Page 10 THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2026 Back to the Future: Revere’s Golden Age in sports hits home from a then-young sports reporter’s point of view By Joe McConnell Y ou can never forget your fi rst job, or in this case your fi rst newspaper job in a city that was fi lled with personality in both politics and sports. In my case, I was in charge of sports from the youth levels to high school and beyond for the erstwhile Revere Reporter, starting in 1981. It was a labor of love for nine years, but the bond that was developed with the coaches and athletes was broken on a fateful Friday afternoon in July 1990. The economic whims of that era unfortunately caught up with me and the rest of the Reporter staff . It was an emotional time. Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t going to see these people again on an everyday basis. The job loss was made triply diffi cult, because I was also the sports reporter for the Reporter’s Winthrop and East Boston publications. As I moved on to other North Shore newspapers, including The Advocate newspapers, the lessons I learned from those experiences made me a better journalist. Revere taught me that it was important to get to know people to do this job eff ectively, and that point was hammered home just a couple of weeks ago, when I ran into Sal Bottari in a Somerville post offi ce. Bottari was a diminutive point guard star on several of those Revere High School boys basketball teams of the 1980s. He currently lives in Swampscott with his wife Houda and daughter Afi a, a Merrimack College student. Sadly, I didn’t know him at fi rst, but he remembered me right away. We talked for several minutes about the good old days. He even showed me some reunion photos of the athletes that I covered regularly. He told me that they’d get together a few times annually, and inevitably the nicknames that I gave many of them would come up in those conversations. That was my unique style back then to separate myself from the competition. I guess it worked all these years later. But Sal told me why it might have worked back then. In essence, he would say, it was a part of a bigger picture, where individuals were allowed to create their own styles. But in his own words, he said, “coaches and players had their own styles in the 1980s (from the local level to the pros), while today’s athletes lack real identities. They all play the same.” Sal talked about the “great rivalry games” back then in the Parks & Recreation Youth Commission and Junior High School Leagues. He attended the McKinley School, and he loved competing against his friends on the Beachmont, Lincoln and Paul Revere teams. McKinley won the Junior High title in 1982 with Bottari as its point guard. The late, great Peter DiGiulio was the team’s head coach. Peter passed away just two years ago in 2024. “We had tremendous rivalries back then among all four schools, but we were also taught to be good sports,” Bottari said. “Those playoff s were best of three series, and after each game we’d go home and watch the Celtics play the Sixers or the Big East schools on TV. Pro and college coaches and players had their own identities, and that style of play fi ltered down to us. It was a great time to watch and play sports.” Parks and gyms were always fi lled with kids playing games all the time. “They’d turn out the lights at the old Hill Park, when we just wanted to play. We had to go to the nearby fi re station and begged them to put the lights back on,” Bottari said. But they also had allies in the Parks Department “(Bob) “Ace” McCarrick kept score at our outdoor games,” Bottari said. McCarrick’s colleagues Roger Naples and Helen Papa also had the kids’ best interests at heart, along with their boss Lee Rizzo, who was the Parks commissioner during the 1980s. One of Sal’s favorite youth coaches was Danny Anderson. Danny, who passed away in 2007, was the longtime coach of the Talisman. “Danny Anderson was a great coach, and was years ahead of his time,” the diminutive point guard said. “He’d take money out of his own pocket to buy us uniforms and jackets, plus pizza after games.” Sal also played on Revere travel teams, and Paul Carrabes was one of his coaches. Paul was also active in Pop Revere High School boys basketball teams from the 1980s get together regularly with their head coach Kevin McCann. Here’s a few of them as they are today, from left, Sal Bottari (Class of 1987), Mike Merullo (Class of 1985), McCann, Steve Terrazano (Class of 1985) and Jim Diaz (Class of 1985). (Courtesy photo) Former McKinley School boys basketball coach Peter DiGiulio, left, gets together with Sal Bottari, one of his star players in the 1980s, decades later over lunch. DiGiulio passed away in 2024. (Courtesy photo) Warner football. He got involved in coaching, when his nephews, Brian and Michael, were playing youth sports. Their dad Bob also coached those teams. Later on, while playing Babe Ruth baseball, Brian became Ol’ Lionhearted for his passion to compete, another nickname that they credited to me. Legendary Revere athlete Joe Merullo, right, is with former RHS boys basketball star Sal Bottari at a recent 1980s RHS sports reunion. Merullo, the ageless wonder, was a RHS physical education teacher and Jewish Community Center athletic director throughout that decade. (Courtesy photo) It led to other nicknames that I gave to Revere athletes. Sal remembers the Vitamin B-12 Kid Todd Santoro, who’s currently working as an appraiser in New Hampshire. Another one of his teammates, Billy Myers, whose famRevere High boys basketball stars of the 1980s stay in touch with each other frequently. At a recent reunion, Jim Diaz, Chris Rose, Bob Catinazzo, Peter Lattanzi, Mike Merullo, Sal Bottari, head coach Kevin McCann, Paul Nardone, Mike Passariello and Steve Terrazano, from left, showed up to reminisce about those glory days. (Courtesy photo)
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