By Thomas Gerbasi
As professional as Rich Marotta had been throughout his Hall of Fame broadcasting career, he really isn’t taking this whole retirement thing too seriously.
“The retirement from radio, I thought was gonna be a really big thing and really ease my life,” he laughs. “That has just not happened.”
He can thank boxing for that, more specifically the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame he founded in 2013. But he has no complaints about the work he’s doing these days, not that he would have time to, with the hall’s third induction gala coming up this Saturday at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
“It’s a labor of love,” he said. “I love boxing. I’ve broadcasted in the NFL with the Raiders for 11 years, and I did the Clippers for four years in the NBA, and hockey with the LA Kings as well. But there’s always been something special for me in broadcasting boxing. I feel like I owe an awful lot to boxing, so that’s what kept me going. Boxing has provided some of the greatest nights of my whole life.”
He’s even had a few more in his role as President of the NVBHOF, something he probably never expected a few short years ago. In fact, after getting the Hall of Fame treatment himself, he assumed Nevada already had a way to celebrate the greats of the sport and those who contributed to the sport in the “Fight Capital of the World.”
“I was elected to two Halls of Fame out in California in the same year, and I really liked the whole idea,” Marotta said. “I got into the California Boxing Hall of Fame and was elected to the Southern California Sportscasters Hall of Fame, and I just loved it. I was already living in Nevada, but I was astounded to see there was no Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame. How can that be, with all of the history here and the glamour and the economics of it, with what boxing has meant to the state of Nevada, especially Las Vegas?”
Most would have just sighed and said “ah, too bad,” and moved on. Marotta pondered the idea of creating a Hall of Fame in Nevada for a couple years, eventually thinking to himself, “Maybe I should start this.” He went on to speak to Ken Thompson and Alex Camponovo, who were instrumental in the running of the California Boxing Hall of Fame, and they thought it was a great idea.
“They really encouraged me, although there are times I want to punch them for encouraging me,” Marotta laughs, and he eventually concluded that he was going to do it. What followed was a ton of work in making the non-profit legal in Nevada, instituting a Board of Directors, getting the word out to the public and getting boxers on board to show up on induction night.
“This is an enormous project, one that I had no clue was this enormous an undertaking as it was when I founded the organization,” he said. “I really had no idea.”
Aiding him in the process has been Michelle Corrales-Lewis, who was the wife of the late Diego Corrales, and Marotta is effusive in his praise of her work.
“She’s taken on so many of the duties, and she’s doing most of the heavy lifting down in Vegas because I live in Reno,” he said of Corrales-Lewis.
In August of 2013 though, the first ceremony took place at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas, with a sellout crowd of 420 people.
“It was a big hit with all of those involved,” Marotta said. “A lot of those people that got up there – Mike Tyson, Ray Leonard, Larry Holmes – they were up there thanking me, and I’m going ‘this is a mindblower, I can’t even believe this.’ So we had a great event, a really fantastic, glamorous event. The downside was that I had no business experience at all. (Laughs) My entire career has been based on speaking into a microphone and being a salaried employee. I had no clue, and I lost a lot of money on that first year that came out of my pocket.”
It was an educational process for Marotta, and by year two, things were looking up.
“So we learned some valuable lessons that first year, came back the second year, got into a break even situation, which was a big advantage over the first year. We didn’t go into the red, so that was great, but there were many painful lessons I had to learn after that first year.”
The 2014 induction ceremony at the Tropicana brought in over 700 people, and Marotta expects a thousand or more at Caesars on Saturday, with the casino aiding in promotion and also being the home to the NVBHOF’s first museum exhibit of boxing memorabilia, something he hopes is the first step to the hall getting a permanent museum.
And while celebrating the greats who have made Nevada the center of the boxing universe, as well as the unsung heroes of the sport from the state such as 2015 inductees Lee Samuels, Dr. Robert Voy, and Pat and Dawn Barry, is part of the hall’s mission – and its most visible – Marotta takes pride in pointing out that the second part is to give back to the sport through charitable donations that likely wouldn’t happen otherwise.
“We have a two-fold mission,” he said, “to honor greats in boxing and those who contributed to the growth of the sport, but the other half of our mission is to contribute to what we call boxing-related causes in Nevada. We’re a 501c3 so we don’t make any profit and nobody’s ever made a penny from our organization, but we contribute to gyms, amateur teams, the boxing programs at UNLV and the University of Nevada in Reno. We’ve given to a couple boxers and ex-boxers who are in need because of medical situations. There was an amateur boxer who was slain in a drive-by last year up in Reno and he had a wife and a couple kids, so we’ve given to that family. We’ve given to the Richard Steele Foundation, and when it comes to charity or giving, nobody ever thinks of boxing. So we wanted to do that.”
It’s a lot of work, but Marotta and company don’t look at it as a thankless job. It’s quite the opposite, and kudos to him and his crew for doing this. But what does Marotta get out of this besides honoring those who deserve it and giving back to the sport he loves? He gets to be a fan too, and when asked his “fanboy” moment as President of the NVBHOF, he doesn’t hesitate in revealing it.
“For me personally, it was Roberto Duran coming out to the induction last year,” he said. “To me, this guy is such an icon, but it’s always been at arm’s length, reporter to fighter, and I didn’t even really get to cover his biggest fights other than the (Marvin) Hagler fight, so there was never anything close between us. But I remember going to the airport to meet Roberto and his family when they came in to Las Vegas, and I was really excited about that moment. And when Roberto got off the plane, he ran over to me and hugged me and said ‘Rich, I’m very happy.’ I just can’t explain that thrill and that happiness that was inside of me.”
For tickets to the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame induction gala on Saturday, August 8, visit http://nvbhof.com/newsite/event/3rd-annual-nvbhof-induction-dinner/