1. Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Original Dream Team
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
SPRINGFIELD ­­ Fifty years ago this month and next, the
basketball world watched closely, and took notes.
As the young amateurs on the 1960 U.S. Olympic basketball
team rolled toward gold in Rome ­­ winning eight games by
an average margin of 42.4 points ­­ cameras rolled.
"It was amazing how many of the international people were
filming us while we were playing and practicing," recalls
Darrall Imhoff, a 21­year­old center on that 1960 team. "They
were watching the way we played so they could emulate us
later on."
Fundamentally "beautiful to watch," according to co­captain
Jerry West, the 1960 team's text­book influence on an
attentive world eventually led to the U.S. sending seasoned
mercenaries to Barcelona 32 years later to slam­dunk the
final vestiges of Olympic idealism, and remind all which
country had nailed up the peach baskets.
Both these famous gold­medal teams ­­ the 1960 amateurs
and the 1992 Dream Team that included Larry Bird, Magic
Johnson and Michael Jordan ­­ were among the 2010 class
of inductees into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of
Fame on Friday night.
Jerry Lucas, its co­leading scorer (17.0 ppg), says the 1960
U.S. Olympic team "created a spark in coaches and players
around the world." Pete Newell, the team's technically
brilliant coach, conducted clinics during and after the

2. Olympics, accelerating basketball's growth into a true world
game.
"Everybody catches up eventually," says Oscar Robertson,
the team's other co­captain and co­leading scorer. "You can't
beat a guy forever."
Eventually, U.S. college kids managed only bronze at the
1988 Olympics, finishing behind the Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia. USA Basketball felt compelled to unleashed
Larry, Magic and Michael on the 1992 Games in Barcelona,
the first Olympics for which the NBA professionals were
eligible.
"To say I'd be afraid of those guys ... absolutely not," says
West, when asked about a hypothetical matchup of the 1960
and 1992 gold­medal teams. "But to say we'd beat them, I'd
never say that. We were all amateurs."
The 1960 team featured nine future NBA players, including
the next four NBA Rookies of the Year: Robertson, Walt
Bellamy, Terry Dischinger and Lucas. (Robertson also later
won an NBA MVP award).
West, Robertson, Lucas and Bellamy are in the Hall of Fame
as individuals. Robertson is generally ranked among the 10
best players in NBA history ("Nobody was ever better," says
Lucas), and West is not far behind.
The remainder of the 1960 roster was Imhoff, Lester Lane,
Adrian Smith, Jay Arnette, Bob Boozer, Burdette Haldorson
and Allen Kelley.
Lane, the starting point guard, is deceased. Coach Newell,
also a Hall of Fame member as an individual, died two years

3. ago at age 93. Assistant coach Warren Womble, team
manager Dutch Lonborg and trainer Dean Nesmith are also
deceased. The rest of the "Original Dream Team"
re­assembled this past week in Springfield.
Directing comments toward the 1992 team during a press
conference on Friday, West said he and his 1960 teammates
received a $1 per diem while in Rome. "You guys did a little
better than that," he said.
The 1992 Dream Team stayed in a luxury hotel. The 1960
team slept in dorms in the Olympic Village. "It wasn't
air­conditioned , by the way," said West.
Among West's lasting memories of his 18 days in Rome in
August and September of 1960 is the heat.
But these were also the Olympics of Wilma Rudolph, Rafer
Johnson and Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali). In his 2008
book Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed The World,
Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss wrote that "almost
every action in Rome was viewed through the political lens of
those tense times." (The 1992 "Dream Team" was viewed
through a skeptical lens ­­ it seemingly being all about NBA
world marketing, not national honor.)
In 1960, Rafer Johnson became the first black athlete to
carry the U.S. flag at an Olympic opening ceremony. He
would win the decathlon.
"The gold medal (in basketball) was unbelievable," says
Imhoff. "But the greatest thrill I had was walking into the
Olympic stadium, behind Rafer Johnson and the American
flag, listening to the crowd roar when that flag came into the
sunlight.

4. "That was only 15 years after World War II," says Imhoff. "A
lot of those folks thought particularly highly of the U.S."
While the Games were happening in Rome, Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev was steaming toward the United Nations,
where he would bang his shoe on a desk while ranting
against "American imperialists."
The Cold War raged, as did the battle for civil rights in the
U.S.
Three weeks after the Games, Martin Luther King would be
arrested while waiting to be served at a whites­only
restaurant inside an Atlanta department store.
"In 1960, the racial unrest in this country was apparent," says
Bellamy, who is black.
Together on the gold­medal platform in Rome stood
co­captains Robertson, a 21­year­old black kid from
Indianapolis, and West, a 22­year­old white kid from rural
Chelyan, West Virginia whose older brother David had been
killed by an artillery shell in Korea.
"It shows the importance of sports in the world, and how it
has helped transform some of the thinking of people," says
Robertson.
Basketball had been an Olympic medal sport since 1936.
The U.S. still was way ahead of field in 1960. The 6­foot­11
Imhoff recalls "playing Ping Pong" over the heads of much
shorter Japanese players in Rome. "We were up there
tipping the ball back and forth until it finally went in," he said.
The U.S. won, 125­66.

5.
Eyes on the Russians
The U.S.'s primary focus was the Russians, whose coach,
Stepan Spandarian, publicly stated the 6­foot­5 Robertson
would present fewer problems than 6­foot­9 Bill Russell had
four years earlier in Melbourne.
The U.S. led the Russians by only seven points at halftime.
Imhoff says Newell then told the team: "We have to send a
different message to these guys. They think they can beat
us. We have to change their thinking."
Newell also didn't want to risk putting a close game in the
hands of international officials. The U.S. opened the second
half in a fullcourt press that sent the Russians into disarray.
Newell's team went on a 25­1 run and won 81­57.
The U.S. beat Italy (112­81) and Brazil (90­63) in its next two
games to win the gold medal.
Lucas had already won two state championships at
Middletown (Ohio) High School, a national title at Ohio State,
and later would win an NBA title with the New York Knicks.
West later won an NBA title with the Lakers. Imhoff had won
the 1959 national title while playing for coach Newell at the
University of California. He scored the winning basket with 17
seconds left to beat West's West Virginia team.
And still, they all say their proudest basketball
accomplishment was winning the 1960 gold medal.

6. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about those
days," says West. "I played on, I think, the greatest amateur
team that ever played."
Monday, April 19, 2010
Memories of draft day for local players
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
IN 1943 there was no ESPN, no Mel Kiper Jr.
Only WWII and the hope of making it home alive.
Ed Murphy was with the 1st Marine Division, on an uncertain
course that would soon plunge him into the hells of Peleliu
and Okinawa. A contract from the Pittsburgh Steelers was
forwarded to 1st Lt. Murphy of 12 Chippewa Street in Lowell,
who had been selected in the ninth round of the 1943 NFL
Draft before he shipped out.
The Steelers' offered Murphy $500 a game.
"I just sent it back," says Murphy, an end who starred at
Lowell High School and Holy Cross. "I wasn't interested. I
figured I wouldn't get back anyway."
The Steelers tried again in 1946 after Murphy made it home
alive as a decorated war hero. They flew Murphy to New
York, putting him up in a hotel, where he met coach Jock
Sutherland. Murphy spent five hours negotiating a $6,500
contract with the Steelers, as well as housing and the
promise of a nursing job for his wife, Justine, at St. Francis
Hospital.

7. But when Murphy arrived at training camp in Hershey, Pa.
that summer, the Steelers reneged on some of their
promises. Murphy left camp and tried to have his contract
transferred to the NFL's Boston Yanks. Unable to do so,
Murphy said so­long to the NFL and became the head coach
at Dracut High School ... for 48 seasons (1946­1993).
The 75th NFL Draft gets underway on Thursday. The draft
has snowballed into the second­biggest event on the NFL
calendar after the Super Bowl.
The first round this year will, for the first time, become
prime­time glitz. The draft's seven rounds also have been
expanded from two to three days of festive babble over
ESPN and the NFL Network.
Hundreds of hopefuls will watch from dorm rooms and living
rooms hoping Kiper will utter their names as being good fits
for whichever NFL team is on the clock. They will be
watching TV and waiting for a phone call.
Five years before ESPN first televised the NFL Draft in 1980,
Wilmington's Mike Esposito was drowning his predicament in
a Cleveland Circle bar when the Atlanta Falcons called his
apartment, looking for Boston College's all­time leading
rusher at the time.
Before he tore up a knee and shoulder during his senior
season at BC, the former Wilmington High star ranked on
some draft boards ahead of a running back from Division
1AA Jackson State ­­ Walter Payton.
But Esposito's stock plummeted. He grew tired of waiting for
the phone to ring on Draft Day. He left the Waltham
apartment where he and his wife Lee lived. He and a cousin

8. headed to a few of Esposito's favorite Cleveland Circle
haunts
During the seventh round (of the draft, not necessarily of
drinks), the Atlanta Falcons called Esposito's apartment.
"I'm sure he'll be back soon," Lee told the Falcons. "I'll have
him call.
She drove out in search of the 159th overall pick in the 1975
NFL Draft. She drove to a BC dorm where some of
Esposito's friends lived. She searched his favorite haunts.
She couldn't find him.
"By the time I got home, (Mike) had returned, and the
Falcons had called back," Lee recalls.
Esposito had knee surgery during training camp and missed
his entire rookie season. His best season was 1976 when he
averaged 5.3 yards a carry while gaining 317 yards and
scoring two touchdowns for the 4­10 Falcons. He stuck it out
for five injury­plagued NFL seasons, enough to qualify for his
current $1,100­a­month pension.
Occasionally while shifting in his sleep, lingering pain from
his football injuries wakes Esposito, a former Billerica High
coach who lives in Hampton, N.H. and runs a construction
company.
"I go to one Patriots game a year," says Esposito, 56. "All
that noise (over the speaker system), it's not a game
anymore. It's like a three­ring circus. But again, I'm old
school."

9.
During that same 1975 draft, Chelmsford's Bill Cooke, an
All­Yankee Conference defensive end, left the off­campus
apartment he shared with three of his UMass teammates and
went to the gym to work out his frustrations.
"I was told I'd be higher up on the list than where I ended up
getting drafted," he says.
The call for Cooke came in the 10th round, back when the
draft was 17 non­televised rounds. The voice on the line
sounded familiar to Cooke. Bob Lord had been a UMass
assistant during Cooke's first season in Amherst, after Cooke
transferred from UConn. Lord was now a Green Bay Packers
assistant under first­year head coach Bart Starr.
"Bill, I want you to sit down," Cooke remembers Lord saying
excitedly.
The Packers selected Cooke 243 picks after the Falcons
selected California quarterback Steve Bartkowski first overall.
"I was not all that excited," says Cooke. "It's disappointing (to
get drafted in the 10th round) after you're told you should go
in the fifth or sixth round."
"Only the first round or two was a big deal then," says Cooke.
"After that, it wasn't covered like it is now. People didn't go
marching into New York City to watch."
Cooke, 59, carved out a six­year NFL career, playing with
Green Bay, San Francisco, Seattle and Detroit before going
to work for Smith Barney on Wall Street. He has lived in

10. Fairfield, Conn., since 1979 and works in private investment
and real estate.
He says he is almost embarrassed by how little he knows
about today's NFL. He watches a few playoff games and
always the Super Bowl. That's about it.
On the second day of the 1988 NFL Draft, Lowell's Blake
Galvin took his dog, a chow mix named Bowser, to be
groomed. Galvin, a Boston College linebacker, had worked
out for a handful of NFL teams. He ran a 4.62 40 for the
Miami Dolphins and hoped some team would sign him as an
undrafted free agent. He didn't expect to get drafted.
Some of his BC teammates, more confident about being
drafted, invited Galvin to a draft party. He stayed home on
Wilder Street. He took Bowser for a bath.
When he returned home, Galvin was greeted by his excited
mother, Bobbie.
"The New York Jets are on the phone," she said.
"You're kidding me," Galvin replied.
Jets linebacker coach Jim Vechiarella called to tell Galvin
that New York was thinking of taking him with its 11th­round
pick, back when the draft was 12 rounds. He told Galvin to
hold the line.
"I stayed on the phone for what seemed like forever," says
Galvin.

