well

ahead. Rogo, Nanuet’s coach at that time, believed Bill could have broken the then-county record of 60

points had he been allowed to remain in the game.

After graduating from Nanuet in 1987 and earning a Black and Gold scholarship, Bill enjoyed a successful

career atWagner College on Staten Island. He was a two-time, first-team All-Northeast Conference

selection and averaged 19.6 points, 6 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game for the Seahawks.

Bill then embarked on a 10-year pro basketball odyssey that included stops in Georgia, North Carolina,

Canada, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia. From 1991 to 1993, he averaged 16 points, 5 assists and

2.5 steals per game for the Atlanta Eagles of the U.S. Basketball League. After being drafted in the first

round by the Raleigh Bull Frogs of the Global Basketball Association, Bill played one year for Raleigh,

averaging 13 points and 5 rebounds a game.

He then had a tryout with the New York Knicks, playing six preseason games before being cut. Bill then

decided to export his game to non-U.S. outposts, starting with the Halifax (Nova Scotia)Windjammers

in the National Basketball League of Canada, where he averaged 15 points and 3.5 assists a game in the

1994 season. That was followed by one season with Stuttgart-based BG Ludwigburg in the German

Bundesliga’s first division—ironically, the same sponsor for a women’s team on which Norinne Powers

played. Bill averaged 17 points a game and made the All-Star team.

In 1996, Bill’s European travels took him to Sweden, where his one-season stint with the Uppsala Gators

resulted in a league-leading total in steals and 20.5 points per game. The most recent stop in Bill’s roundthe-

world roundball adventures was Saudi Arabia. In four highly successful seasons there, Bill was player

of the year twice; the league’s high scorer and best foreign player once each; averaged 25, 32, 25.1 and

27.2 points per game in four seasons; and helped lead his teams to the national and Persian Gulf championships

in three out of four years.

Heady stuff for a kid from Nanuet. These days Bill, who is 33, lives in Congers and works in the sales

industry. He and his wife, MaryKnoll, have a 3-year-old son,William Jr.