Every now and then we’re reminded about just how big Sachem’s reach really is.
Sachem coaching legend Fred Fusaro was recently at Boston Children’s Hospital because his granddaughter Joanna, 5, was undergoing surgery. When Joanna was being taken out of intensive care he saw a doctor walking in his direction and recognized him immediately.
“He recognized my voice and came over and gave me a big hug,” said Fusaro, speaking of Sachem alum and former Flaming Arrows running back Dennis Karmer, an attending pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the hospital.
Kramer, who graduated in 1993, was a National Merit Finalist at Sachem, as well as a News 12 Scholar Athlete and the winner of that year’s James LaBue Award given to the top scholar-athlete in Suffolk County. He was team captain and MVP for both Sachem football and lacrosse as a senior before playing four years for Princeton lacrosse and winning three National Championships.
“The first thing out of his mouth was that he heard we won a Long Island Championship,” Fusaro said proudly.
Kramer, whose mother Debby works as a librarian at Sachem North, stopped by to check on Joanna while she was there. Fusaro and his family returned to Long Island on December 13 with an early Christmas gift as Joanna did very well in surgery.
After his undergrad at Princeton, Kramer received his MD from NYU, had a residency at Johns Hopkins and is now a fellow at Harvard Medical School working out of the Children’s Hospital in Boston.
“He was smarter than the entire coaching staff when he was in high school,” said Fusaro. “He was really a bright kid. This is all ironic. I knew he was a doctor, but I didn’t know where. He always said he was going to be an orthopedic surgeon and he did it.”
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro