This document summarizes an article about Tommy Glavine, a former Major League Baseball pitcher who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It describes Glavine's childhood in Billerica, Massachusetts and his close relationships with childhood friends who recall him always being a talented athlete. On the day of his Hall of Fame induction, his boyhood friends will be in attendance to support Glavine and are in awe of his accomplishments, though they remember him as just one of the kids from the neighborhood.

1. Tuesday, July 22, 2014
For Tommy Glavine and his boyhood running mates, loyalty is a
two­way street
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
BILLERICA ­­ Five days from now, their friend Tommy
Glavine will become a bronzed baseball god, immortalized on
a plaque that will hang in a hall echoing with Ruths, Cobbs,
Musials and Mathewsons.
Back in the old neighborhood of Tierneys, Crandalls,
McCaffreys and Ameses ­­ Billerica guys who knew all along
that Tommy Glavine kid was special ­­ they are nevertheless
trying to wrap their minds around the immortal Tommy
concept.
"I'm in awe," said Ed Tierney, a boyhood friend of Glavine's.
"He got to where he wanted to go, and he deserves it."
On Sunday, a firmly grounded son of Fred and Millie Glavine
of Treble Cove Road ­­ and an honor roll student from the
Billerica High Class of 1984 ­­ will be inducted in that most
sacred of American sporting shrines, the Baseball Hall of
Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
His boyhood buddies are never forgotten by Glavine, who is
always quick with a text from his home in Georgia. They will
be in Cooperstown for a surreal and emotional day.
"I'm sure he's going to be a bunch of nerves and emotions,"
said Paul Ames, who played hockey and baseball with
Glavine at Billerica High. "But I'm sure whatever he says will
be great."
Ames still thinks of Glavine in terms of his Billerica days.

2.
"In those days we didn't think about playing pro baseball or
pro hockey," said Ames, who was drafted by the Pittsburgh
Penguins and played at UMass Lowell. "It was about playing
with your buddies.
"But you still knew Tommy was special back then," added
Ames, 49, a production manager for the Boston Globe. "He
had that something about him. It doesn't surprise me that he
got where he is."
Tierney, 48, now Billerica's highway superintendent, grew up
at 73 Treble Cove Road, a few doors down from the Glavines
at 89 Treble Cove Road. He remembers waiting outside 89
with the other neighborhood kids for Tommy, a straight­A
student, to finish his home work.
"Millie had a tight leash on him," said Tierney, smiling.
"Whatever the season, we'd be out there playing ­­ street
hockey, Wiffle Ball, football, basketball," said Tierney. "We
had older kids playing, but Tom was always the first one
picked."
To Scott Crandall, it seems like yesterday he was picking up
Tommy in his Trans­Am for their Billerica High baseball
games and practices.
Crandall was playing right field on that Tuesday in Rockland
31 years ago ­­ so he still clearly sees center fielder Glavine,
after having pitched nine innings, fielding a single and
unleashing a lightning bolt to strike down an
already­celebrating Brockton High runner at the plate in the
bottom of the 12th inning of the 1983 Eastern Mass.
championship game.

3.
"The runner came around third base Bernie Carbo­style
(arms in the air)," said Crandall, who never tires of telling the
story, laughing each time. "He was so surprised. He didn't
slide or anything."
Glavine of course then led off the 13th inning with a single.
He scored the eventual winning run on a single by another
future big leaguer, Gary DiSarcina.
But that throw from center field remains The Legendary
Highlight of the Billerica Years of a baseball god­elect.
Glavine, then a junior, was interviewed after that game while
licking a strawberry ice cream bar. (Glavine last week said
that Brockton game still is in the top five of all games he ever
played in.)
Crandall, 48, a senior sales rep for the technology consulting
firm Ironside Rational Solutions, remains Glavine's best
friend. He remembers a night when Tommy Glavine the fan
and Tommy Glavine the big league pitcher came full circle.
Crandall was at a Bruins game with Glavine when Ray
Bourque, who was not playing that night due to an injury,
asked if the Atlanta Braves pitcher could sign an autograph
for his son.
When Bourque walked away with Glavine's autograph,
Crandall told Glavine, "That puts things in perspective. That
was one of your favorite players of all­time, asking you for an
autograph."
But quite famously around town, not everybody has always
recognized Billerica's own. Around 2 a.m. one morning about
10 years ago, a suspicious policeman pulled Crandall over as
he drove through Billerica Center with a two­time Cy Young

4. Award winner as his passenger. They were returning from a
benefit.
The officer asked to see Crandall and Glavine's licenses.
Crandall figured the officer would immediately recognize
Glavine.
He didn't.
"Kind of a long way from home, aren't we, Mr. Glavine?"
Crandall, with a laugh, recalled the officer saying as he
looked with suspicion at Glavine's Georgia license.
The officer called in Glavine's information to the station. "As if
he were a drug lord or something," Crandall said with a
laugh.
Crandall can still hear several voices over the cruiser's
scanner, imploring the officer, "They're all set!"
"That officer did not live that down for a very long time," said
Crandall.
Crandall said the ever­respectful Glavine not once during the
exchange said, "Don't you know who I am?"
There is a little of that little boy from Billerica still in the
48­year­old Glavine. Crandall's 19­year­old son Aaron, who
played on a state championship baseball team at Lowell
Catholic, sounds prouder to have once hit a walk­off homer
against Glavine in Wiffle Ball. "It was me and my dad against
him and his sons, and they really wanted to win," recalled
Aaron, who was 12 at the time.

