Marvin Hagler and Goody Petronelli

HAGLER'S TRIANGLE COVERS ALL ANGLES: NY Times Article

HAGLER'S TRIANGLE COVERS ALL ANGLES

By PHIL BERGER, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: April 3, 1987

LEAD: When boxing champions step into the gym, more often than not they are preceded by large entourages.

When boxing champions step into the gym, more often than not they are preceded by large entourages.

Not Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the middleweight champion who on Monday will defend his title here against Sugar Ray Leonard.

At Palm Springs, Calif., where he trained evenings in a large white tent, Hagler would materialize suddenly with just two men at his side.

One hour later, as he headed back to his room amid the insistent one-note of crickets and barely stirring eucalyptus trees and Mexican fan palms, the same two men would be with him.

''The unbreakable triangle'' is how the middleweight champion and those men of his - Pat and Guerino (Goody) Petronelli, his co-managers - refer to a relationship that has survived a seeming eternity in a difficult business.

''It's taken all of us to get there,'' said Hagler. ''The triangle - we stick together.'' The Whole Show

The relationship started in 1970 when Hagler, a 16-year-old high school dropout, walked into a gym in Brockton, Mass., run by the Petronellis to become a fighter. Now, going on 17 years later, he is still with them. The Petronellis and Hagler - that is the show.

''It is the strongest and closest relationship that I've seen between a fighter and his boxing people,'' said Bob Arum, Hagler's promoter.

Though the Petronellis have been in boxing for many years, tracking dates from their distant past is no easy job. The subject of their birth dates, for instance, is an occasion for winks and wisecracks and a somewhat reluctant admission, eventually, to their being in their ''late fifties.'' Goody is the tall, lean Petronelli, the one who is still fit enough to match strides with Hagler on the fighter's 6- to 10-mile training runs.

Pat, who admits to being two years old than his brother, is the more rumpled-looking and outgoing character. His idea of roadwork is to drive his Cadillac through traffic.

Goody fought as a professional (he says his record was 23-2-1) until a broken hand ended his career. At that point, he enlisted in the Navy and was mustered out in 1969 with 20 years of service. Double Shift

Pat was an amateur fighter but, by his own admission, was not enamored of training. While Goody was in the Navy, Pat worked in the morning for their father's construction company and followed that with a late-afternoon shift as a carpenter at a shipyard in Quincy, Mass.

In 1965, Pat opened a gym and planned to establish a larger one when his brother got out of the Navy. Originally, they planned to be partners in the gym with Rocky Marciano, the former heavyweight champion who was also from Brockton.

In August 1969, just discharged from the Navy, Goody was driving his convertible through North Dakota on his way back to Brockton when he heard a report on the radio that Marciano had been killed in an airplane crash. The brothers opened up their gym on their own and, within a year, Hagler walked through the door.

What Hagler began with the Petronellis, the gym was strictly a sideline - operating evenings after the Petronellis and Hagler (who worked for them) made a day's wages with the brothers' construction company. 'Rough, Tough Street Fighter'

''Marvin had hair then and had moved up from Newark with his mother and the rest of the family,'' Pat Petronelli said. ''He was a very quiet kid. A rough, tough street fighter who was very strong and had a lot of heart.''

During the day, Hagler would earn $3 an hour digging ditches, mixing cement and passing boards. In the evenings, he labored under the Petronellis in the ring.

''He impressed me,'' Pat Petronelli said. ''He had something others don't have. He had reflexes and a sense of when he could hurt someone. And he could't get enough hours in the gym. The first one in, the last one out.''

As co-managers, the Petronellis have separate and distinct responsibilities with Hagler. Pat handles the business matters and has been more involved with Hagler's personal life than Goody has, He is, for instance, the godfather of Hagler's 6-year-old daughter, Charelle. For his part, Goody handles the fighter's training.

