Q&A with Waverly’s Joey Tomasso: A wide range of topics explored in this one
Here, a get-to-know with Joseph Louis “Joey” Tomasso, 18-year-old Waverly High senior who as a junior was first-team all-state in football and basketball. Oh, and there’s that No. 1 class rank.
Joey is about to begin a fifth season as Wolverines starting quarterback, having passed for 5,948 yards and rushed for 1,494 – 2,239 and 818, respectively, for last season’s Section 4 Class C champions.
He was a 30.9-per-game basketball scorer as a junior, a program record as was his season-best 49-point game.
I fairly-well sprinkled the infield during a chat with Joey. Turns out, the young man is as light on his feet in conversation as he is running “Q-dart” against the grain after craftily feigning a handoff.
Jersey numbers: Football 11 .. Basketball 0 .. Baseball 10. Any significance? “I just thought No. 11 looked good, made me look a little taller having two 1s on my jersey when I was so small in 8th grade. In basketball, zero always stuck with me.”
(No particular reason for 10 in baseball.)
How’s your golf game? “That’s a spot I’m trying to work on right now.”
(Joey’s family runs Tomasso’s Golf Course/Restaurant.)
Favorite sport to play? “I love all sports, but I’ve got to say football, there’s no sport like football.”
Favorite sport to watch on television? “Football, too,” the Cowboys fan said.
College plans? “I want to play football in college. I’ve visited a bunch of schools. Syracuse offered me a preferred walk-on to play there. That’s obviously in contention but then other schools: Colgate, Buffalo, New Hampshire, Fordham, those places I visited. They’ll continue to evaluate me throughout my senior year. We’ll have to see where I stand from there.”
Most gratifying athletic moment? “Probably my first section title win last year, beating Chenango Forks up there. We felt like we had worked so hard for that moment and it finally happened. That was an unreal feeling.”
Most humbling athletic moment? “Last baseball season. We were a No. 3 seed in section play. We were playing a Lansing team we had beaten pretty handily earlier, they came in, played their butts off and beat us 7-0. It felt like we had an unbelievable baseball season and it felt like it was all for nothing.”
Lansing finished as Class B state runner-up.
Statistically, you are most proud of? “That would have to be almost 3,000 yards of total offense (last) year in football, and averaging 31 points per game in basketball. Those are two numbers I’m really proud of.”
Coolest sports venue or two that you have visited? “Yankee Stadium is one of the places I would pick and I went to the Garden this year. My sister goes to Merrimack and that’s a really big hockey school. I watched my first hockey game and it was the Hockey East final. It was a big game and it was packed, unreal.”
Venue you’d like to see for the first time, bucket list item: “I want to go to Dallas Cowboys Stadium. I’ve never been and everybody says it’s unreal, someplace I definitely want to go.”
You’re on the deck grilling. Build me the perfect burger. “I like a medium burger with American cheese and fried onions, just that. And I like waffle fries, I’m a big waffle fries guy. A lot of ketchup on the side. I don’t like it on the burger, but dipping into it.”
What’s your getaway? What do you do to escape from sports, workouts, homework? “A lot of times I’ll go out front and play a couple holes by myself, play at a super-slow pace. Just kind of hang out there for a while.”
More: Meet the 2022 Elmira-Corning Elite 24 Football Team
(The family lives just off the eighth hole, a tiny strip of a fairway playing roughly 340 yards.)
You are the most effective, heralded quarterback in Section 4. Why? “I feel like that has a lot to do with the other guys returning as well, the guys who were on the team last year, the offensive line. Obviously, the weapons on the outside have helped me get those statistics and all that stuff. A lot of it has to do with the guys catching the ball and the guys blocking for me.”
Superstitions? “I eat Pudgie’s pizza three hours before every game. Just cheese. My sisters (Sidney and Alex) always did it when they played sports so I kind of took it from them and started doing it myself.”
What does it feel like to be The Guy that every defense builds its game plan around, football and basketball? “It’s a feeling of respect in a way that somebody’s game-planning for you. It’s a good feeling of respect, but you have to work even harder than you are, you’ve got to work harder than everybody on their team just to have a chance to compete because they’re going to know your every move, they’re going to know all your tendencies. You have to find a way to, in basketball, find new moves, get to the bucket differently, in football how to kind of slice up the defense.”
Go-to television show? “I love ‘The Office.’ ”
Biggest eaters on your football team? “That’s got to be Kam Hills. I’ve watched him put down 100 chicken nuggets like it’s nothing. He can eat everything in sight.”
Favorite musician or band? “I really like the Zac Brown Band. That was the first concert I ever saw.” (Saw that show at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.)
Class rank? “I’m first in my class right now.”
Least favorite subject in school? “Definitely have to go English. Just reading all that stuff is so boring to me.”
Go-to shot in a game or H*O*R*S*E? “Our shot clocks on the top of the hoops are exposed, I have a shot where I spin it off the shot clock and I don’t know why but it always goes in and nobody else can do it.”
First-team all-state in two sports means what? “It means a lot. I was really happy to represent Waverly at the state level two times in one year. Not many people have done that in Waverly, so I was really proud when I heard about that. I was ecstatic.”
Hardest hit you have absorbed? “It was my eighth-grade year at home against Johnson City. I was rolling right and it was curl-wheel. I threw a wheel over the top. I was off my feet and this linebacker came in and just smoked me. Fortunately, it was a touchdown pass. At that time, I was 130 pounds soaking wet and he just crushed me. Once I saw it was a touchdown it made it a little easier to get back up.”
Vehicle you would most like to call your own? Snap your fingers and it appears in your driveway? “It would probably be one of those new GMC trucks, all black with black rims. They’re huge and super-nice. They have like a giant I-Pad just right of the steering wheel.”
If there’s a vanity plate on that truck? “Maybe Joey 11, that would probably be cool.”
Your reaction when you learned you’d be installed as starting quarterback as an eighth-grader? “I thought it was a great idea. I loved it, personally. Then I started talking to my parents, I don’t think they were too keen on that, they weren’t a huge fan of that so I had to do some convincing there. Me and Coach Miller thought it was a really good idea, I was ecstatic, but I’m not sure anybody else thought that was a great idea.”
Complete the sentence: This football season will be a success if we … “Don’t rest on our accomplishments from last season.”
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Getting to know Waverly’s Joey Tomasso across a wide range of topics