5.
When Glavine was home in Billerica last December, this
1984 fourth­round draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings
shoveled off a nearby pond so he could join his kids and
others from the neighborhood in a hockey game.
Scott Crandall's older brother Dale Jr. treasures an Atlanta
Braves cap signed by Glavine several years ago in tribute to
his old deck hockey teammates. Glavine for a while
continued to play hockey with the old gang after becoming a
professional pitcher. "We tried to keep it quiet," said Dale
Crandall, 53, a general contractor. "He always wore a
padded sleeve on his left arm."
Mike McCaffrey, who played hockey at Billerica High on a
line centered by Glavine, can still hear coach Roger
Richard's basic instructions: "Get the puck onto Tommy's
stick!"
"You'd go dig it out of the corners and get it to Glavs," said
McCaffrey. "We called him 'Silk" because he was so smooth."
Back in the early 1990s, as Glavine's major league career
was gaining star traction, McCaffrey visited Cooperstown. He
remembers being struck by seeing Glavine on the cover of a
USA Today Baseball Weekly in a newspaper machine right
outside the Hall.
"So I grabbed a couple of copies," said McCaffrey. "I sent
him one. I penned something to this effect: 'Glavs, saw you in
Cooperstown this week. I hope you're there at the end of
your career.'"
Like Jim Bowley, the Little League coach who told Fred and
Millie Glavine when Tom was 10 that people would pay to

6. watch their son play someday, McCaffrey sensed way back
when that Glavine "was going on to greatness."
"There is a fine line between cockiness and assuredness,"
said McCaffrey, 49, now the athletic director at
Groton­Dunstable. "Tommy always had that assuredness
and confidence. ... You just knew he was in control, but he
wasn't cocky about it. He just knew his swagger.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Andy Winders shot to basketball fame while battling cystic fibrosis. At
36, he hasn't slowed down.
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
He plays basketball once a week, with his friends who are
doctors. If Andy Winders does not show up, his friends will
always call to get on him.
"They understand I am not contagious or anything," says
Winders, 36, who lives in Palo Alto, Cal. "They actively
encourage me ... My game is not as good as it used to be."
Eighteen years ago, his game was as good as sports get.
Digging deep for every breath, through thick mucus caused
by cystic fibrosis, he scored 35 points for Acton­Boxboro in a
Division 2 state­tournament semifinal in a packed Boston
Garden.
A memorable photograph shows a 6­foot, 150­pound
Winders face down on the parquet following that 77­74 loss
to Sharon High. He had just scored 35 points, including his
team's final 18 points, nearly rallying the Colonials from a late
12­point deficit.

7. Double­teamed with three seconds left and A­B down by two,
Winders looked to Rick Wurster, his best friend since they
were 6.
But his pass didn't connect. No matter.
"Outside of my family, Andy is the greatest influence in my
life," says Wurster, 36, a portfolio manager for Wellington
Management in Boston. "Seeing the process he had to go
through to make himself a great player is something I carry
with me to this day."
In that memorable photograph, a teammate reaches toward
Winders. Cheerleaders from Sharon High celebrate nearby.
Winders still recalls what he felt.
"It was just that realization it was all over," he says. "Four of
us on that team had grown up playing together (Winders,
Wurster, Mike Martin and Matt Napoli). And it was all over in
a second or two."
When it was over, Wurster, A­B's 6­foot, 2­inch center, told a
reporter, "I just wish I could loan Andy my lungs ... and see
what he'd do then."
Even with his impeded lungs, Winders was both The Sun's
Player of the Year and the co­MVP of the Dual County
League for that 1990­91 season. He was invited by the
basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield to be a special guest at
its induction ceremony. On a wall in his Boxboro home,
Winders' high school coach, Rich MacLeod, has pictures of
Winders that night with Bobby Knight, John Havlicek, Red

8. Auerbach, Howard Cosell, Bobby Knight and Mike
Krzyzewski.
Barbara Winders, Andy's mom, still has letters from parents
from across the country, who felt more confident allowing
their kids with CF to play sports after reading about Andy.
A Medford couple who had lost a niece and nephew to cystic
fibrosis one day showed up unannounced at Acton­Boxboro
High School and handed Winders the man's prized
basketball, autographed by the 1985­86 Boston Celtics. Like
Winders, those '85­86 Celtics were champions, concluded a
story in Sports Illustrated.
"We still have the basketball," Barbara Winders says.
Rick Kilpatrick, Acton­Boxboro's current basketball coach,
says hardly a day passes without someone asking him how
Andy Winders is doing.
Asked if he realized the full power of his story back in 1991,
Winders sounds amused over the telephone from California.
"I was really just playing basketball," he says.
He never saw himself doing anything more remarkable than
what his teammates were also doing, which made him more
remarkable in their eyes.
"A lot of kids in school didn't even realize he had (cystic
fibrosis)," says Wurster. "Never heard him complain once.
Never heard him use his condition as an excuse. He
downplayed it so much."

9.
The coughing was hard to ignore. Winders coughed up
mucus into towels during timeouts to stave off potentially
lethal lung infections.
"He would cough up and down the court," says Wurster, "and
then mid­cough, he would drill a three­pointer. He was
amazing."
He averaged 18.5 points per game during the 1990­91
regular season. He averaged 24.4 points in five state
tournament games.
"Andy was Dandy" read a headline in The Sun after Winders
scored 37 points in a 75­69 victory over Burlington in a
Division 2 North semifinal in North Andover.
"Everybody gets tired playing basketball," says Winders. "I
don't think I was ever totally exhausted ... Maybe I wasn't
trying hard enough (laugh)."
During his 13 seasons as a high school coach, MacLeod
often told players about his "All­War Team," those players he
would want on the court if his mother's life were on the line.
Andy Winders is the captain of that team, he says.
"I was dearly blessed to have on my team such a skilled
basketball player, excellent student and first­rate person,"
says MacLeod.

10. MacLeod never forgets Winders' birthday: May 7. "He just
turned 36," says MacLeod. "He seems to be doing well. I just
wish he was closer."
Advances in research and treatments continue to expand
and improve the lives of 30,000 Americans with CF.
According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF), few
children with CF in the 1950s lived to attend elementary
school. Today many with CF can expect to "live into their
30s, 40s and beyond," says CFF. About 1,000 new cases are
diagnosed each year. The median age of survival is 37.
Barbara Winders wishes Andy could come home more often.
"But he doesn't travel that well," she says. "Every time he
gets on a plane, he seems to get a cold."
Winders has lived in California since 2000. He is single. He
works in software quality assurance for VMWare. He
attended Brandeis University for a year, then transferred to
University of North Carolina, where his older brother Jon
attended school. Winders played one season on Dean
Smith's junior­varsity basketball team, and earned a
biochemistry degree.
WInders sensed basketball was therapeutic at a very young
age. Playing made him feel better. Mucus became dislodged
so it could be more easily coughed up. So he kept playing
until he became the best high school basketball player in the
area in 1990­91.
Winders considered his cystic fibrosis "mild" until it required
him to be hospitalized late in his college years. He has
participated in clinical trials for new drugs. Treatments are
considerably better than when he was younger. "They used
to say, 'try this, it might work,'" he says. "Now they know what
works."

