Golden Greek comes to silver screen

BOSTON – Harry Agganis, the “Golden Greek” whose athletic glory and tragic death at age 26 in 1955 continue to resonate in Lynn and the North Shore, got silver-screen treatment in a documentary that premiered at the AMC Loews Boston Common on Tuesday.”Agganis: The Golden Greek, Excellence to the End” was screened before audiences of almost 400 people in two separate screening rooms. The movie, whose executive producer is Greg Agganis, Harry’s nephew, offered filmgoers a rare chance to see the “Golden Greek” in action.The documentary, lasting about two hours and narrated by former WBZ-TV reporter Clark Booth, included footage of Agganis thrilling the crowd in football, the sport he played so well for Lynn Classical and Boston University, as well as interviews of him discussing his time at Classical and his playing career as a first baseman for the Boston Red Sox. The film also spotlighted Agganis’ Greek immigrant family, including his devoted mother, Georgia; the Lynn in which he grew up (former Item sports editor Red Hoffman is quoted); and the circumstances of his death, which raised accusations of poor medical treatment at the Red Sox facility of Sancta Maria Hospital in Cambridge.Athletically, the film offered many dazzling examples of Agganis’ prowess.Viewers who may have watched Tom Brady’s desperate Hail Mary against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl earlier this year got to see Agganis launch – and connect on – passes of similar length. National Football League fans accustomed to seeing quarterbacks like Tim Tebow elude the pass rush watched Agganis dodge would-be tacklers time and again.Perhaps the most amazing footage came when Agganis scrambled backwards some 40 yards, showed the presence of mind not to step into his own end zone, and completed a pass for a short gain.”Few dared scramble” in the 1940s, when Agganis starred at quarterback for Classical, Booth noted.”A big end from Everett blindsided him, jumped on him and taunted him,” former Rams teammate Nils Strom said. “Harry ignored him and threw a touchdown pass on the next play.”In high school, Agganis led his team to a win over Granby, Va., in a national championship battle at the Orange Bowl in Miami, throwing the winning touchdown pass. A year later, his Rams had the chance to do so again, but the team decided not to participate after its opponent asked that the Rams leave behind two African-American players, Tom Smith and Paul Pitman.”We couldn’t leave them behind,” Strom said. “(Agganis) was like the rest. He never wavered (about the decision).”The film takes the viewer from Agganis’ days as a high school star to his continued achievement on the gridiron at BU, which might have continued in the pros had he joined Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns. Instead, he signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1952.Regarding the unfinished promise of his baseball career, former Red Sox teammate Sam Mele said, “He would have had a darn good one, 25 home runs a year, a good fielder who gets along with his teammates fabulously.”Such success was not to be, and the film details the tragic months of May and June 1955, beginning with a sleepless night on Sunday, May 15, and Agganis’ hospitalization at what Booth described as the “modest infirmary” of Sancta Maria; and, after his return to the field, his death at the same hospital on Monday, June 27.Phillip Agganis, one of Harry’s brothers, quoted their mother as saying: “God only loaned him to me for a short while. Now He’s taking him back where he belongs.”The film quotes former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, whose father Dr. Panos was a staff member at Sancta Maria at the time of Agganis’ death, although he had “nothing to do with the case,” Dukakis said.”I don’t remember my father ever, ever being critical of another doctor,” Dukakis said. Yet he said that his father said of Agganis’ death, “in effect, ‘Mistakes were made.’ I’ve never forgotten that, obviously.”Rich Tenorio can be reached at [email protected].