11. When Vechiarella returned, he told Galvin, "Congratulations,
you're a New York Jet."
The Jets took Galvin 286 picks after Auburn linebacker
Aundray Bruce went first overall to Atlanta.
"That started the biggest party Wilder Street has ever seen,"
says Galvin. "I was literally stunned. Within an hour or so,
there were 50 to 100 people at my house."
A neighbor, Nick Mastas, brought Galvin a green satin replica
Jets jacket, which Galvin still has.
The Lowell High Hall of Famer played with the Jets and
Vikings during a four­year NFL career. He still lives in Lowell
and closely follows professional and college football. "But will
I plunk myself in front of the TV for three days and watch (the
NFL Draft)?" says Galvin, who works in sales for
Hewlett­Packard. "I wish I had the luxury of doing that."
There was no phone call to let Murphy know he had been
drafted by the Steelers in 1943. He found out when he read it
on the front page of the Tomahawk, the Holy Cross student
newspaper, before he shipped overseas. The contract found
him later.
Before Murphy returns to Florida each winter, the Tewksbury
resident spends fall weekends watching football games at
Holy Cross, Dracut High and Greater Lowell Tech (where his
son Dennis is coach). This fall he also plans to watch
Fordham University, where his grandson Griffin Murphy will
be a freshman quarterback.
Does the 77th overall pick in 1943 ever watch the NFL Draft?

12.
"No," says Murphy, who will turn 90 in May.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Ray Riddick was a Packer for life
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
While driving home from California with his family a few years
ago, Ray Riddick Jr. made a bloodline detour to Lambeau
Field.
He visited the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.
He sat behind Vince Lombardi's desk.
Among the displays was one featuring the great coach Curly
Lambeau's 1941 team, in tribute to guard Smiley Johnson,
killed by enemy shellfire four years later on Iwo Jima.
Ray Riddick Jr. proudly pointed to another man in the
black­and­white photo of the 1941 team. There among
Packer legends such as Clarke Hinkle, Don Hutson and Tony
Canadeo, all future Pro Football Hall of Famers, sat
24­year­old Ray Riddick of Lowell, wearing No. 5, four
Packers to the left of Smiley Johnson.
"All of a sudden I was getting the deluxe treatment (from the
staff)," says Ray Jr. "They gave me a behind­the­scenes look
at the museum. It's fabulous. It's Smithsonian in quality."

13. There is no question which team Ray Riddick Jr. will root for
while watching the Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers play for
the Vince Lombardi Trophy tonight in Super Bowl XLV. He is
geographically a Patriots fan. But the Packers were his
father's team. Today, this Westford resident is a
Cheesehead.
For before he became Lowell High's legendary football coach
from 1947­75, Ray Riddick Sr., who died in 1976 at age 58,
was one tough Green Bay Packer end for four seasons
(1940­42, '46). He played every snap on offense and defense
in a 1940 game against the Cleveland Rams, earning a
"60­minute club" lifetime pass to NFL games.
"He always had that in his wallet," says Ray Jr. "Every once
in a while he'd casually throw it out."
Ray Jr., 58, remembers a family trip to Green Bay during
construction of what became Lambeau Field ­­ The Frozen
Tundra ­­ which opened in 1957 as City Stadium.
"My dad took us over to where he had played, in the old
wooden stadium by the river, and there was a tear in his
eye," he says.
Lowell is separated from Green Bay football glory by only a
few degrees. Consider that Riddick played for Lambeau, the
team's co­founder, who coached Green Bay to six NFL titles.
Riddick earlier starred at Lowell High and then Fordham
University, graduating from Fordham three years after
Lombardi did. Riddick and Lombardi were Fordham
teammates for one year.
Taskmaster Lombardi became head coach of the Packers in
1959 after Green Bay went 1­10­1 in 1958 under Ray