11.
Once a year over a two­week period, Winders administers to
himself an intravenous treatment of antibiotics.
Besides his weekly pick­up basketball games, he is an avid
cyclist, trekking the northern California hills. He still loves
North Carolina basketball, though his sporting loyalties
remain entrenched in Boston: Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox.
Beyond that, "with his therapy, he really doesn't have a lot of
time for much else," says Barbara Winders. "He's very
aggressive with his treatment. He knows what works. He
talks to doctors about it. He's taken a handle on his therapy."
Winders' parents, David and Barbara, still live in Acton.
Andy's brother, Jon, is a consultant for ESPN. At "Great
Strides" fundraising walks for CF, the Winderses often meet
people asking about Andy. One couple with twin sons with
CF used to come to Great Stride walks with articles about
Winders that the boys had cut out. Those boys are now in
college, says Barbara Winders.
"I'm never Barbara Winders. I'm always Andy Winders'
mother," she says with a laugh. "He is a very courageous
kid."
The courageous kid is now 36. He weighs 165 pounds, 15
more than during his playing days at A­B.
Winders comes home at least twice a year. He meets
MacLeod for breakfast. Every few months, Wurster's
business takes him to California. He meets Winders for
dinner.
But Wurster does not play in Winders' weekly basketball
games.

12.
"I don't want to slow Andy down," he says.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Morris brothers left a legacy in Ayer and beyond
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
Thirty years ago next month, Jamie Morris, then an Ayer
High freshman, and older brothers Larry and Mike, both
seniors, lined up as part of the fastest and best high school
football team to ever whoosh through this area.
This brotherly blur across the autumn landscape occurred
three years after the oldest brother, Joe, a future Super Bowl
star with the New York Giants, moved on from Ayer, leaving
his school football and track records to be shattered by his
brothers.
Which is what Joe had hoped for.
"You set a trail, and then have them come after you," says
Joe, by then busy breaking the Syracuse University rushing
records of Jim Brown, Floyd Little, Ernie Davis and Larry
Csonka. "You want them to do well. I'm proud of my
brothers."
When Joe collected a track medal during his senior year at
Ayer High in 1977, a woman from North Middlesex Regional
respectfully told the future Giant: "I'm glad you're gone. But I
hear there's even worse news. I hear you have three younger
brothers."
Massachusetts probably has never seen another set of
athletic brothers like the Morrises, who moved to Ayer from

13. North Carolina when Joe was a seventh­grader and made a
significant impact well beyond the Wachusett League.
Joe, as a player, and Mike, as a coach, each has an NFL
Super Bowl ring. On the track, Mike on three occasions beat
Carl Lewis to the tape over 100 meters. Jamie is the
University of Michigan's all­time all­purpose yardage leader.
He also etched his name into the NFL record book on a cold
December afternoon in 1988.
Ayer's football coach in 1980, Owen Kilcoyne, once
described Larry to a Sports Illustrated writer as "a clone of
Joe ... only better than the original." Larry rushed for 1,939
yards and 33 touchdowns as a senior at Ayer in 1980 ­­
breaking Joe's records ­­ even though in most games he was
on the bench by halftime.
Ayer wrapped up an 11­0 season by burying Montachusett
Regional 50­0 in the Central Mass. Division 2 Super Bowl at
Fitton Field.
Larry remembers thinking after that game, "This is it?"
"We were looking for another game to play," he says. "We
were looking through (the MIAA program) at the pictures of
other teams (playing in Super Bowls) and thinking 'they don't
look so big.'"
One touch, one touchdown
Mike, the tallest Morris at 5­foot­9, is a former conditioning
coach for the New England Patriots (1997­99) and Tampa
Bay Buccaneers (2002­08). He is a personal trainer based in
Tampa, Fla. "The team we had at Ayer reminds me of teams
in Florida," says Mike. "They're fast."

14.
In five of Ayer's games in 1980, Larry scored the first time he
touched the ball.
"Everybody thought it was just the Morrises," says Mike. "But
there was a perfect storm of talent at Ayer at that time. Mike
Dolan was a great quarterback. Pat Scullane was a great
middle linebacker. We had so many great players. Coach
Kilcoyne, God rest his soul, knew what we had and was very
careful not to embarrass opponents."
That 1980 Ayer football team included the New England
champion 4x100 meter relay team (the three Morrises and
Neal Connor, who still holds the Massachusetts All­State
Meet record in the triple jump ­­ 49 feet, 6 inches). Mike says
that during one rout he dropped a fourth­down interception
on purpose, rather than take a clear sprint into the end zone.
"We'd always talk about wanting to take on Brockton or one
of the big schools," says Jamie, confident Ayer's speed out of
its Veer offense would have overwhelmed any
Massachusetts football foe.
"Eastern Mass. is like a separate state," says Mike. "They
always think they have superior athletes. They don't pay
attention to Central and Western Mass. It's always been like
that."
"But when track time came, we outran everybody," says
Jamie, who, like Mike, would become a state champion in the
200 and 100 meters.
Mike was the top high school sprinter in the country in the
spring of 1981. He ran a 10.31 to set a then­national
schoolboy record in the 100. Twenty­nine years later, his

15. meet records in the 100 at the Massachusetts All­State (10.4)
and New England Championships (10.36) still stand.
"When I look at that, I actually think it's sad," says Mike. "I
want somebody to have the same kind of hunger I had. Joe
always challenged us: 'Take it to the next level.' Records are
meant to be broken."
Larry and Mike followed Joe's road map to Syracuse, N.Y.
Larry never achieved football stardom in college or in the
NFL. "That first year at Syracuse, there was a lot of pressure
on Mike and I," he says. "As time went on, people realized
we were not Joe Morris. We were Joe Morris' brothers."
Larry later played professional football in Italy. And, despite
his brother Joe's vocal pro­union stance, he played in two
games as a replacement player for the Green Bay Packers in
1987, while NFL players walked a picket line.
"I was a union guy," says Joe. "But he's my brother."
"I didn't want Joe to hate me," says Larry. "But Joe said, 'I'm
not going to hate you. You do what you have to do and I'll do
what I have to do.' We still love each other."
On the track for the Orangemen, Mike became an
All­American in the 55­meter dash and still holds Syracuse's
records in the 100 (10.32) and 200 (20.52). He eventually
ranked in the top ten in the world in the 100 meters.
The next generation
The athletic genes run strong in the Morrises. Larry, 48, lives
in Montclair, N.J., where he coaches youth football and works

