{"id":126257,"date":"2026-02-07T15:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/126257\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:54:11","slug":"just-sayin-after-almost-40-years-its-a-fond-farewell-to-the-advance-and-my-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/126257\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Sayin\u2019: After almost 40 years, it\u2019s a fond farewell to the Advance and my readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — After nearly 40 years at the Staten Island Advance\/SILive.com<\/a>, I have decided to retire my notebook, four-color Bic pen, laptop and cell phone. <\/p>\n

My time at the Advance will come to an end on Saturday, Feb. 7 at 11:59 p.m., after starting at the Advance on Oct. 1, 1986. <\/p>\n

It was truly a fun ride that enabled me to work with some of the finest sportswriters and editors, the latter of whom always made my stories better and print worthy. <\/p>\n

Through the decades, I had the pleasure of working alongside the likes of Jay Price, one of the finest writers in the country, Larry Miraldi, Lou Bergonzi, Jerry and Mary Lee, Carmine Angioli, Jim Waggoner and the legendary Jack Minogue (my mentor). There were others like Cormac Gordon, Larry Anderson, Pete Sorrentino, Bobby Wietecha, Mike Anderson, Derek Alvez, George Kochman, Hilton Flores, Bob Raimonto, Dan O\u2019Leary, Rich Ryan, Julie Summers, Danny Colvin, Tommy Dowd, Alexandria Alejandro, James Speciale, Billy Spurge, Kevin Flood, Cathy Guerriero, Jason Bock, Annie DeBiase, Ursula Reel, and last but not least my favorite person, Charlie DeBiase Jr.<\/p>\n

\"FearlessThe Fearless Forecaster (AKA Advance sportswriter Joe D’Amodio) can’t believe what his crystal ball reveals to him when he used to make HS football selections. (Staten Island Advance)<\/p>\n

When I first started at the Advance I was one of handful of young writers they had hired, including Charlie and then Stephen Hart, who passed away last year. Today, Charlie is one of the last dinosaurs at the paper and I\u2019ll miss him so. From the days of working the rewrite desk together and pulling all the phones off the hook except for one to limit the 100 calls we received each Sunday to now trying to walk through the minefield of emails, texts and social media posts on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and MySpace (does that still exist?) he\u2019ll be someone I won\u2019t forget. No one works harder than Chaz and he is the Advance Sports Department. Plus, he always made my job much easier with his knowledge of the local sports landscape. For four decades, he was my Google whenever I had a high school question, and I had lots of them. <\/p>\n

\"StatenStaten Island Advance\/SILive.com Sports Manager Joe D’Amodio, right, play fights with Judge Mills Lane after making an appearance on the legendary boxing judge’s syndicated court show in 1999. (Staten Island Advance)<\/p>\n

I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention all the great high school and youth coaches I met along the way and the outstanding athletes that I covered through the decades. I always said that \u201cno other coaches care more about their players than the Island coaches and the Island athletes are by far the best in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a lot of other folks outside the sports department I would like to thank: The late Dick Diamond, Caroline Harrison, Brian Laline and Gail Lubin and Steve Zaffarano, who all believed in me, and let me do my thing \u2014 Oakland Raiders cap and all. <\/p>\n

Also thanks to the hard-working managers \u2014 James Yates, Ken Paulsen, Mark Stein, Eddie D\u2019Anna, Tracey Porpora, Cassondra Sommer and Lauren Lovello \u2014 at the Advance, who make it happen each and every day. It was great working with you all! <\/p>\n

Lauren is taking over my job as sports manager and brings a set of fresh ideas and she will lead the new age of the sports department. Of course, Charlie is the stalwart of the department but the emergence of new sportswriter Michael O\u2019Brien has been a welcome addition since he is very social-media savvy.<\/p>\n

\"Sports\"The current sports team, from left, Michael O’Brien, Charlie DeBiase Jr. and Joe D’Amodio, who is retiring after nearly 40 years at the paper. His last shift is Saturday.Advance photo\"2024Joe D’Amodio poses with former Advance staffers Mary Lee and Marty Coughlin at a high school baseball tournament. (Kara Buzga for SI Advance).<\/p>\n

To the Staten Island bowling community: It was a pleasure writing about you and telling your stories, which were always plentiful with the great cast of characters that grace the lanes. Thanks to Donnie Walters, the late Rab Wilkinson, Naz and Ray Laursen, Joe Albanese, Bobby Garzone, Bobby Spallone, Jim Elliott, John Eadicicco, Frank Wilkinson, the McAuliffes and countless others.<\/p>\n

And to my wife MariLou, my daughters Gabriella and Christina and my mom and dad, who had to deal with my crazy work schedule the past 10 years as I tried managing the sports department. That\u2019s time we will never get back, but I will make it up to you now.<\/p>\n

\"AdvanceThe Advance sports team of yesteryear, when more than 20-plus sportswriters and photographers were on staff. Not every staffer back then was in this photo as some were camera shy.Staten Island Advance<\/p>\n

What am I going to do now, you ask?<\/p>\n

I just want to sit back for a while, relax and soak it all in. If I get bored in a few months or next year or the year after that, I\u2019ll be stocking shelves (my dream job) part-time somewhere in town or parking cars at an auto dealership until the grandkids come along. <\/p>\n

But my story and time at the Advance has ended. <\/p>\n

Thank you all for reading! It was a pleasure bringing you the news. <\/p>\n

Cheers!<\/p>\n

****<\/p>\n

Joe D\u2019Amodio\u2019s work email (damodio@siadvance.com) will no longer be operable as of early Sunday morning. If you need to report results or have a story idea, you may email the sports department at sports2@siadvance.com, where someone on the sports staff will get to it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — After nearly 40 years at the Staten Island Advance\/SILive.com, I have decided to retire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-126257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}