'The unique thing is that neither guy alone could fulfill Marvin's needs,'' Arum said. ''I don't think Marvin would have that much confidence in Pat as a trainer, and he doesn't discuss personal and business matters with Goody. Ever. Pat's role is the father figure. Pat deals not only with Marvin's business situation, but Marvin goes to Pat with personal things. So there is a strong bond there.''

During his career, Hagler has relied on Goody's boxing advice to a degree not common for fighters who have reached the heights he has. 'A Collective Kind of Fight'

''Marvin works out a game plan with Goody and will follow it, in training and in a fight,'' Arum said. ''He's not particularly innovative on his own. I can't believe Leonard would do the same thing. Leonard might discuss a game plan with Angelo Dundee and the others, but once the fight started, he'd wing it on his own. Marvin is the only really great fighter I know that will get a game plan and stick to it and only change when he and Goody decide to change. He fights a collective kind of fight, which is rare for a great fighter.''

When Hagler fought Roberto Duran in November 1983, he was criticized for sticking to the conservative game plan, strategy that Pat now concedes was probably ill-advised.

Over the years, though, the Petronellis' counsel has worked to their fighter's advantage, and Hagler himself is quick to credit them.

''In the beginning,'' he said, ''they never took a dime of my purses. They told me, 'One day, we'll all make money.' And now we are. And it's good to see them get the respect they deserve.''

MySpace.com - Stephanie Petronelli - Metro South Boston, Massachusetts - R&B - www.myspace.com/stephaniepetronelli

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"A New Contender Stephanie Petronelli was born in a small suburb of Brockton, MA. Brockton was already known as the 'City of Champions' mostly due to her father's family who forged their way into boxing royalty by running a small gym, and training and managing some of the finest boxers in history, including the marvelous Marvin Hagler!"

Petronelli laywer scam

Professor Goldings

By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist | August 26, 2005

Once upon a time Morris Goldings was a big-name lawyer in this town, a champion of the First Amendment, which in his case meant he defended those who ran the strip joints and porno houses when the Combat Zone was an interesting place on a Friday night. Then Goldings, known for his straw hats in summer and fedoras in winter, got caught stealing $17 million of his clients' money, and did almost three years of soft time in a federal minimum-security pen, where he was known as number 24149-038. Now his students call him professor.

Goldings, contacted through his Boston lawyer, Steven Brooks, didn't call me back yesterday. And his new employer, Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said no one was available to talk because a tropical storm was on the way. But the school's website lists Goldings -- disbarred and still on probation -- as part of the ''core faculty" for the Criminal Justice Institute, which focuses on ''complex theory and issues surrounding criminal behavior, prevention and intervention."

''Our instructors are waiting to share their experience and knowledge with you," Tammy Kushner, the institute's director, says on the website. (Goldings also works as a paralegal.)

Considering his experience, Goldings is marvelously qualified to teach Fraud 101. To recap: In early 2001, Goldings checked himself into a psychiatric hospital after his partners blew the whistle on millions in missing client funds. The numbers eventually added up to $17 million from such longtime Goldings clients as the widow of former governor Endicott ''Chub" Peabody and Brockton's Petronelli family, which helped develop Marvin Hagler into the middleweight champion.

In 2002, Goldings got a wet-kiss sentence from US District Judge William Young, a hanging judge who let Goldings off with three years and three years' probation and ordered him to write a 50-page essay on ''why I ripped off my friends and clients." Where the money went only Goldings knows for sure. Three former clients have received $375,000 from a fund that reimburses the victims of crooked lawyers; nobody has gotten a dime out of the bankruptcy court yet. Goldings firm, Mahoney, Hawkes & Goldings, dissolved in the wake of the mess.

We are still waiting for the tell-all essay from Goldings. But if victims are expecting a humbled Morris Goldings, they should think again.

For 18 months, while he was doing easy time at the Federal Medical Center at Devens, Goldings was using his Harvard Law training to fight a pitched legal battle with the government to be released early to a halfway house. And he won -- including $170.85 in court costs. That is $170.85 more than most of Goldings's victims have recovered. No one ever said the man was a bad lawyer, only that he was a thief.