16. as a pharmaceutical salesman. He met his wife Jacqueline at
Syracuse, where she played volleyball. Two years ago, in
Sports Illustrated's annual "Where Are They Now" edition,
their daughter Meagan was tabbed as one of the best young
soccer players in the country, under the heading of "Where
will they be?"
Larry and Jacqueline recently dropped off Meagan in Chapel
Hill for her freshman season at the University of North
Carolina, which is the reigning two­time national champion.
"She plays soccer (aggressively) like me and my brothers
played football," says Larry. "I've never seen anybody play
soccer like my daughter. I'm biased, of course."
Larry's son Tyler was a youth football standout before turning
to soccer at Montclair High, where he is a junior.
Mike, 47, married an Ayer girl, Thomasina (Hunter). Their
son Travis, 11, recently won a national title in taekwondo in
his age group.
Joe's older daughter, Samantha, 23, played lacrosse at Duke
and Columbia, and now works in marketing for Barnes &
Noble. His daughter Blake, who also played lacrosse in high
school, is about to enter her junior year at Bowdoin.
Joe turns 50 next month. He lives in New Jersey, where he
sells insurance and real estate. He also works for the NFL as
a pro­line inspector, enforcing the player uniform code at
Giants home games.
The primary purpose of the uniform code is to protect
sponsorship logos. Players can be fined $10,000 (all money

17. goes to NFL Charities). Joe was one of the worst violators of
the code during his playing career, when the fine was $1,000.
"First of all, I would cut my shirt down as much as possible,"
says Joe. "Give them less to grab at. I would wear all white
socks. You could never see the blue.
"I would wear shabby white pants, my lucky pants. The year
we went to the Super Bowl, everybody got new white pants
for the playoffs. We washed my old pants, but they still
looked like crap."
To please league inspectors, Joe wore new white pants
during warm­ups for Super Bowl XXI at the Rose Bowl in
Pasadena. He then changed into his shabby old pants, which
he wore while rushing for 67 yards, including a 1­yard
touchdown, and catching four passes for 20 yards, in the
Giants' 39­20 victory over the Denver Broncos.
Joe is still Syracuse University's all­time leading rusher
(4,299 yards). He retired as the Giants' all­time leading
rusher, but is now ranked third. He led the NFL with 21
rushing touchdowns in 1985, was selected to two Pro Bowls,
and won that Super Bowl in January 1987.
Three months later, Ayer held a parade in his honor.
"To this day, I remember that parade," says Joe. "I felt so
honored. I never forgot where I came from."
Jamie did not follow Joe, Larry and Mike to Syracuse. He
became enchanted by Michigan's uniforms while watching
Rose Bowls on television as a kid. "I loved that helmet," he
says.

18.
Michigan coach Bo Schembechler rewarded Jamie's love for
the Wolverines ­­ and his desire to blaze his own trail apart
from his brothers ­­ with a scholarship. The great coach
envisioned the 5­foot­7, 177­pounder as merely a
kick­returner. Jamie does an impersonation of the late
Schembechler saying after a poor play, "The next time I think
of recruiting a 5­6 tailback out of Massachusetts, please, just
shoot me!"
Jamie seized opportunity when it came. He left Michigan in
1988 as that school's all­time leading rusher. He now ranks
fourth, but is still first in all­purpose yards. His name also
resides in the NFL record book: Most Attempts, Game ­­ 45,
Jamie Morris, Washington vs. Cincinnati, Dec. 17, 1988 (OT)
"I remember that I didn't jump out of bed the next morning
and run around," says Jamie with a laugh, recalling his 45
carries for 152 yards as a Redskin in a 20­17 overtime loss to
the Bengals on a cold Saturday afternoon at Riverfront
Stadium.
Joe says that before a Redskins­Giants game earlier that
season, a Giants teammate suggested taking a cheap­shot
at Jamie. Joe says he told that teammate, "If you cheap­shot
my brother, I'm good with you on Sunday. On Monday, I'll
kick your ass."
Jamie retired after three injury­plagued NFL seasons
(1988­89 Redskins, 1990 Patriots). For a while he lived,
ironically enough, in Columbus, Ohio while working for a
retail company that sold athletic logo T­shirts.
Jamie, 45, has lived in Ann Arbor for 17 years. Most recently
he raised funds for the Michigan athletic department. He is

19. co­host of a Sunday morning radio talk show during football
season on WTKA 1050.
The brothers were back in Massachusetts recently to attend
their nephew P.J. Morris' wedding. Mike also spends time in
the area as an assistant football coach at Lawrence
Academy in Groton. The patriarch of this remarkable athletic
family, Earl Morris, a former Army Airborne and Green Beret,
is retired from the post office and works at Gervais Ford in
Ayer.
"He's 78, still looking good, still intimidating," says Jamie with
a laugh.
Joe remembers his father driving him to Syracuse for his
freshman year. After a relatively quiet six­hour drive, Earl told
Joe there were three things he should remember: "One, don't
ever embarrass me. Two, don't ever embarrass yourself. And
three, if you forget everything else, remember, don't
embarrass me."
Earl then added in a certain tone, "In four years, I am coming
to a graduation ceremony here."
Mike believes he is more like his mother, Addie, who passed
away in 1995. "She never liked the limelight," he says. "As I
grew older, I found myself being more like my mother.
When Jamie recently drove to Massachusetts, his daughter
Kendall, 7, accompanied him. Jamie taught her about each of
the four states through which they passed. "When we hit
Ohio, I told her, 'This is that wretched place,'" quips Jamie,
who once rushed for 210 yards in a Michigan victory over
Ohio State.

