Student a knockout boxing historian

BANGOR – Many college seniors aren’t sure where they will start their working or professional careers. Not so for Aris Pina of New Bedford, Mass., a senior at the New England School of Communications on the Husson College campus.

It is going to be as close as he can get to a boxing ring. That was ordained way back when the 22-year-old was about 9 and was watching his first fight on television, a championship bout between George Foreman and Michael Moorer.

The fight was going Moorer’s way until a late round when the 45-year-old Foreman caught Moorer with a right hand and knocked him out to gain the title. Pina says he went bonkers to see his favorite win.

“As a youngster I thought I was going to be the new George Foreman. I planned to go to McDonald’s every day to bulk up on hamburgers and shave my head to be like him. It didn’t work out,” the slender senior notes somewhat ruefully.

Growing up, he and his buddies were so entranced by boxing that they would collect bottles for cash, use it to buy oranges, eat the oranges and save the peels for mouthpieces before duking it out as though they were in the ring.

Pina’s hopes for being a prize fighter died early despite his gym training. So he immersed himself in the history of boxing and became so proficient at accumulating facts about the sport that at 19 he became the youngest person ever elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame committee.

“I’ve had Carmen Basilio slap me upside the head and have had a number of conversations with Marvin Hagler, but I think what most impressed the IBHOF members was my knowledge of the exploits of such people as the Cocoa Kid, Holman Williams and Luis Estaba,” Pina said.

It didn’t hurt that at 15 he won a Boxing Jeopardy contest by some 3,000 points. In fact, some current boxing historians have labeled Pina as the next top boxing historian, especially since he has come under the guidance of Hall of Fame historian Hank Kaplan.

Of all the boxing headliners of the past, who has made the biggest impression on Pina? It’s Jimmy Bivins, whom he met in his first visit to the Boxing Hall of Fame at Canastota, N.Y.

“He’s the last one alive who fought Joe Lewis, and I believe he was an uncrowned champion in the ’40s, even though he never got a chance to fight for the title,” Pina said.

Pina is majoring in sports broadcasting at NESCom and will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in communications in May. He plans to move to New York and seek an entry level position in the sports world, but his ultimate objective is to be a boxing commentator.

Last summer he served an internship at Channel 4-TV in Boston where he logged games, went to Patriot practices and covered some Red Sox games. He got quotes from Red Sox manager Terry Francona when he slipped into the clubhouse after turning over his press pass, which limited him to field and dugout.

“Nobody noticed and I’m pretty small, so I got lost in the shadows,” he said.