Bill Dermody has a history of stepping up. Over a late breakfast — English muffin, no coffee — at Fresco, he recalled how he became the voice of Needham High School sports, broadcasting hundreds of games over the past decade or more.
His son Michael had come home from college looking for a sports media job and briefly landed as sports producer at The Needham Channel. “He called me up and said, ‘Dad, do you want to do a game?’ I go, ‘What do you mean, do a game?’ He goes, ‘Come and we’ll stand on the sidelines with a microphone and talk about what we see. Just like we talk when we go to games together.’ So I did that.”
His son’s stay was brief, but Dermody has continued with enthusiasm. “In the fall I’ll do boys soccer, girls soccer, girls volleyball. And now I do football, which is really fun. I do it with Matt Borrelli and we have a blast. Then basketball and hockey in the winter and lacrosse and baseball and boys volleyball in the spring.” Sportscasting was perhaps the natural followup to coaching youth sports for Dermody. “I never wanted to be on the sidelines watching, so I coached all of my [four] kids’ teams. I coached over 100 teams.”
Although stepping up to run for state representative may be the 64-year-old’s biggest commitment yet, one would be hard-pressed to say it doesn’t fit a pattern. He became a Town Meeting member at 20 while still in college. He sits on the boards of the Exchange Club, Needham Community Television, Friends of the Traveling Meals and several regional and national realty organizations. He serves as the liaison between the real estate profession and the offices of U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss and state Rep. Denise Garlick.
But, said his close friend and neighbor Laura Brooks, Dermody hasn’t just been building a resume. “He is not the type that volunteers and then does nothing. He is the one who turns the lights on and opens the doors. You need someone to show up and referee, he’s the guy. I think that’s one of the coolest things about him is that he just loves to be involved and loves to be around people and loves to do things and loves to be effective.”
Brooks, Dermody and their (now) spouses became friends at Boston College in the early 1980s. After graduating, they shared a two-family house. When the Dermodys moved back to Needham where Bill had grown up, Brooks bought the house across the street. She laughs about the couples vacationing together (which they still do) when the Dermodys had children and she and her husband did not. “I mean, who does that?”
Brooks said she appreciates the example Dermody set for their children. “On Wednesdays, he delivers Meals on Wheels. He knows all the people and cares about them. When our kids were on school vacation, he’d bring them. ‘Okay,’ he’d say, ‘let’s go.’ Meals on Wheels. I think that’s cool. He showed our children what it means to volunteer and get involved and take care of your community.”
Dermody learned those same lessons from his parents and grandparents, all active in the Needham community. “My grandmother, Frances Dermody, was the first executive director of the Needham Community Council. My understanding is that like back in the sixties, if you wanted anything done, you went to her and Bob Day of the Needham Bank.” Even their home is a Needham legacy — Dermody and his wife are the third generation to live there.
There’s one group, however, Dermody did not join: the Democratic Party. Like most Needham voters, he was unenrolled. Thinking about running, he asked for a meeting with Denise Garlick. “I met her on March 11, I think it was at that booth there,” he said, pointing to another table at Fresco. Garlick was very encouraging about his plan to run in the Democratic primary. “All of a sudden, I saw a light bulb go on over her head. She said, ‘Wait, I think you have to be a registered Democrat by a certain date.’” They looked it up, and he had missed the deadline by about three weeks. “So I’m running as an Independent. It’s hard because a lot of people are confused because they don’t understand how I go straight to November. There’s no unenrolled primary, right? So the three Democrats that are running, you know, one of them will win and they’ll run against me in November.”
Dermody said that his politics do not always align with Garlick’s. “We’ve had our disagreements. I think the far right and the far left are crazy. So I feel like the middle is a better position to be. And some [issues] I might lean this way and some I might lean that way.”
History says that when it comes to Needham, Dermody leans in.
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