20. Saying he is at the age "for tearing my Achilles," the
preferred exercise nowadays for the youngest brother ­­ who
once carried the ball 45 times in an NFL game ­­ is walking
his golden retriever "Sunny."
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Tales of some Spinners who didn't make it to the big time
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
LOWELL ­­ From the moment they arrive brimming with hope
and promise each June, reality and curveballs start to chip
away at the 88 percent.
From 1996 through 2008, 438 players suited up for the
Lowell Spinners of the short­season Class A New York­Penn
League. Fifty­four of those players ­­ or 12.3 percent ­­ have
played at least one game in the major leagues. (We'll give all
the boys of 2009­12 sufficient time to fulfill their big­league
dreams before updating that percentage.)
Infielder David Eckstein, a Spinner in 1997 who now is
semi­retired, has played in the most major­league games of
any former Spinner ­­ 1,311 ­­ none with the Red Sox.
Catcher Steve Lomasney, who played in Lowell in 1996, had
the briefest big­league career among former Spinners so far,
one game, the Red Sox's 1999 season­finale in Baltimore.
His career dipped after a serious eye injury suffered in 2001
when struck by a line drive during batting practice at Triple­A
Pawtucket.
But Lomasney, who runs the Show Baseball Academy in
Lawrence, did get to the big leagues.
Roughly 88 percent never will.

21.
Bobby Rodgers, the 'can't­miss' kid
Bobby Rodgers was one former Spinner most Lowell fans
were certain would make it.
During the Spinners' 1996 inaugural season, Rodgers, a
17th­round draft pick out of Wake Forest, went 7­4 with a
1.90 ERA. In 90 innings, the 6­foot­3, 220­pound right­hander
struck out 108 batters, including 16 strikeouts in a game at
Utica on July 3, 1996 and two other 10­strikeout games.
His strikeout marks are still club records.
Six players from that first 1996 Spinners team reached the
major leagues. Rodgers was not one of them. Today he lives
in Groveland, Fla., with his wife Heather, whose family has
grown oranges and blueberries for five generations. They
have three sons, ages 3, 2, and a newborn. Rodgers, 38,
works for Genentech as director of pharmaceutical sales in
Florida and Puerto Rico.
He jokes about never being told when he arrived in Lowell
that he might not make it to the big leagues.
Or that he might get traded for a back­up outfielder.
That December, Rodgers was home in St. Louis when the
Red Sox called to inform him he had just become the
player­to­be­named­later in the November deal that sent
journeyman outfielder Jesus Tavarez from the Marlins to
Boston. (Tavarez would hit .174 in 42 games for the 1997
Red Sox.)

22.
"I remember not understanding how this could be allowed
after the season I had," says Rodgers with a chuckle.
"Clearly I never had a year like (1996 in Lowell) again. Quite
frankly, after the trade, it took me about a year to recover.
The Red Sox had become like family."
He pitched four seasons in Double­A Portland, Maine, then a
Marlins affiliate. He was promoted to the Marlins' 40­man
roster in November 1998. He was chosen in 1999 to attend a
seminar in Washington, D.C., to educate prospects on coping
with life and temptations in the big leagues. The prospects
visited Bill Clinton in the White House.
In 2000, Rodgers was chosen to play in the Arizona Fall
League, another promising sign of being on a big­league
track. Blaine Neal, a friend who did pitch in the big leagues,
joked to Rodgers about knowing no other player who did all
that "and never spent a day in the big leagues."
In all, Rodgers pitched eight seasons in the minor leagues,
including parts of three seasons in the Triple­A Pacific Coast
League, "where pitchers go to die," he jokes.
His career ended with the Cubs' Triple­A team in Des
Moines, Iowa in 2003. Some players Rodgers knows struggle
still over becoming one of the 88 percent.
"My road was different," he says. "(Other players) had the
dream since childhood. Baseball kind of worked out for me. I
went to Wake Forest wanting to become an attorney. I just
happened to gain 20 pounds and five miles­per­hour."
"I have no regrets with baseball," says Rodgers. "I had a
wonderful season in Lowell and played another seven

23. seasons. Almost everyone in the big leagues I played with or
against (in the minors)."
Lowell 1996, in the clubhouse trailer at Alumni Field before
LeLacheur Park was built, remained Rodgers' favorite
baseball summer. He is still good friends with several of his
1996 teammates. "I can still pretty much tell you about every
road trip, about the music we listened to, about every game
of whist," he says. "A magical time with good friends."
Surrounded by stars
A right­handed submarine pitcher whose fastball topped out
at 82 miles per hour, Zak Basch went 3­2 with a 4.08 ERA
and tied for the Lowell team lead with six saves in 2003. He
was traded to Oakland in 2004 and released after pitching
that season for the Vancouver Canadians in the short­season
Class A Northwest League (1­3, 6.17, 23.1 ip).
But Basch, 31, has reached Triple­A ­­ as coordinator of
public relations and baseball operations for the Sacramento
River Cats of the Pacific Coast League, the Oakland A's top
farm club.
When Brandon Moss passed through Sacramento on his way
to Oakland this season, Basch asked if he remembered them
being teammates in Lowell in 2003.
"We played together," Basch told Moss.
"No (bleep)," said Moss.
"He didn't remember," Basch says with a laugh.

24.
Of 40 players who suited up for the Spinners in 2003, five
made it to the big leagues (Moss, Jonathan Papelbon, David
Murphy, Matt Murton and Abe Alvarez).
At one point that summer, Basch's locker was between those
of future big­leaguers Murphy and Murton, both 2003
first­round picks who received signing bonuses exceeding $1
million.
"I signed for 1.5 thousand dollars," says Basch, a 13th­round
pick that June out of Nevada­Reno.
Basch remembers players in Lowell talking about who would
make it. Even though Papelbon's ERA that summer was
6.34, his teammates knew this quirky fourth­round pick from
Mississippi State "had it."
"He was on his own planet, and that's not necessarily a bad
thing," says Basch with a chuckle. "We would joke that he
was going to be on the mound at Yankee Stadium in a 1­1
game someday and be oblivious to the pressure."
"I was always honest about my talent," says Basch. "There
are guys you think are going to make it. I didn't think I would."
When the radar gun at Sacramento's Raley Field recently
broke, Basch oversaw the repairs. He had not thrown a
baseball with any purpose in six years, but let loose one
fastball to test the repair job.
The radar gun worked.

25. "Sixty­six (miles per hour)," Basch says with a laugh. "But our
gun is slow, so maybe I throw 70."
Man in blue remembers
Married with two children, Jeff Keaveney is a Westboro
police officer and a qualifier for the North American
Strongman National Championships in Mississippi in
November.
"That's my (athletic) love now," says Keaveney, 36, who
during the Lowell Spinners' first two seasons was a 6­foot­5,
240­pound first baseman from Framingham taken by the Red
Sox in the 16th round of the 1996 draft out of Southern
Maine.
Keaveney batted .249 with four homers and 20 RBI in 49
games in 1996, and batted .204­7­29 in 1997.
Two years after leaving Lowell, struggling to hit at Class A
Augusta, Keaveney was released by the Red Sox.
"On my way out the door in Augusta, the guy replacing me
was literally coming in the door," he says with a laugh. "I
wasn't even out of my locker and the new guy is standing
behind me with his bag. It's the pros. If you're not performing
well, they have somebody who can replace you."
His baseball career then took a nightmarish turn. That
summer, Keaveney caught on with the Waterbury (Conn.)
Spirit of the Independent Northern League. In an Aug. 9,
1999 game in Allentown, Pa., Keaveney went after a foul pop
and a broken bat hit the left side of his head, fracturing his

26. skull. Emergency surgery was needed to relieve pressure on
Keaveney's brain.
"I had to learn to speak all over again," he says.
He battled back to earn an invitation to the Minnesota Twins'
minor­league camp in Fort Myers the following spring but
was released.
Keaveney is writing a book about his baseball experiences.
His working title is taken from a Yogi Berra quote: "You can't
think and hit at the same time."
And you can't always tell future big­leaguers at first glance.
Eckstein, Keaveney's Lowell teammate in 1997, would play
1,311 big­league games and nine years after Lowell be the
World Series MVP as the St. Louis Cardinals' shortstop.
"Oh my god, I remember his first batting practice in Lowell.
He was choking way up, and couldn't get the bat around,"
says Keaveney. "Then he was at second base lobbing
grapefruits to me at first.
"Then he got a chance to play. He never wowed you. He just
got the job done every single day. Consistency is what
they're looking for."
'My life had to go on'
SoxProspects.com's scouting report described Kade Keowen
as a "big, tall center fielder with five­tool potential.
Phenomenal athlete."

27. That report also pointed out the 6­foot­5, 215­pounder's
struggles with breaking pitches.
A ninth­round pick in 2007 out of LSU­Eunice, Keowen
batted .207 with one homer and 15 RBI in 39 games for the
Spinners in 2007 and .222­0­13 in 42 games in 2008. Today
he teaches social studies and is an assistant baseball and
football coach at Denham Springs High outside Baton
Rouge, La.
"It's a big rival of the high school I went to," says Keowen, 26,
who played baseball and football at Central High School. " I
have to hide when I got to a restaurant in my old town
(laugh).
"Football is huge down here."
After his two seasons in Lowell, Keowen hit .241 with 10
homers and 32 RBI in 85 games at Greenville in 2009. In
spring training 2010, he appeared in a Red Sox major­league
spring training game in Sarasota against the Orioles.
"I was on­deck when the game ended," says Keowen. Two
days later while minor­league meal money was being passed
out, Keowen was told Mike Hazen, then Boston's farm
director and now an assistant GM, wanted to see him.
"Never a good thing," says Keowen. "I knew then."
After being released by the Red Sox, Keowen played 35
games that summer for the Sussex Skyhawks of the
independent Can­Am League. "When I was released there, I
was thinking, 'What am I going to do?' " says Keowen. "I had

28. played baseball since I was four years old. It took me some
time to get used to the fact my life had to go on."
So he returned to LSU to finish work toward his degree in
sport administration and volunteered as a baseball coach at
a local high school.
"I fell in love with coaching," says Keowen.
His first summer not playing baseball, Keowen worked to
earn his teaching certification. This past school year he was
head baseball coach and assistant football coach at False
River Academy in New Roads, La. He has moved on to be
an assistant in both sports at Denham Springs High, a school
of 1,800 students, which is more than 10 times the size of
False River. His new school has a running back headed to
Arkansas and defensive linemen headed to LSU.
"I almost always loved football more than baseball," says
Keowen. "I was just always better in baseball. So I figured I'd
better go play baseball."
And he loved playing before packed houses in Lowell. "When
you're in the minor leagues, you never want to go to the
same place twice," says Keowen. "But when that place is
Lowell, that's not a bad place to go back to."
Sunday, April 21, 2013
My summer with Michael Jordan
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear , dpevear@lowellsun.com
GROTON ­­ If their paths ever do cross again, Glenn
DiSarcina believes his old Birmingham Barons teammate
would remember him.

29. But they roam different galaxies.
DiSarcina lives in Shirley and is the baseball coach at Groton
School. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever ­­
and most famous .202 hitter in Double­A baseball history ­­ is
majority owner of the NBA's woeful Charlotte Bobcats. The
two were teammates 19 years ago, riding through the
Southern League in a $350,000 luxury bus provided by a
Birmingham, Ala., tour company in exchange for Jordan
appearing in a magazine advertisement.
DiSarcina was then a 24­year­old shortstop and Celtics fan
from Billerica, who the year before spent time in the Chicago
White Sox's big­league camp during spring training. Jordan
was a 31­year­old who hadn't played baseball since high
school ­­ but did just win three straight NBA titles with the
Chicago Bulls before announcing he was burned out on
basketball.
A priceless photo shows DiSarcina with his left arm around
the world's most famous athlete as they sat in a dugout at
Engel Stadium in Chattanooga. A photographer from The
Birmingham News was watching Jordan's every step,
DiSarcina recalls.
"I said, 'Hey take a picture.' And I put my arm around
(Jordan)," says DiSarcina. "Michael Jordan has this look like,
'Get this kid away from me.'"
DiSarcina also laughs recalling looks on the faces of kids
working at a McDonald's somewhere in the middle of
Alabama when the Barons bus pulled up late one night.
Jordan, whose famous McDonald's commercials with Larry
Bird first aired the year before, walked in and ordered a Big
Mac.

