Bill Sanford’s newest race hardly resembles any of the countless competitions he oversaw in his 34-year career as Syracuse crew coach. But for Sanford, it’s equally grueling.

Consider the 80-hour work weeks or pre-sunrise wake-up calls. Consider the 4,500 houses he’s visited door-to-door in the past month or the three days he spends each week in Albany, dealing with constituents by day and sleeping at a Quality Inn by night.

Consider the fact that Sanford, just four months after retiring from the coaching position he’d held since 1968, now works with equal vigor to extend his career in another field — politics.

Though Sanford served in the Onondaga County Legislature for the past 23 years, this upcoming race is part of his first venture into state politics.

Sanford won a special election in February to replace Michael Bragman, who resigned, to a gain a temporary spot in the state assembly. But a recent revision of district lines means that he must now run for re-election against an assemblywoman who’s held the position for 12 years.

“I’m a big underdog,” Sanford, a Republican, said of the November election, “but my experts are saying that I’ll win this thing if I do everything right. Of course, I’d get new experts if they didn’t tell me that.”

But Sanford’s an expert in his own right. In the 12 elections he participated in over his lengthy career, the Salina resident has never lost. Sure, Sanford has two national championships from his coaching days with the Orangemen, but this race is his gold-medal sprint.

Every day, he divides his time between the assembly floor and his campaign efforts, often starting days at 8:30 a.m. and ending them at 10 p.m. Hoping to wax potential voters on door-to-door marathons, Sanford rings roughly 100 doorbells every weekday and almost four times that on weekends. He bounces from pancake brunches to barbecue picnics just to fill every commitment on the obligatory hobnobbing tour.

“This is really the first time since I can remember that he’s only had one job,” said Sanford’s daughter Kris, who serves as SU’s head rowing coach. “But you wouldn’t know it by how hard he’s working.”

Somehow, that’s for the best. In a quiet moment, Sanford, 63, feels sadness that still linger from a now-forsaken coaching career. He misses the sloshing waves and addictive feeling of camaraderie. After all, he’s never known a year of adult life without it.

Sanford enrolled at Syracuse as an undergrad in 1959. Upon graduation, he received an offer to head the school’s freshman crew team. Five years later, he took the varsity job.

“I still get some withdrawal symptoms,” Sanford said. “So sure, I miss it. At the same time, I’m so involved right now that I don’t always have time to focus on it.”

But he still remembers the sage coaching tactics that guided him to an already-successful political career.

“No doubt about it, my coaching experience is a major factor in my success as a politician,” Sanford said. “The two are similar — I’d like to think that in politics, you still need a game plan and some strategizing. And sometimes if you’re relentless and persistent, you can wear people down.”

Over his career in the county legislature — the last 14 years of which he served as chairman — Sanford ushered in several notable policies. Among them, he created plans to reduce taxes and clear way for the Carousel Mall expansion. He also crafted a plan to clean up Onondaga Lake, the spot to which Sanford used to bolt every day for crew practice after leaving city hall.

“He was certainly breaking some of the world’s natural laws by working as much as he did,” fellow county legislator James DiBlasi said. “It kind of defied belief.”

“The thing is, I never got up one day and didn’t want to go downtown or didn’t want to go to crew practice,” Sanford said. “I was the luckiest guy in the world, because I was always excited to start my day.”

Now, his days at SU a rippling memory, Sanford’s found new reasons for excitement. He’s running the political race with a competitive spirit familiar to those that worked with him — a list which includes four chancellors and five athletics directors.

After all, not much has changed. As a coach, he led Syacuse. Now he hopes to represent it.

Published on September 23, 2002 at 12:00 pm