 Our second inductee is Anthony D. Francisco. Anthony played four seasons of baseball from 2002 through 2005 and batted 356 in 138 career games with 167 hits and 103 runs batted in. He was a Northeast Athletic Conference first team selection as a senior after batting 383 and being the fourth toughest in the nation to strike out. Yes, I think his confidence and his charisma was infectious and it led to us, you know, playing better as a team. You wouldn't think he ever doubted anything. He doesn't, he doesn't show that. If he does, none of us know it or no one would know it. And just from my experience, just playing ball with him, he's just, he is the most super talented person you would ever meet. He doesn't even need to try and it just comes and everybody on the team, any team I've ever played with him is, they love him. He also had this confidence about him that, you know, we could be going against the best team or the worst team and he had the belief that he always thought he was the best player, whether he was or not, he believed that and I think that made him a great player. You know, he believed that he was never gonna make an error. He believed that he was gonna go for for four and that I think, you know, would make any athlete better than they are and that made him a really good baseball player. And I think that anyone that meets Anthony, that actually has the opportunity to sit down and hang out or stand up and hang out with Anthony, they're falling in love with him. There really is no way not to, unless you can't handle a strong personality which he is. You know, like I said, I met him on a field and then we hung out one night and it was like, we were like best friends after that. He was the best man in my wedding. You know, he became, that's how good of a friend we became. He ended up being the best man in my wedding. So you can't say much more about a person than that that you, you know, is that important in my life. One year we were playing, we were down a few runs and he was up the bat ahead of me. He was I think batting third and I was batting fourth and there was runners at second and third and we were down, we were down two runs and we needed those runs to tie up the game. And all year he'd been knocking in the RBIs ahead of me and you know, I went up to him and said, you know, get the job done. And of course he went up first pitch and got, you know, hit a double into the gap, knocked in the two runs and tied up the game. And that pretty much was, you know, the culmination of his whole college baseball career was, you know, every time we needed that hit, he got the job done. From the class of 2005, it is my honor to welcome Anthony DeFrancisco into the Dick Watts Athletics Hall of Fame. So about 12 hours ago, I had no idea what I was going to say. And we're down on the field earlier and we're hanging out with all the incredible inductees that are going on with us. And Tony gives me a little nudge and she's like, I got to tell you something. And I was like, I'll say, what's that? She's like, I was a freshman when you were a senior. And the first thing I remember was they told me that if I wanted to find the best party to talk to DeFranc. So I thought, honestly, I was like, well, you know, I left my mark on this school a little bit in, you know, in one way. So when Brett called me, I was probably the most shocked person because I thought maybe they had some new type of category that they were introducing into this. But this weekend has been absolutely incredible from the golf tournament to the football game to this banquet. It's been a great time for my family and my best friends. And it's something that I'll never forget. Now, I am an incredibly lucky guy, to be honest with you. I've had an incredible life with baseball. And my first memory, and I'm not just calling him out because he's sitting there taking a video of me right now, but my very first memory of baseball was when I was three years old. And my mom had the run of the store. So I had a brother who's 10 years older than me. I was a pleasant surprise, as my parents say. So he's out back. We had a basketball court, a little slab of concrete in the backyard. And he was out there skateboarding. And as a three-year-old who absolutely idolized his brother, I was bugging the ever-living crap out of him to try what he was doing. I said, I want to try that. I want to skateboard. So finally, he let me. And two steps later, I had a broken leg. And so my mom comes home. So next thing you know, my first memory, I'm in a wheelchair at three years old. And my mom was in the backyard pitching me wiffleballs. And I'm taking batting practice with my legs stuck out. Just take it a swing. My second memory probably is when I was in eighth grade, the coach came up to me and took me aside and said, we're going to have a van come up that they're going to pick you up about 45 minutes earlier from school. And you're going to go up and play with the high school team. Now, that is an incredible recognition. I was just so happy to get out of school 45 minutes early. So a great moment turned, unfortunately, into a terrible moment, because that first game, I was playing third base. I'll never forget, we were warming up. I was turning double plays with the star quarterback that was a senior. And I made one throw. And immediately I knew that something went wrong. And I ended up tearing my labrum and my rotator cuff in the same throw. So a great moment, unfortunately, turned into a bad moment. But it was a moment that just wasn't a setback. It was just something that, hey, things happened. We have to work through this. So my incredible parents looked into ways that I could rehab. And they found this unbelievable AAU program that I went to strictly just for rehab. And I met the coaches. I met the players. And the next thing you know, a fire was lit under me that I already had, because I had such a passion for the game of baseball. 