30. "The kids couldn't blink," recalls DiSarcina. "They couldn't
believe it."
On the team bus and inside the Barons clubhouse, Jordan
was just one of the guys, says DiSarcina. He just had a lot
more walking­around money. The team had a Dominican
catcher named Rogelio Nunez. Jordan took it upon himself to
help Nunez improve his English. He offered Nunez $100
each time the catcher correctly spelled a baseball term that
began with a certain letter. Jordan would give Nunez the
letter the day before and tell him to study overnight.
Unbeknownst to Jordan, Nunez's studying consisted of going
to his English­speaking teammates for a cheat list of possible
terms. "I think he made $2,000 before Michael caught on,"
says DiSarcina.
DiSarcina remembers walking into the clubhouse one day
and seeing a new pair of Air Jordans at each locker. Jordan
was generous also with golf clubs. Four players' names were
picked out of a hat to appear with Jordan in a Gatorade
commercial.
"I didn't get picked," says DiSarcina, who all the while
remained focused on trying to get to the big leagues. He
batted .257 with seven homers (team­high), 26 doubles, 57
RBI and 10 stolen bases in 118 games for the Barons that
summer of SRO in the bushes.
"I'd be in the on­deck circle thinking about some tough
left­hander I'm about to face. I'd look in the dugout, and there
would be Chi Chi Rodriguez," says DiSarcina with a laugh.
He recalls seeing also Ted Koppel and Charles Barkley in
Birmingham that summer.
The national media frenzy swirling around a Double­A team
that would finish 65­74 re­intensified after major league
players went out on strike on Aug. 12. The Barons manager

31. deftly handling it all was Terry Francona, for whom DiSarcina
played three seasons in the minors and to whom he remains
intensely loyal. He was upset by the Red Sox's treatment of
Francona in 2011, but likes the Red Sox again. DiSarcina's
older brother Gary, who managed the Lowell Spinners from
2007­09, returned to the Boston organization last December
and is managing the Triple­A Pawtucket Red Sox.
With curveballs and sliders and splint­fingered cruelty,
baseball is humbling even for an American icon who dunked
over Patrick Ewing. Jordan earned his teammates' admiration
for his determination to fight through failure and improve. He
was driven by the memory of his father, James, murdered the
pervious July, whose favorite sport was baseball. Jordan
during his one summer as a Double­A outfielder batted .202
with three homers, 51 RBI and 30 stolen bases. (He then
batted .252 in the Arizona Fall League.)
"He was a great teammate. He worked extremely hard," says
DiSarcina. "If he had come out as an 18­year­old and worked
strictly on baseball, he would have been in the big leagues in
four or five years. For athletic ability, nobody was better."
Except for maybe Bo Jackson. Except by the time DiSarcina
saw Jackson with the White Sox in spring training in 1993,
"even though he hit the ball a ton, he couldn't run anymore."
Glenn vs. the Rocket
DiSarcina was called to the big league club that spring
training to start an exhibition game against the Red Sox. The
game in Fort Myers was televised on NESN. "It was before
cell phones," says DiSarcina. "I was trying to get in touch with
my parents so they would watch. When I got to the ballpark
and saw (Roger) Clemens warming up, I went to a payphone
and called home."

32. DiSarcina, a left­handed batter, hit an opposite­field double
that one­hopped the wall, his first time up against Clemens. "I
get to first base and Mo Vaughn slaps me on the backside.
He says, 'way to swing the bat, kid.'
"At that point, I'm thinking, 'OK, I'm done. It's not going to get
any better than this,'" jokes DiSarcina.
DiSarcina never did reach the big leagues like his brother
Gary, who was the Angels' starting shortstop for seven years
and an American League All­Star in 1995. After being a
14th­round draft pick of the White Sox in 1991 out of UMass,
DiSarcina seemed on track until sideswiped by shoulder
injuries. A damaged long thoracic nerve in his right shoulder
ended his career in 1997 at age 26.
Doctors had told DiSarcina it might take two years for the
nerve to regenerate itself. DiSarcina waited a year. He felt no
improvement. So he got on with his life. He and his wife
Peggy had a young son, Cameron, now an 18­year­old
shortstop at Groton School likely headed to Merrimack
College. DiSarcina's daughter Caitlyn, 13, is an eighth­grader
at Groton School who plays soccer basketball and lacrosse.
"I wouldn't trade it all for anything," says DiSarcina. "If I had a
second chance in baseball, I honestly wouldn't do anything
differently. I just wouldn't get hurt."
Some of his arm strength did come back. DiSarcina, 43, who
operates a manufacturing and sales rep business for
software companies, throws a mean batting practice. He did
so on occasion for the Spinners when his brother Gary was
Lowell's manager. He is limbering up to throw BP this
summer in Pawtucket. The pitching coach there is Rich
Sauveur, whom DiSarcina has not seen since they were
teammates at Triple­A Nashville in 1996.

33.
Maybe galaxies will bump and DiSarcina someday will see
the teammate he has his arm around in the priceless
photograph. That summer of 1994, DiSarcina and Larry
Thomas, a Barons pitcher from Winthrop, often joked with
Jordan about Larry Bird. Bird had retired two years earlier,
having won three NBA titles as a Celtic.
"We'd gang up on MJ about the Celtics," says DiSarcina.
"We'd say, 'you scored 63 in a playoff game and still lost ­­
because you didn't pass.'"
After his baseball summer in Birmingham, Jordan won three
more titles in succession after returning to the NBA.
"I think Michael outdid Bird in the end," says DiSarcina.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Westford man's Olympic experience was one remarkable journey
Sun, The (Lowell, MA)​ ­
Author: ​David Pevear
WESTFORD ­ He still has never set foot in Armenia, under
whose red, blue and orange flag he proudly competed in the
1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
Westford resident Joe Almasian hopes to visit his ancestral
homeland someday.
"It's on my bucket list," says the 46­year­old father of three
and youth soccer coach who plays in an Over­the­Hill Soccer
League on Sunday mornings in the fall.

34. Never on his bucket list was driving a two­man bobsled for
any country in the Winter Olympics. But their spirit of
adventure and deep respect for their Armenian heritage
pulled Almasian, a mechanical engineer who grew up in
Sherborn, Mass., and his brakeman Kenny Topalian, who ran
an auto repair shop in Pawtucket, R.I., to Lillehammer 20
years ago to establish an Olympic foothold for a newly
independent Armenia. They did so with a second­hand
bobsled rented from the American Samoans for $1,500.
Both were athletic. Almasian, 26 at the time, had played
soccer and run track for the University of New Hampshire.
Topalian, then 30, had been a hurdler in high school. They
grew up participating in athletic and cultural activities within
the Providence chapter of the Armenian Youth Federation
(AYF).
Their talents were known to Paul Varadian, a former
Providence AYF member and U.S. bobsledder with strong
Olympic connections, determined to plant Armenia's flag on
the Olympic stage after independence was secured with the
breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"The quickest entry was through the sport of bobsledding,
which I was familiar with," says Varadian, 60, who lives in
Newton. "I reached out to them because they were both
athletes and both nearby and they were willing to give it a
shot."
Almasian remembers being at work at EMD Millipore in
Bedford (where he still works) when Varadian called
sometime around Thanksgiving 1992 with his Olympic idea.
"While I appreciate sports and athletics, and very much love
participating in them, I can honestly say it was never my
dream to become an Olympic bobsledder," says Almasian
with a smile.

