Athlete Blasts Reporter For Calling Mid-Hudson Region 'Upstate'

A professional athlete was furious when a reporter said the Hudson Valley is "upstate."

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Eric Paschall is currently averaging over 10 points per game for the Golden State Warriors. The 24-year-old was a second-round draft pick by the Warriors in 2019. He's from Westchester County and played high school basketball at Dobbs Ferry. Yahoo Sports says he's from North Tarrytown. He played college basketball at Fordham and Villanova.

On Wednesday, Paschall helped the Warriors defeat the Indiana Pacers 111-107 in Indiana. For an unknown reason The Athletic's Bay Area columnist, Marcus Thompson asked Paschall this question.

"Eric, how much does the upstate New Yorker in your love this grind it out Eastern Conference?" Thompson asked Paschall during the postgame Zoom.

You can see a puzzled and annoyed look on Paschall's face when he hears the reporter say he's from upstate.

"I'm not from upstate," Paschall quickly replied. "Stop saying I'm from upstate though!"

"I proudly claim Westchester but we not upstate," Pascall wrote in another tweet. "I went to Fordham and it took 20 min to get home lol it take longer to get to Brooklyn from Fordham then it does to Westchester! Let that sink in."

Thompson later apologized saying the Hudson Valley is not upstate.

"I mistakenly said Eric Paschall was from upstate NY and he corrected me like three times," Thompson tweeted. "MY BAD. Hahahahaha
#DobbsFerryFinest #NYC."

The start of upstate New York is always debated. With no real answer known. Some say anything above New York City is upstate. Others believe upstate starts north of Poughkeepsie, where Metro-North ends. When Cynthia Nixon was running for New York Governor she said the Hudson Valley could not be classified as upstate.

In 2017, Public Policy Polling asked New Yorkers to define "Upstate NY." Below are the results.