GLENS FALLS — The sign on Glens Falls National Bank reads “Hometown, USA.” Next to it sits the Bullpen Tavern, a local sports bar owned by two Glens Falls High School graduates. Across the street is the town library and a myriad of local craft shops. Faded black lampposts litter both sides of Glen Street leading up to the city’s roundabout.

At the end of Glen Street, before Glens Falls turns to South Glens Falls, is the Glens Falls Civic Center. Cool Insuring Arena, as it’s now known, is the home of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame and the public schools’ state championship games. It’s where small-town heroes strive for nationwide immortality. It’s where the Girard family name will finally find a resting place in a town where its athletic prowess has been understood for years.

“He’ll be up there,” said Glens Falls High School athletic director Arthur Corlew, motioning toward the wall of plaques.

In 2018, Joseph Girard III cemented himself as New York State’s all-time leading scorer. His team, the Glens Falls Indians, captured its first state championship in basketball to accompany its first two titles in football, both of which Girard quarterbacked. He averaged about 50 points per game both his junior and senior seasons of basketball and attracted coaches like Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski to the city.

The high school numbers and the accolades mean more in Glens Falls. It’s one of those small towns where the same family’s cousins coach both the basketball teams, and other branches of the family are scattered through the department of public works. Those towns always have that family. In Glens Falls, it’s the Girards.

The third Joe Girard to grow up in Glens Falls is different, though. After always being “the next Girard in town,” he’s outgrown the hype of the area and sprung himself into something bigger. As the first Girard to play in a Power 5 conference, Girard III enters the final stretch of his freshman season as the starting point guard at Syracuse. He’s continuing an athletic journey beyond Glens Falls that many of his hundreds of family members started but never finished.

“We all knew he was a special kid,” said Tom Girard, Girard III’s cousin, “A step above the average Girard: junior college basketball players, Division III basketball players. Whatever.”

• • •

The Girardi’s, Anthony and Rose, moved into the Glens Falls area during around the Great Depression era. Back then, Glens Falls, which sits on the Hudson River, was an industrial city centered around a mill. Italians weren’t well accepted, remarked Tom Girard. So, to improve work opportunities, the Girardis dropped the “i” at the end of their last name, Tom suspected.

A lifelong Glens Falls resident, Tom serves as a bit of a family historian. He said the last reunion he organized had about 320 Girards and that the number of family members should’ve only increased since then. He estimated about 90% of the family still lives in the Glens Falls area, a city of an estimated 14,348, according to the United States Census Bureau.

Tom’s father, Lee, was a member of the first big Girard family, which included his little brother Joseph — Girard III’s grandfather — and 12 other siblings. Back then, the Girards attended St. Mary’s Academy, a private Catholic school.

Joseph was supposed to be different than his siblings. He was known as the most prominent athlete, relatives and friends have told his grandson, Girard III. The siblings wanted Joseph to attend college and continue his athletic career at Dayton, where he’d been recruited to play football. He was supposed to be the one that brought his athletic career to Division I athletics, the one who brought the Girard name far beyond their small area of New York.

In Glens Falls, population 14,348, everybody knows the Girards. Josh Schafer | Senior Staff Writer

But during Joseph’s freshman year, an accident at the Department of Public Works killed his father. With his dad gone, Joseph left Dayton and his chance at Division I athletics. He attended Castleton State, less than an hour from his home, before earning a master’s degree from Ithaca College. After, he returned to Glens Falls, where he coached the St. Mary’s basketball team until the academy’s high school sector folded in 1989.

Through the years, Joseph coached several sons, grandsons and even Corlew, the current athletic director. Joseph Girard Jr., the father of Syracuse’s point guard, played basketball for his dad at St. Mary’s and then at Le Moyne College before he also returned to his hometown. The Girard family and close-knit nature of the town helped with connections and job opportunities, he said.

In a town where an estimated 85% of families are originally from Glens Falls, things often work out that way.

“(The Girard Family is) the foundation of our city,” said Corlew, who’s in his 16th year as Glens Falls’ athletic director. “Because of the generations, there’s another Girard that’s coming through …They will give you the shirt off their back. They’re the most loyal people that you’ll ever meet … that’s what makes this ‘Hometown, USA.’ They’re a big part of it.”

After returning home from college, Joseph Girard I, the best athlete of his family’s generation, never left Glens Falls. He died in 2016 following a battle with cancer.

• • •

Whether it be t-ball or Christian Youth Organization basketball, Joseph Girard III was never the only Girard on a team. When they awarded participation trophies at the end of youth athletics seasons, the announcer sounded like a broken record.

“We were always together, and it was always Girard, Girard, Girard,” Girard III said. “People start hearing that and it’s like, ‘Are they brothers?’”

