CHAMPION OF THE HEART


By Peter Vuono

     Back in the 80's I did security for Walter Kowalski's wrestling shows at Brockton High School.
One evening a wrestling legend, Johnny Valiant, walked in. After asking where he could buy his cherished Parodi cigars the conversation immediately centered on Rocky Marciano." Did he live very far from here? asked the former World Tag Team Champ. I've read so many books about him; I really try to follow him."
    Yes, all those that come to our city ask about Rocky, a great champion and one of the greatest athletes of all time. However what few of these visitors know is that he had a nephew who was an unbeaten champion of the heart.
When I met Peter , he was in his freshman year at Brockton High. I was bowled over by his sincerity and his enormous capacity to befriend people. One couldn't help but love him.
    We became friends and Peter trained with me in my ramshackle  garage gym. Even today, when I went out there , his lifting belt still hangs on a cobwebbed slab of sheet rock 30 years later. Peter and I shared many interests and he became like one of the family. He babysat  for my infant daughter and went to Wrestlemania I with me in 1985. On par with his befriending everyone was his unparalleled capacity to love.
   During  Peter's senior year I had in my special Ed. class a puckish rapscallion of a student named Ray. Ray was tough in both the discipline and the learning departments. I needed an ultimate weapon in helping him to succeed. Along came Peter. I asked him to tutor Ray one to one. When Pete Marciano walked in, it might as well have been Arnold or Lou Ferrigno! Ray looked at Peter as if a deity walked in.
   Pete worked his magic and Ray looked up to his new role model and friend.  Never before had I seen a needy kid like Ray get won over so easily. When I think of Christ saying" If you did it for these, the least of my brethren...", I think of Peter and the many wonderful students like him who devoted their time to my kids.
   Peter was a bigger than life person whose capacity to love and lift spirits was second to none. When I think about the last line of Brian's Song where Jack Warden says of Brian Piccolo," I don't think about how he died but how he lived", this is how I look  back at him. I can only think of the way he made me smile.
   Yes, we do have a great champion athlete  from Brockton in the name of Rocky Marciano; but Rocky had an equal who was a champion of the heart. His name is Peter.

"Remembrance is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven from"- Bruce Lee