Humility is not a word that comes to mind as you read motion after motion by this jailhouse lawyer. He lectures prosecutors about ''pointless lawyering," accuses the government of ''clever wording," ''avoidance of the facts" and lack of ''candor," and complains of the ''dilatory and really contemptuous approach of the government." Goldings, 68, whines the government's actions are costing him Social Security benefits, forcing him to pay $180.80 a month for Blue Cross insurance he can't use.

The injustice of it all is almost enough to make me weep. ''I need to resume employment as soon as possible," Goldings tells the court in a footnote. ''My Social Security has been suspended [and] my wife's employability is limited because of responsibilities as the only child to her 98-year-old father."

And on and on it goes. My favorite line among his diatribes about how terribly unfair the government is being: ''There is more than a little chutzpah in all of this."

Professor Goldings could teach a graduate course in chutzpah.

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

Goody Petronelli

First there is Goody Petronelli, the ageless Brockton trainer who was a friend of Rocky Marciano and trainer of Marvin Hagler, the great middleweight champion of the 1980s. Petronelli is a quiet sage, a calming presence, a man who has worked many fights as big as this one and who has guided greater underdogs than McBride to world title belts.

As prominent now as Petronelli is Pascal "Packie" Collins, camp coordinator. Collins is the younger brother of the last Irish champion, super middleweight Steve Collins, the Dubliner who told McBride in the late 1990s he should follow his path to success by moving to Boston and training with Petronelli in Brockton. Packie Collins has been a constant, joining McBride on a six-mile wake-up run, supervising everything from his meals to his sparring partners, and even negotiating sponsorships and handling press requests. Observers have marveled at the mastery with which Collins, still an active fighter himself, has handled the complicated business of running a tight - but still publicity-friendly - camp.

Together, Collins and Petronelli are the architects of McBride's strategy against Tyson. It involves three components that are obvious but at the same time difficult to achieve: developing the fitness to outlast the famously short burn of Tyson's fury, working on techniques to use his huge size and reach advantage, and entering the ring mentally prepared.

McBride has gotten into the best shape of his career for this fight. On top of the road and ringwork, he has been working with strength coach Radovan Serbula at a Brighton gym. He will enter the ring at his usual 260-270 pounds, but 15 pounds of flab have been replaced with functional, flexible muscle. Despite many observers' belief that the fight will not last more than four or five rounds, McBride also has trained for a grueling 10 rounds, alternating the length of sparring sessions to anticipate all possible states of fatigue.

Since taking McBride on in 1999, Petronelli's tutelage has focused on starting from his long jab and heavy straight right, but also punishing opponents with quick, hard hooks and uppercuts when they get close to him. This will be the basic approach against Tyson, but with a couple of refinements. When Tyson gets inside McBride's jab, as he inevitably will, look for McBride to have two responses. One will be to step to one side and, as Tyson follows, stun him with an uppercut combination. Danny Williams used this move successfully in his defeat of Tyson last year. Second, when Tyson clinches, McBride will lean all his weight on Tyson's upper body, wearing down the smaller man, and putting pressure on the ankle that McBride's people believe was genuinely hurt in the Williams fight.

McBride showed off his new physique and some of his technique at a public workout last week at the South Boston Boxing Club. Looking trim and powerful, he pushed sparring partner Terence Lewis around the ring with ease for four rounds, at one point even flooring him with a hard lean in the clinch.

Goody Petronelli - Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia

Goody Petronelli - Boxrec Boxing Encyclopaedia: "Goody Petronelli
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Goody Petronell is a Brockton, Massachussets based trainer and co-manager. He is best known for managing and training popular Brockton based Middleweight champion Marvin Hagler, along with his brother Pat Petronelli.

He also worked with WBO Super Middleweight Champion Steve Collins, when Collins was based out of Boston. He is currently working with Irish Heavyweight Kevin McBride, who is currently boxing out of Brockton.

