Speaking of the Irish, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing "Hurricane" Peter McNeeley from his home in Boston, Mass. and I'm happy to report Pete is alive and doing well.

            Fourteen years after the battle that made him a known entity in boxing, he was more than glad to relive his 15 minutes of fame -- or, more precisely, those infamous 89 seconds -- against the most-lethal fighter of a generation, "Iron" Mike Tyson. 

He was eager to share his family's boxing legacy, which begins with his grandfather, Tom Sr., a national amateur champion, a member of the 1928 Olympic boxing team, and one of the first fighters to box at the Boston Garden (pronounced gahdin to all you folks outside the northeastern U.S.). His father, Tom Jr., made a bid to capture the heavyweight crown -- in an era when there was only one -- knocking down Floyd Patterson, before succumbing to the all time great.

            At age 7, McNeeley himself was inspired by the family tradition after seeing his dad's picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Young Pete spent much of his youth in the rough-and-tough boxing gyms of Brockton, a place with a heavyweight aura of its own as the home of Rocky Marciano.

It was at the ripe old age of 19 that McNeeley won his first amateur bout, then went on to beat the likes of James Johnson, the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, and Bobby Harris, an Olympic Trials qualifier. Pete, himself, earned a spot on Team USA shortly thereafter.

            Around this time, McNeeley remembers becoming aware of a rising amateur named Tyson, whom he thought amazingly fast and strong.

He says now that he intuitively believed they would someday meet in the ring, and predicted to friends that he would one day fight him.       

After only 21 amateur bouts, McNeeley turned pro, fighting 37 times in 44 months -- an unheard of pace in modern times.  The result: 36-1.

Tyson, meanwhile, had become a 20-year-old world champion, destroyed an impressive lineup of challengers, and tumbled from grace over problems with drugs, trainers, managers, promoters, and especially women. He was incarcerated for rape while McNeeley built his pro resume.

 For McNeeley, the USBF champ, an improbable blessing came in the form of a tough break: He was stripped of his title belt ("for political reasons," he insists), thereby losing his contractual right to fight world champion Oliver McCall, who was fresh off his KO of Lennox Lewis.

When that door shut, another one opened. Promoter Don King began to eye McNeeley as a comeback opponent for Tyson.

            The opportunity would change McNeeley's life forever in a multitude of ways, even though it would last less than 90 seconds, and would end with the Irishman bloody and battered senseless.

He took his best shot that night, charging across the ring at the opening bell, winging haymakers, throwing caution to the wind against the most dangerous puncher on earth. Were those really his instructions?

 "Yeah," he says. "I had to back him up.

"But he caught me with that stinging uppercut, and Vinnie (Vecchione, his friend and manager), fearful for my well-being, stopped the fight ."

McNeeley then adds a line that could well be the anthem of his entire life: "What the hell," he says. "I can't cry over spilled milk, eh?" 

            McNeeley's newfound notoriety wasn't kind. His quest to beat Tyson led to a quest to beat his inner demons. Alcohol and substance abuse became his most difficult opponents, he says today.

His post-Tyson existence, he says, had a staleness that, at its lowest point, often reduced him to drug binges. "In a month and a half, I blew forty grand on a Jenny Crank diet ," he remembers. "Or ... how I became a cruiserweight in six weeks."

            With luck, a man sooner or later realizes that something in his soul is paying too big a price for his sanity, and McNeeley came to that epiphany. He reached for help and employed various support groups. His sobriety now in contrast with the earlier rounds of his life, he has separated himself from the past through commitment to a better quality of life. Having endured addiction, public scrutiny, brushes with the law, and the recent death of his manager, Vecchione, McNeeley may well be a man who exceeded his own expectations.  And what boxing could not do to complete his life, 2-year-old daughter Nadia as.

Nowadays, with reality-television under consideration, and the always-possible comeback fight, he seems poised for a late-round rally. 

            As a footnote,  I'd like to add that I spoke to Pete over a period of a few days. On every occasion, behind the mask of slurred speech, I heard a  still-quick mind and a personality minus the faintest suggestion of ego.

It is ironic that a great deal of the meaning in Peter McNeeley's life can be found in something Cus D'Amato once said to Mike Tyson : "The true power of boxing lies in the spirit ."

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