Mike “Big Dog” Medvesky scholarship BCHS
Family and Friends. I’m including below a beautifully written tribute to our friend who recently passed away.
My ask is you can give what you can. We are going to establish an annual scholarship in Mike’s name at Bethlehem Central High School with the focus on music and the arts.
once we hit a $5,000 fundraising goal the scholarship will be established for at least 10 years.
tribute below written by Geoff Decker
Friends, we lost our close friend and a member of the BCHS Class of 2001 community: Mike "Big Dog” Medvesky.
Mike was known as “Big Dog” to his many friends, teammates, and classmates. He'll be remembered for his generous spirit, compassion, and loyal companionship.
Born in Albany on Nov 6, 1982, Mike graduated from Bethlehem Central High School in 2001. He was a musician, an athlete, and a voracious consumer of culture, film, and literature.
As a trained tuba player, he had a distinguished music career as a member of the BCHS symphony orchestra, making all-state. As a student at Lehigh University, Mike toured the world with the Lehigh University Brass Ensemble, performing in Brazil and China.
Big Dog's passion was music. He had eclectic and wide-ranging tastes, from classical to electronic to Brazilian Tropicalia to indie rock. His favorite band, above all others, was Radiohead.
As many friends have recalled, Mike was perhaps happiest at a live music show. He attended hundreds over the years and worked music shows at the Palace Theater. He was eager to share his passion with friends and family. He often offered to buy concert tickets for friends to encourage them to check out a new sound. In one case, he voluntarily digitized the decades-old music collection for his friend’s dad...just so that he could once again listen to his favorite music.
Big Dog had a unique combination of size, strength, and athleticism that served him well on the baseball field and hockey rink (and pretty much any pickup sports game). His teammates recall how he was an unhittable force as a young pitcher (with one actual no-hitter to his name). He eventually focused on hockey as a member of the BCHS varsity hockey team.
But even in competition, Mike was generous. His fellow fantasy football league members share a fond memory of the time he brought a stack of fantasy football magazines to the inaugural draft. He was the best-prepared guy in the room (no one else knew what they were doing), but he graciously let everyone use his intel for their picks.
Mike was fiercely loyal to the New York Giants, but never enough that he held back on sharing what he thought of the team’s lousy performances on the field or in the front office. He saw the Giants win Super Bowls with some of his closest friends, and cherished the opportunity to buy Giants gear for their kids.
Mike courageously battled mental illness and substance abuse. In recovery, he became a student of addiction who was committed to sharing his experience and helping others afflicted by this terrible disease. He returned to school at the Hudson Valley Community College, where he studied Chemical Dependency Counseling. At HVCC, he was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Academic Honor Society, for academic excellence.
Always a self-driven learner, Mike was a trivia whiz capable of consuming and retaining enormous amounts of information about a wide range of topics. He never stopped picking up new hobbies, having recently learned to play the keyboard; or ceased developing new interests (he was a knowledgeable and successful investor in cryptocurrency, after spending months reading about the subject on Reddit.)
Over this past wretched year living through a pandemic, Mike was a source of comfort for many of his friends through group chats. He shared movie reviews and recommendations and delighted in dishing about high school memories. He readily offered his unique brand of banter on whatever the day’s topic.
He’ll be greatly missed.