14. "Scooter" McLean, an easy­going guy who played cards with
his players.
And where was Scooter McLean born?
Lowell, Mass. (though he became a high school star in New
Hampshire and attended St. Anselm).
So, the coaching struggles of one Lowell native moved
Green Bay to hire a former college teammate of another.
Then, Lombardi's first trade after becoming Green Bay's boss
landed from the Cleveland Browns a headstrong defensive
end named Bill Quinlan.
No, Quinlan wasn't from Lowell. He was from Lawrence, and
he never beat Riddick's Red and Gray when
Lowell­Lawrence was, in Riddick's later life, more important
than Packers­Bears. Quinlan was a mean run­stopper on
Lombardi's first two championship teams.
"My father had a great deal of respect for Lombardi because
Lombardi had started out as a high school coach (at St.
Cecilia in Englewood, N.J.)," says Ray Jr. "I recall my dad
saying, 'Gee, success came pretty late for him.'" Lombardi
was 45 when hired by the Packers.
Ray Jr. first rooted for Green Bay while watching the
televised 1960 Eagles­Packers championship game played
the day after Christmas. "That's the first time I remember
feeling 'this is my dad's team,'" says Riddick, "and that my
dad knew the head coach."

15. The Eagles, led by the NFL's last 60­minute man, Chuck
Bednarik, defeated the Packers that Monday afternoon at
Philadelphia's Franklin Field, 17­13, the only championship
game Lombardi lost as a head coach. The Packers and
Steelers today will play for pro football's holy grail ­­ the
Lombardi Trophy.
In the NFC championship game two weeks ago, the Packers
defeated the Bears, 21­14, in the storied rivals' first
post­season meeting since 1941. Seven days after Pearl
Harbor, in a playoff game won by the Bears, Green Bay's
starting right end was Ray Riddick, a second­team All­NFL
selection that season.
According to the Packers' 1941 game program, Riddick
"would rather play football than eat" and "aims to be a coach
and instructor."
As Lombardi became an American icon transcending
football, guiding Green Bay to five NFL titles from 1961­67,
including victories in the first two Super Bowls, his former
Fordham teammate from Lowell was coaching two of his
eight undefeated teams at Lowell High (ten undefeated
seasons not counting bowl losses).
Riddick turned down numerous offers to coach in college.
"He like being a big fish (in Lowell)," says Ray Jr., who
played for his father at Lowell from 1967­69, before playing at
Yale.
Several years ago, the Packers made a stock offering to
raise money to enhance Lambeau Field. Ray Jr. bought one
share each for his daughter, Sage, and his mother, Marjorie,
who died in 2004. "It'll never make any money," he says, "but
we do get invited to the annual shareholders meeting."

16. Ray Riddick had one career NFL touchdown, a 24­yard pass
from Cecil Isbell, in a game played in Milwaukee on Dec. 6,
1942. Don Hutson kicked the extra­point.
That touchdown was against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the
fourth quarter of a 24­21 Green Bay victory.
Ray Jr. hopes for a similar outcome today in Super Bowl
XLV.
"If Aaron Rodgers stays healthy, the Packers should do
okay," he predicts.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Greatness blew through town 40 years ago at the Golden Gloves
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
LOWELL ­­ Rocco Marchegiano ­­ before he became Rocky
Marciano ­­ won a New England Golden Gloves title here in
1948.
And 16­year­old Mike Tyson ­­ before he became a freak
show ­­ stormed through Lowell Memorial Auditorium in 42
ferocious seconds in 1983.
Sneak peeks at future heavyweight champions of the world,
right in our great fight town.
Part of the lore, and allure, of the Golden Gloves.
"It's just like the Spinners. You see some future stars come
through," suggests Bobby Russo, 58, a trainer and boxing

17. promoter from Portland, Maine, who is in his third year as
executive director of the New England Golden Gloves.
Russo learned at an early age to closely watch every punch.
At 10 he was in the fifth row at the Central Maine Youth
Center in Lewiston when Muhammad Ali knocked out of
Sonny Liston in the first round (Russo's uncle was the boxing
commissioner in Maine). Now he watches from ringside at
the Lowell Memorial Auditorium ­­ even on nights when local
novices are flailing away ­­ looking for that spark of boxing
skill that might have people telling stories someday.
"I saw a kid tonight, just a novice. But you see the head
movement and some natural ability," Russo was saying
during a recent Gloves show.
A spark of promise.
For sparks, nothing matches March of 1973. It was probably
the most athletic greatness ever in Lowell at one time. Only
the greatness was in the future. Nobody knew for certain
what would become of Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Aaron
Pryor, and Leon and Michael Spinks.
But all became famous world champions (Leonard and the
Spinks brothers also became Olympic gold medalists).
Leonard, Hagler and Pryor, in fact, became all­time great
champions.
They were among more than 300 amateur boxers competing
in the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions 40
years ago at the Auditorium. At least seven of those who
fought in that tournament became world champions (Hilmer
Kenty and Art Frias joining the aforementioned famous).