35. Not long after that phone call, Almasian was speeding down
a bobsled run at a beginners' camp in Calgary, where he and
Topalian became properly licensed. "Because you actually
need a license to drive these," says Almasian.
In the beginning, they started each run from halfway up the
track, reaching 50 miles per hour, about 30 mph slower than
competition speed. "We didn't die, so we agreed we'd give
(the Olympic quest) a try," says Almasian.
Every Friday night thereafter during the winter of 1992­93,
Almasian and Topalian drove six hours to Lake Placid, N.Y.
They stayed at a motel or at the Olympic Training Center.
The bobsled run was open three hours each morning on
Saturday and Sunday. They borrowed 1960s­vintage sleds
which they welded back together after each bumpy learning
run.
They eventually hired a coach, Jim Hickey, a former U.S.
bobsledder who lived in the Lake Placid area. Hickey would
remain their coach through the 1994 Olympics. Almasian and
Topalian shared Hickey with the Greek and American
Samoan teams to spread the costs. They spent nearly
$20,000 of their own money on their Olympic adventure.
"We say we had two sponsors," says Almasian. "I sponsored
Kenny, and Kenny sponsored me."
There were no guarantees their investment would all pay off.
The Olympic dream Almasian never dreamed still seemed a
wild dream.
To meet Olympic qualification standards, Almasian and
Topalian needed to obtain Armenian citizenship and compete
in at least five international races on three different tracks
over two seasons. The only two tracks in North America at

36. that time were in Lake Placid and Calgary. So for their final
qualification step they raced in St. Moritz, Switzerland not
long before the Olympics.
"I think we gained one World Cup point for finishing last,"
says Almasian.
Varadian handled the politicking to secure temporary
Armenian citizenship for the bobsledders, which required a
decree by Armenia's then­president Levon Ter­Petrosyan.
Almasian recalls it being 2 1/2 weeks before the Opening
Ceremonies in Lillehammer when they got the green light.
They were nearly joined on that first­ever Armenia Olympic
team by one other athlete. Arsen Harutyunyan, an Alpine
skier from Armenia, fell short on a qualification technicality
but carried his country's flag at the 1994 Opening
Ceremonies and skied in two future Olympics. Marching in
Lillehammer
An eight­member Armenia Olympic delegation, featuring
Almasian and Topalian as its only participating athletes,
marched at the Opening Ceremonies in Lillehammer. "It was
held in the ski­jump area. It was freezing cold. The stands
held only about 3,000 people," recalls Varadian. "I remember
Kenny saying, 'Gee whiz, this is no big deal.'" So Varadian
pointed to a nearby television camera. "See that," he told the
two bobsledders, "that is one billion people."
They marched not far behind "America" (countries march in
alphabetically, according to the host country's native tongue),
so a glimpse of the Armenian flag was seen on CBS' telecast
to the United States.
"The sad part is we had everybody back home pumped up to
watch us," says Almasian. "I think my boot enters the screen,

37. and then they cut away to something else." An Armenian
reporter, serving as the team's press attachc, arranged a
press day for any reporters who might want to interview
Almasian and Topalian. "We figured at least a couple of guys
would be there," says Almasian.
The two were shocked to arrive to a room packed with
media.
"We were happy to sit there and take questions," says
Almasian. "Come to find out later, though, just randomly
through a scheduling process, our press conference was
between Tonya Harding's and the Italian skier Alberto
Tomba's. Those who had their front­row seats for Tonya
Harding wanted to keep them for Tomba."
But Almasian and Topalian were a story. The New York
Times' Ira Berkow wrote about the two hoping someone in
Armenia, "where the electricity and gas aren't working and
people are cold in their homes and food is scarce," knew of
what they were doing and felt proud.
What began for Almasian as a quest to honor his
grandparents, who escaped their homeland following the
1915 Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turkish
government (which has denied it occurred), gained a
competitive edge. "There was the Armenian­spirit side of me,
for sure," says Almasian. "But the athlete in me wanted to be
as competitive as possible within our knowledge of the sport."
At least they weren't last
In Lillehammer, Almasian and Topalian successfully
completed their four bobsled runs over two days. They
finished 36th, an aggregate nine seconds behind the gold
medal­winning Swiss but ahead of seven other sleds. The

38. Jamaicans, inspiration for the movie "Cool Runnings"
released the year before, finished last, disqualified for an
overweight sled.
"My boss had told me he'd let me take a leave of absence to
go to the Olympics, but 'you'll have to beat the Jamaicans,'"
says Almasian with a smile. "In fact, we did beat the
Jamaicans ... but with an asterisk."
In the blink of an eye, as they crossed the finish line on their
first run, Almasian and Topalian noticed two Armenian flags
being waved above them by a group of proud Norwegian­
Armenians.
Almasian's wife Kim, his fiancee at the time, flew over to
Lillehammer to surprise him. Almasian's only regret is that
the return flight he booked brought him home before the
Closing Ceremonies.
He has not been in a bobsled since Lillehammer 1994.
Armenia has sent teams to every Olympic Games since
Almasian and Topalian paved the way. The country has won
12 medals at the Summer Games, none yet in the Winter
Games.
Almasian has never received any official acknowledgment
from Armenia for his Olympic service. He and Topalian after
returning from Lillehammer were presented with Olympic
rings made by a jeweler of Armenian descent living in
Canada. Almasian kept his racing helmet and suit. He brings
them out on occasion when speaking at church and
civic­group functions.
He also has the medallion given to all the participants in
Lillehammer (along with a silver cheese slicer with the
Olympic logo).

39.
And he is proud to have been an Olympian.
"It's fun to tell the story to people who know me, but don't
know that part of my history," says Almasian, who has lived
in Westford for 10 years. "For me, it was a proud moment."