They’re all cousins to Girard III, who’s an only child. He clung to his cousins like brothers, though, and they climbed the youth sports ranks together. In 2012, alongside his cousins Quinn, Connor and Trent, Girard III waterboyed Glens Falls’ first trip to the Carrier Dome for the high school football state championship.

The Indians lost that year following an offensive pass interference call that stopped a comeback bid. The same year, a 12-year-old Girard III solidified himself in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame by sinking 133 of 135 free throws to win a national free throw competition. 

“Ever since then, through Joe’s play and stuff like that, (the hype around him) grew, grew and grew,” said his father, Girard Jr.

The rest of Girard III’s rise in Glens Falls has been likened to a movie by many in the Girard family. In his first varsity game as an eighth grader, he scored 31 points, including the game-winning 3-pointer. High Point University offered him a scholarship after the game.

By his sophomore season, locals filled gyms to see the next Girard. Like his father and grandfather, the kid they called “JGIII” could score from anywhere and already averaged more than 30 points per game. Lines formed for autographs after games, and they wanted anything with JGIII’s marking on it. He signed chip bags and fans’ foreheads. Even opposing crowds, ones that poked fun at Glens Falls for being “Girard town” and jeered the star player on the court, waited for photos after the game.

“It was like traveling with the Beatles,” Glens Falls high school football coach Patrick Lilac said.

In 2016, Girard III returned to the Carrier Dome as a quarterback and safety for Glens Falls. Then a sophomore, Girard intercepted a pass with less than a minute remaining and sealed Glens Falls’ Class B football state championship. Two years later, Girard quarterbacked another state title. Six of the team’s 38 players were from the Girard family tree.

Eleven members of the Girard family were on the field as either coaches or players for the 2018 Class B state title. Courtesy of Patrick Lilac

Glens Falls, the host of the New York state high school basketball championships for nearly 40 years, had never won a state title. Not with Mike Van Schaick, who went on to play at Fairfield. Not with Jimmer Fredette, who’d later win national player of the year at Brigham Young University. Not any of the generations of Girards.

On March 16, 2019, Girard III, who’d been in foul trouble throughout overtime, reentered the Class B title game with three seconds remaining. He cut down the baseline and caught an inbound pass from his cousin Trent, who took off down the court in celebration before Girard III had released the game-winning basket.

In the corner of Glens Falls gym now sits four championship banners, the final one being a 2019 Federation Tournament of Champions. Flanked to their left and right rest a Mr. NY Basketball banner, two New York Gatorade players of the year awards and an honor of the state’s all-time leading scorer, all donning the same last name.

“(My parents and I have) always talked about how it’s bigger than me,” Girard III said. “It’s for everybody in Glens Falls. It’s for all the Girards.”

• • •

Glens Falls comes to Girard III more than he goes there now. Syracuse flags, sweatshirts and hats litter Glens Falls and surrounding areas. Members of rival towns now root for the player who used to beat their high school. Glens Falls natives like Corlew, who haven’t lived far from Glens Falls their entire lives, purchased season ticket packages and have made 320-mile round-trip treks to see the hometown hero play Atlantic Coast Conference basketball. Local hotels and bars hold watch parties for those who don’t have ACC Network or other subscriptions required to watch games.

“We miss Joe,” said Jeff Ashe, a bartender at Talk of the Town. The business benefited from busier crowds on nights Girard III played in home games at Glens Falls.

In Glens Falls High School’s basketball gym, banners hanging on the wall act almost as a shrine to Joseph Girard III. Josh Schafer | Senior Staff Writer

Sitting on the sidelines of the practice courts inside the Carmelo K. Anthony Center, Girard III smiled wide discussing his hometown. For a kid that’s been in the media spotlight since the fourth grade, Girard III doesn’t often open up in interviews. When discussing his hometown, he gushes and smiles.

Girard III calls Glens Falls, “the people.” They’re the ones who helped create him and the ones he’s in some ways surpassed. He’s barely been back since coming to Syracuse, he said. He wishes he could go back more but he’s busy putting together one of the best freshman seasons in Syracuse point guard history.

Before the camera lights come on and his name flashes in ESPN graphics, someone from the family always sends Girard III the same message. A simple saying, that’s defined how his family does things.

“The Girard Way.”

For many, that motto has brought them back to Glens Falls. Girard III isn’t sure if that’s where it will take him. He has “dreams and aspirations” to achieve first. Then, if circumstances permit, of course he’d love to coach at Glens Falls High School.

Even still, it’ll be different when he goes back there. He’s not another Girard in a clan of so many. He’s not the next one anymore. He’s JGIII. He’s that Girard.

Published on February 19, 2020 at 1:06 am

Contact Josh: jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44