18.
"I was here in '73 as a spectator," says Jack O'Neil, a trainer
at Lowell's West End Gym. "I was a kid. I was boxing for Mr.
(Arthur) Ramalho back then. We all knew Hagler because he
was from around here (out of Brockton, fighting for the Lowell
team). But the general public didn't realize how good he was
or what he would attain."
An 18­year­old Hagler, his head already shaved, lost in the
156­pound national semifinal to Dale Grant, half­brother of
1972 Olympic gold medalist Sugar Ray Seales.
"I worked Hagler's corner when he got beat. Hagler came on
too late. Had a big third round. But came on too late,"
remembers Arthur Ramalho, 77, the owner of the West End
Gym, who is boxing in Lowell. "Then he turned around, went
up a class (to 165 pounds), went to the AAUs (six weeks
later in Boston) and walked right through it," adds Ramalho.
A week after that impressive AAU triumph, Hagler turned pro,
pocketing $40 for knocking out Terry Ryan in the second
round at Brockton High School. The future middleweight
champion of the world had left Lowell without a national title
­­ but with an enduring nickname. "Marvelous" was bestowed
on Hagler here during the 1973 Golden Gloves tournament
by The Sun's Rick Harrison. Nine years later, Hagler would
have "Marvelous" legally attached to his name.
Of the future world champions in Lowell in 1973, only
Leonard from Palmer Park, Md., won a national title here.
The talkative 16­year­old's "million­dollar smile" was the
subject of a story in The Sun. "I psyche my opponents out by
smiling at them," said Leonard, who would soon become
Sugar Ray. "They don't know what to make of it."

19. In the 132­pound final at the Auditorium, Leonard out­pointed
Hilmer Kenty, no slouch himself. Seven years later Kenty
became the first world champion out of Emanuel Steward's
Kronk Gym in Detroit when he stopped Ernesto Espana in
the ninth round of their WBA lightweight title bout.
"Leonard came in here with a good reputation. Everybody
was already talking about him back then," says Chaz
Scoggins, who covered the tournament for The Sun.
Leonard, Hagler and Pryor would become prime attractions
during boxing's last great Golden Age ­­ the 1980s. "Popular
eras are driven by those types of boxers," says Russo. "We
need that to get a shot in the arm for boxing. We're never
going away. We're going to have some highs and lows. But I
think it's a sport a lot of people relate to because of the
struggles these kids come from."
Of course, the national tournament, which Lowell hosted
again in 1995 (not as memorable a crop as '73), is more
likely to feature boxers who go on to greatness. Still,
Marciano, Hagler and Tyson are famous future champs who
fought here during the New England Tournament.
And even the Greater Lowell Tournament has been elevated
by the warrior spirit of Micky Ward, who inspires hopes and
dreams and great boxing movies yet to be made. Ward from
Lowell, a future WBU light welterweight champ, was a
three­time New England Golden Gloves champ. Yet on the
same night Tyson won the 1983 New England heavyweight
title (his opponent, Jim Rayborn, withdrew with a knee injury
that probably hurt a lot more after Tyson ripped through his
semifinal opponent, Jim Bisson, in 42 seconds) Ward lost
Rafael Matos in the 132­pound final.
"But Micky never got discouraged by a loss," says Joe Aliot
of Billerica, who was an eight­time New England champ, and

20. the "Outstanding Boxer" of that 1983 New England
Tournament. "Micky was always a tough kid. But he wasn't
always the champion or the toughest. But look what
happened to him later on."
The pro game better suited Ward's indestructibility.
Aliot, 50, started his own roofing business. He never turned
pro. He suggests you never really can tell who will be the
boxer someday played by Mark Wahlberg.
His impressions of future champ Tyson's 42 seconds of
boxing in Lowell?
"He wasn't anybody then," says Aliot, the 126­pound New
England champ that year. "He was just another tough guy
from New York. So what?"