That was the bet every year over the Cortaca Jug between Jones and his old high school coach, Ken Baker.
"I went to Cortland, he was an Ithaca guy," said Jones, the head football coach at Hoosick Falls. "Ithaca beat Cortland, so I owed him a milkshake." Chuckling, he added, "There was nothing worse than buying that milkshake."
Just like that milkshake bet, everything was a competition for Baker, Jones said of his friend and mentor.
According to the Aiken Standard, Baker died suddenly Wednesday playing in a pickup basketball game in Aiken, S.C., where he and his wife, Ann, had a winter home. The former Cambridge and Hoosick Falls football coach was 69. He is survived by his wife and three children. Funeral arrangements are still pending.
Friends expressed shock on hearing of his death, but they all said the same thing -- it figured that he was competing at something.
"Ann said he died with his sneakers on," said Bob Ford, Baker's golfing buddy and head football coach at the University at Albany. "He was a battler, a fierce competitor, but he did everything the right way. I will miss him tremendously."
"He was so fit, always in great shape -- he's one person you never thought he was going to pass away like that," Jones said.
"It didn't matter what he was doing, he was competing," said Cambridge head coach Doug Luke, who coached under Baker for many years. "It could be checkers, a pickup basketball game or playing a round of golf -- he strived to win. He was the most intense person I ever met. As a coach, you want that spirit, and the kids feed off that."
Baker's death hit both communities hard. He was revered as a teacher and coach in both towns, a man of integrity who always made time for people.
"There's not a better man than he was," Luke said. "He got me my jobs, he taught me an awful lot. You couldn't have a better man to work under or be friends with. He was something very special to so many people, so many kids over the years that he coached and taught."
"He was the most down-to-earth man I ever met," said former Mechanicville football coach John Taglione, another longtime golfing buddy of Baker's. "He enjoyed the simplest things in life. He wore his feelings and his opinions on his cuff. He was everyplace he had to be -- he made room in his schedule for people."
Baker -- who taught physical education and also coached wrestling -- was known as the architect of successful football programs at Hoosick Falls and Cambridge. He coached from 1972-95, leaving Hoosick Falls in 1986 to take over the struggling Indians program and building it from the pee-wee level into a state-level powerhouse.
"He dug this community out with the football team," Luke said. "The last 20 years of football at Cambridge are what he built. I haven't changed much of what he did. He started it, we just continued on."
Cambridge arrived as a football power in 1992 when the Indians snapped Watervliet's 36-game winning streak with a 7-6 upset in the Section II Class C final. Cambridge then defeated Saranac Lake in the state semifinal, 21-20, on the double-lateral touchdown pass simply known as "The Play." Cambridge was ranked No. 1 in the state Class C poll at the end of the season, one year before the state championships began.
Baker retired after the 1995 season with a final career record of 151-61-6 and four Section II titles. He is a member of the state high school football Hall of Fame.
But Ken Baker was so much more than wins and losses.
"If I painted a picture of the ideal husband, father, teacher, coach, American and patriot, my picture would be Kenny Baker," Ford said. "He brought out the very best in everyone around him."
Baker was always ready to help someone in need, whether it was a student who needed advice or someone who needed a place to stay, Luke said. And he was a tough taskmaster on the gridiron.
"He was a good X's and O's coach, but his real strength was communicating to people and getting the most out of his kids," Luke said. "He was tough on the kids, but they all liked him. The kids he was toughest on probably loved him most."
"He was a real powerful influence on two generations of kids," Jones said. "He was able to command respect because he cared about every single kid. He built respect one kid at a time. He was that other guy besides your parents that kept you flying straight. There were two edges to that -- you wanted to make him proud, and you didn't want to let him down."
Even after he retired, Baker would visit the sidelines of his former players and coaches -- Luke, Jones and La Salle's Al Rapp.
"He kept up with us from the day he left till the day he died," Luke said.
"He was a great mentor and friend," said Rapp, who succeeded Baker as head coach at Cambridge. "Even at La Salle, he'd always call me up after a game. Ken was always giving to other people. He cared about kids. He never gave up on kids. He was everything that coaches and teachers should be."