Giants tab NCCS’ Patode as Coach of the Week

CHAMPLAIN — To some it was watching a present being unwrapped, that joy that builds up as you wait to see their reaction. Christmas was months ago, but for one afternoon on the soccer field at Northeastern Clinton, it felt like it again.“Because it’s such a big deal, and we have a big team, we didn’t want to tell everybody because there would be a crack in the scene somewhere, something could get back to Kristen (Patnode) and spoil it,” NCCS assistant flag football coach Mike Boyea said.

“We have to be very secretive about it, everyone has to wear their jerseys and captains knew but didn’t tell anyone, not even their parents.“So it was kind of a, we’re kind of excited, but it was only really kind of a small group that knew and everybody else kind of were putting the pieces together as we’re building up to it. I told the captains, they could kind of leak some of the information as we were getting close to the end of the practice as we were huddling just to make sure everybody’s like, cheering and getting excited for the moment.



”That moment came as Patnode, NCCS’ flag football head coach, opened a package that showed she had been named New York Giants’ inaugural High School Flag Football Coach of the Week.“In recognition of Coach Patnode’s selection as Coach of the Week, a $2,000 check from The Giants Foundation will be given to the Northeastern Clinton’s flag football program,” a press release on the Giants’ website said. “Patnode will also receive a certificate of recognition signed by Giants head coach Brian Daboll and will be honored at a recognition ceremony after the season and at a 2025 Giants preseason home game.

”When she saw the plaque, Patnode was speechless.“I had no idea that this was happening,” she said. “We had just finished a team bonding experience, all day long we’d been doing something called sticker ninja and at practice we were going to take a picture and declare a winner.

“So when I’m closing practice, Mike says, “Hey, you got one more thing,” and I had no idea it was coming. It nearly brought me to tears, I was so surprised.”Patnode said the award is Boyea’s just as much hers, as she views him more as a Co-Head Coach.

“This program wouldn’t be where it is now without Mike as well,” she said. “Just the dedication that he’s had helps me be a better coach because I know I can rely on him and his thought process.“He probably has a better thought process about football than I do.

It’s just a team effort for sure.”Boyea said Tara Belinksy, the Community and Youth Football Manager for the Giants, had initially reached out to Tim Suprenant to inform him of the award. Suprenant then brought Boyea into the fold as they worked to keep it hidden from Patnode.

Even as the news made it to the team, while they were ecstatic that Patnode won the award, they said she deserves it and more.“Coach Boyea called (the captains) in to tell us just one day before giving the award to her, saying she would receive it the next day at practice,” Brynn Hite said. “Honestly, we are so honored but we aren’t surprised, because we know how good of a coach she is and she deserves all of it and more.

”Hite was a collection of Cougars that have been with the program for three years. Asking her and Katelynn Johnston, Kate Underwood and Kylee Surpenant unanimously agreed Patnode has been the right coach for the job, no other person could do the job she’s done.“It’s been amazing,” Johnston said.

“She as a coach, her dedication every game, every practice, she goes and she looks at other teams, she looks at new plays.“She is always looking for a better opportunity for our team, and she definitely puts us first whenever, like, we get knocked down, she questions it, ‘Hey, was that a push?’ and she’s just the first one to always lift us up and be there for us. and she has meant so much to me throughout my whole high school career.

”Boyea agreed with the players, while acknowledging the co-coach mindset, he said Patnode has more responsibility than she lets on.“We could say it’s co-coach, but she’s the brains behind the operation,” he said. “Kristen’s just a huge role model, not just for our girls, but for me as a fellow coach, does everything the right way, preaches all the right stuff, practice what she preaches, and it’s been really good just to learn from her, take away from what I’ve learned from her, and use it when I coach modified girls basketball.

”And that mindset is noticed by the players, something they say they’re grateful for.“They just always make sure I have the confidence,” Underwood said. “Whenever I miss a flag, they’re like, ‘You got it.

You’re right there.’“I think that really gives me motivation. To keep driving, keep working, and get the next flag.

They’re such great coaches, and I wouldn’t want anyone else coaching me.”It’s been a year of firsts for the NCCS flag football team. The team is the defending Section VII flag football champions, the section’s first.

Last season they also advanced to the regional finals after defeating Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, 67-13. But, they would drop that final to Owego Free Academy.“I can remember a quote she said when we lost,” Boyea said.

“Of course, everybody’s emotional and Kristen goes, ‘I feel like I’m saying goodbye to my children,’ because we had a bunch of seniors that we’re very close to and that team that had a very good ride on.“You see them everyday in the hallway. You see them in the community.

It’s a small community, very tight knit. It’s a family.”Patnode takes pride in that feeling saying when the girls are with her, she treats them as if they were her own daughters.

“That’s one thing I tell the parents every, every year, ‘They’re with me. They’re my daughters,’” she said. “.

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But I tell the parents like, I will be treating them like they are my kids. Saying goodbye to this batch of seniors this year is going to be hard because they have been here for three years. The seniors next year, I’ve had, they’ve been my kids since eighth grade.

“It’s like, they’re my family.”With the 2025 season underway, NCCS (0-1-1) sits at the mountaintop waiting to see if someone can dethrone them. But, just like being the first champion, Patnode is the first Coach of the Week.

It’s a feather in an already full cap for NCCS.“I mean, there’s always going to be another champion, whether we are Section VII champs again this year, that would be great, and if it’s somebody else, you know, hats off to them,” Boyea said. “But there will not be another first.

There’s only one first team, won first coach to win that award, for us to win the Section.“And we said that, I think, to the girls yesterday, and also last year, ‘Nobody can take that away from you, that you are the first ever’, and there will be teams that win.Obviously, it’s like that in every sport.

You don’t win every year, but to be the first is like an extra in the feather cap, icing on the cake. Something that makes the first extra special.”.