GUILDERLAND — Frank Pezze III does a lot of things — relaxing isn’t one of them.

Even on vacation — he’s gone to Cape Cod since he was 9; he’s now 70 — he organizes games and parties. This includes a tournament with a silver chalice award for a beach paddle-ball sport he tweaked for competition. Dancing, he says, is exercise too.

When Pezze was named Guilderland Community Center’s Citizen of the Year in 1994, he told The Enterprise his organizational skills — which he used in his career as an engineer working for the state’s Department of Transportation as well as in putting together a variety of sports leagues — came from being the oldest of six siblings and “organizing your brothers and sisters to do stuff.”

As a 12-year-old boy, just after his family moved from Colonie to Guilderland, Pezze started “Fort Woodsman,” a club named for its headquarters, a long cabin in the yard. Pezze, as president, presided over the other members.

He works together with all kinds of people, not just his siblings. In 1994, he noted he was the only born-in-America employee in his work section. His boss was Chinese and his co-workers were from India, Greece, Malaysia, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, and Peru.

“It’s like working at the U.N.,” he said then.

Through all these years, since soon after he graduated from Guilderland High School in 1970, Pezze has organized a basketball league for adults. The men recently celebrated their golden anniversary — the celebration was delayed by two years because of the pandemic.

“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for all the past and present players. Their dedication, commitment made it possible to occur the last 52 years,” Pezze said, also crediting the school district for providing the gym space.

Pezze grew up in an active household. His father, Frank Pezze Jr., was raised in poverty in Sheffield, Massachusetts in what Pezze terms “a wooden tent” because his home had no plumbing or electricity and was heated with a stove.

“My father came from nothing and became a millionaire,” said Pezze.

After serving in the Army, his father used the G.I. Bill for college — first, the Junior College of Albany and then Siena — and became an insurance salesman. For years, he ran Pega Risk Insurance Company in Guilderland.

His mother, Dorothy Pezze, after raising six children, worked at Pega as a bookkeeper. She is still alive, living at home at 93.

All of the Pezze kids were active in sports although the girls, before Title IX, didn’t have the same opportunities as the boys.

Mary Ellen was born in 1954 and so didn’t get to play any school sports but was an avid skier as was the entire Pezze family.

Kevin, born in 1956, was quarterback on Guilderland’s football team and later at Alfred University; he also played baseball. Dan, born in 1957, was captain of Guilderland’s soccer team and also played at Geneseo.

Eileen, born in 1960, and Kathleen, born in 1962 were both Guilderland cheerleaders. Eileen was on the tennis team, and Kathleen ran track.

Frank, the oldest, born in 1952, played football at Guilderland, wrestled, and ran track. He hated baseball, he said, because there wasn’t enough action.

He broke his wrist junior year and, once the cast was off, broke it again — but didn’t tell anyone because he wanted to wrestle.

Later in college at Syracuse University, he walked on for a tryout at the soccer team and was one of 24 players chosen for the team.

It was during his college years — he started out at Hudson Valley — that Pezze missed team sports and asked the Westmere Elementary principal, Jim Cleary, if he could use the gym.

“I had a lot of energy,” he said. “I had to do something …. Everybody wanted to do something. I just started calling people up.”

Since there were no after-school youth sports back then, the young men could play in the Westmere gym Monday through Friday after 5 p.m.

Pezze took a short break from the league he’d started in 1973 to go to Syracuse.

In his absence, two friends — Charlie Finn who has been Pezze’s friend since he was 5, and Mike Hennet — ran the league.

When Pezze returned in 1976, he continued recruiting former Guilderland classmates to join.

By 1982, they were playing in the larger gym at Guilderland High School and paying $15 per person for a year of use.

Along the way, Pezze created several tournaments — the first was the Westmere Cup followed by the Christmas Classic.

At the same time, Pezze was coordinating football, soccer, basketball, and racquetball leagues for the town.

In 1991, a new gym was built at Guilderland Elementary School, which was better than the high school gym at the time so the league played there on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

In this century, the Christmas Classic was moved to the beginning of the season and was called the Coronary Classic. If, after taking the summer off, you could survive the grueling early season workout, you probably had a good heart, said Peze, explaining the name.

Pezze’s heart is good in the figural as well as the literal sense. After college, he served as the best man in Mike Hennet’s wedding and fell in love with the woman serving as maid of honor, Sue Avellino, a 1973 Guilderland graduate.

They married in 1976 and have four children, all daughters, and all active in sports. Jennifer, Meghan, Ashley, and Frencesa all played soccer for Guilderland as well as other sports.

“I’m lucky my wife let me out of the house,” Pezze said of the years he organized and played sports while their children were young. “She knew I needed to do that.”

Over the years, pizza and beer have followed the games, and friendships have formed.

“I always was a social guy … it was just in me,” said Pezze.

He set up the tournaments so people had fun, he said. “The teams get mixed up all the time … It’s more about exercise and having fun than winning,” he said. “It’s a release. I was born with energy.”

Pezze went on about his abundance of energy. “It’s a little bit of a curse. People your own age fade out. Now I’ve got my sons-in-law playing,” he said. “That keeps up the energy levels.”

Off the court, Pezze is organizing gatherings, too — and not just for the regular vacationing Cape Cod crew of 40 people or so.

Right now, he is coordinating a family Christmas party for about 60 people.

“I can’t relax,” Pezze concluded. “I’ve got to be doing something.”