260 days a year, 175 games a year, I was playing. I got the chance to travel the country. I went to Florida, San Diego, Mexico. I played in countless major league fields. And I saw so many great things. And the culmination of that was I got to go to the University of Notre Dame. There was a showcase out there. It was in front of all 32 major league teams, the top 100 colleges in the world, or I'm sorry, in the country. And I got to play baseball for four days. And just the memories that I have from being a part of that team were incredible. So I did what anybody would when they were senior year. I grabbed my parents and I said, I'm not gonna play baseball anymore. So as incredible as they were, they sat me down and they were okay with it. I don't know what it was. I don't know what maybe made that decision, but I decided that as a senior that I was gonna play baseball. And it completely turned my, obviously recruiting experience around. I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing. It was, I think it was October of my senior year. So then we started touring colleges that I hadn't gone and seen. And I honestly didn't know what I was gonna do. And then I got an incredibly timely phone call from the then assistant coach, JT, who was my head coach the entire time. He did a little ego-stroking, which at the time was fantastic. So honestly, when I decided I wasn't gonna play baseball anymore, I was all about the academics. I wanted something, I wanted a school. I wanted something that I could go to and have a one-on-one relationship with professors and faculty and everything. Because my brother went to Penn State, main campus. So I'm eight years old. I go up there and I see a town, literally a town. And I was like, oh, I couldn't handle this if I was him, you know? So I wanted something that really at the time was as a student athlete, they put the student first. And when JT called me, it brought everything back. And I was like, not that I had forgotten about Stevenson or Village League because I definitely had not, but it was like, wow, at this point, once I decided I wasn't gonna play anymore, this was the school that I really wanted to go to. I fell in love with the Stevenson campus with just how picturesque it is as you drive up to it. And I was like, oh my God, this is it. I'll never forget, I'm sitting in my shower and mom, and of course my amazing mother comes sprinting in because she thinks something's terribly wrong. And I was like, I know where I'm going. Get the phone. I said, I'm gonna go to Villa Jolie. And they were, they were just so happy. And they knew that, honestly, they knew that it was the right one. So they were like, are you gonna play baseball? I said, damn right I'm playing baseball. So it was just, it was such a, I'll never forget that moment, that epitome of realization that this was the school that I decided that I was going to go to and I was going to dedicate myself to and a program that I was going to dedicate myself to for the next four years. And, you know, as an amazing as a moment of this is, and this is probably the greatest honor that I've had, none of this is possible without my mother and father. The time, the effort, the travel, they went every single place that I went whether it was freezing cold upstate New York to beautiful San Diego, California, every game, every moment, they were there for us. So I feel like as great of an honor as this is, I feel like I'm really not getting ducted. I feel like my mother, my father, or the two that are actually getting ducted. So if you could give them a second, give them a round of applause, because this absolutely has nothing to do with me. I was just, I was gifted an incredible talent from God that I worked my butt off for. And they just gave me the opportunity to do whatever I wanted to do with it. And, you know, it led me, you know, to this moment right now. And, you know, looking back, you know, that moment when I was in eighth grade and I made that throw and I hurt my shoulder, if I could go back to that exact moment right before I made that throw and I could say, hey, because you change it, because you stop it. Because it sucked, I'm not gonna lie. I knew deep down in my heart at that time before I would have made it somewhere. I honestly believe that, but I wouldn't change it because the moments that it led me to and the places that I got to see and travel with my parents and just the experiences that I had, I had my two best friends that I would never have met, had any of this ever happened. I would have came to this beautiful school, I had the best four years of my life here. And, oh my God, am I really choking up right now? Woof! You know, everything led to this. So, I wouldn't change a thing for the world. So, I wanted to take a quick second before we wrap this up that I wanted to thank Fred Adams because I know I didn't make it easy for him. When I was in school, you know, we're not gonna get into details, but I definitely did not make his job easy. Miss Fran, I don't know where you're at, but she was the most, oh my God, I still love her to this day. When she sent me the first email, I said, oh my God, I have to see Miss Fran. I was the happiest person in the world. But, Fred Adams, JT, who honestly, Ray was my first coach, my freshman year, but JT was the one that stuck us in that line and vouched for me in so many different areas. That, honestly, if it wasn't for him, I would have been here because he was the one that truly recruited me. And it's the faculty, the staff, because I practice on tennis course and in a gym. And to see where this incredible university has come, it's amazing and it's because of you guys and all the hard work that you guys have given in and it's a dedication that you saw through and it's not the end yet because there's so much more to go, but as somebody who unfortunately lives too far away to come back here very often, to see the transformation that this school has grown to is incredible. And I wanted to thank you guys because I can't imagine what you guys have gone through to make this school and make this campus and this incredible university what it is today. So we can give the athletic department a round of applause. Thank you. So thanks to Tonya, I figured I had it. Now I have an ending, so hold on, I need a glass of wine real quick. So I couldn't let my reputation down to being a part of your go. So I wanted to give a salute to all the inductees tonight, all the former inductees, all the incredible people that worked there, bought off to put this incredible event on every single year for this campus. So everybody, if you have a trick in your hand, please raise it and join me to the class of 2018. Salute.