I was saddened to hear of the death of the former Welterweight and Middleweight Champion of the World Carmen Basilio at the age of 85 in Rochester, New York.

The earliest recollection I have of the sport of boxing is from my early childhood. It was in 1957, I was just a little kid,and I was living in Hollywood, California. My dad was going out with a bunch of his buddies one night to a local theater to watch the live, closed-circuit telecast of the Carmen Basilio-Sugar Ray Robinson Middleweight Title fight.

My dad explained to me, "Now son. We are Italian and Carmen Basilio is Italian, so it's very important to us that he wins tonight. So you listen to the fight on the radio, and root very hard for the Italian, Carmen Basilio to win. Being a good, obedient son, I sat down in the kitchen that night, and while my dad was at the CC telecast, I listened to the blow-by-blow call of the Basilio-Robinson fight, all 15 exciting rounds of it, and was thrilled by it.

When the announcer was yelling "Basilio wins, Basilio wins!!", I was jumping up and down in the kitchen. It was my introduction to just how great boxing could be. In succeeding years when Basilio would fight on television, I would dutifully sit next to my dad and cheer for him.

Decades later, as a member of the Board of Directors of the World Boxing Hall of Fame, I got to meet Carmen Basilio and he got a great kick out of it when I related that story to him.Basilio was not only fan-friendly in the ring but out of it. He would come to those dinners each year, tell stories to, take pictures with, and sign autographs for, the fans.

He was a great delight to be around. Now on the heels of losing other great old-timers Angelo Dundee, Burt Sugar and Emmanuel Steward, we send Carmen Basilio into history with them. I'm richer for having known all of them, and boxing was the better for having experienced them.