Other Fighers Trained

* Robbie Sims
* Drake Thadzi"

Brockton's Petronelli brothers to be honored

Brockton's Petronelli brothers to be honored

By Glen Farley, Enterprise staff writer

BROCKTON — They answered the bell. That, in essence, is how Brockton Historical Society president Larry Siskind explains his organization's decision to present the 2007 Brockton Historic Citizen Award to boxing's Goody and Pat Petronelli.

“The primary consideration for the award is the impact the person or persons has had on our community and their reach outside the Brockton area,” said Siskind. “It's not only what they do in the community, but their reach outside the greater Brockton area. Their good deeds and fame must run beyond the city's borders. The Petronelli brothers obviously fit those requirements.”

The two men are to be honored in ceremonies to be held at the Massasoit Conference Center tonight beginning with a cocktail hour at 6:30.

WXBR-Radio personality Bill Carpenter will serve as master of ceremonies for the event. Boxing dignitaries expected to be on hand include Vito Antuofermo, Tony DeMarco, Lou Duva, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, Vinny Paz, Emanuel Steward, Bert Sugar and Micky Ward.

“It's all overwhelming,” Goody Petronelli said. “I'm happy and excited about it. It really is quite an honor that's being bestowed on Pat and myself. This is our city.”

If Rocky Marciano put Brockton on the boxing map, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, with the Petronelli boys in his corner, enriched the city's boxing history with his rise from humble roots to a 61/2-year reign in the 1980s as the undisputed middleweight champion of the world.

Goody was the trainer and Pat the manager. Hagler brought the brawn.

“We called ourselves 'The Triangle',” said Goody Petronelli. “Nothing's stronger than 'The Triangle': Marvin, Pat and myself. Pat busted his hump making matches and working down in the gym with me.”

Pat Petronelli was already operating a gym in Brockton when Goody was discharged from the Navy. Sharing a love for the sport, the two brothers formed a boxing bond in 1969.

“Tony (Pat's son) was our first champion, a North American champion,” Goody Petronelli said.

As for Hagler, it wasn't so much that the Petronellis discovered him as he walked in on them and their old Centre Street gym.

A teen who had grown up in Newark, N.J., Hagler had relocated to Brockton when his mother, Ida Mae, moved the family to the city following the Newark riots of 1967.

“He was only 16 years old and Pat and I were real busy, we had two rings going,” Goody Petronelli recalled. “Marvin came in the gym one day and sat there. He was sitting in a chair looking, observing. The second or third day, I looked over and said, 'Do you want to learn how to fight?' He said, 'That's what I'm here for.'

“I started teaching him and I liked what I saw. He was very dedicated. He listened. He'd come in and I'd say, 'You look good,' and he'd say, 'I've been practicing, looking in the mirror at home in my bedroom at different punches, different combinations.' He was serious.”

Serious and driven.

“When he started fighting amateur, he told me, 'I'm going to be world champion,'” Goody Petronelli said. “They all talk big. I said, 'Yeah, man, and I'll be your coach.'”

The rest, as they say, is history.

A 1993 International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee was born.

“I saw his potential, particularly after the 1973 nationals in Boston,” Goody Petronelli said. “He not only won out of his weight class, 165 pounds, but he was the outstanding fighter of the whole tournament. Pat and I could see we had a potential world champion on our hands, but we still had a big mountain to climb. We set our goals high. We had our ups and downs, but we made it.”

They made it, all right, leaving their marks on both the fight game and their city.

“Not only have they taught boxing, but life lessons,” said Suskind. “People under their tutelage have come out a lot better persons, better citizens and human beings.”

While Pat (Goody's elder by two years) later moved to the Round One Boxing Club with Tony and left the fight game several years ago after encountering health problems, Goody, ever protective of his age (“I'll be 43 in two years”), still can be found in his gym on Petronelli Way, as the old Ward Street was named in 1999. Five nights a week, Goody still climbs into the ring to train boxers.

“The two of them were together for a long time and they really were terrific together,” said Suskind. “We feel the Petronellis are very, very special people.”