LYNN — The Walter J. Boverini Basketball Tournament has been a staple of the Lynn basketball scene for the past 17 years, but the annual Christmas tournament will no longer be held in its current form as the three Lynn public schools that participate — Classical, English and Tech — have announced that they will be leaving to start their own basketball tournament.
For St. Mary’s Athletic Director and girls basketball coach Jeff Newhall, who was a part of the Lynn School Committee when it approved the starting of the tournament back in 2004, it’s a bittersweet feeling.
“I understand the direction that they want to go in, but it’s obviously unfortunate because of the history of the tournament,” said Newhall, whose wife is Boverini’s niece. “I have a very strong connection to the family and the tournament, and obviously I was around when we decided to start it back in 2004, so it stings a bit. But I have a really good relationship with (English Athletic Director) Dick Newton and I really appreciated that he called and let me know.”
On the public-school side of things, athletic directors said that while the discussions about starting a new, public-school tournament had been going on for a few years, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic eventually sped up the process.
“The talks had been going on for a while, but after the COVID year and everything, we decided that it was best to reshuffle things,” said Newton, whose Bulldogs hosted the tournament this past December. “We’ve always wanted to have an all-Lynn public school tournament, and now we get the opportunity to do that.”
“There have been a lot of great battles over the history of the tournament, but I think at the end of the day this will be best for competitive balance for everyone,” said Classical Athletic Director Bill Devin. “Some of the results, especially this past year, weren’t helping either side win or lose.”
The Boverini Tournament’s namesake, who died in 2008, served as a teacher, coach and mentor at four of the Lynn high schools — Classical, English, St. Mary’s and Tech — for 18 years. His contributions in the classroom and in sports earned him the distinction of being inducted into both the Classical Hall of Fame (1996) and the English Hall of Fame (2003).
After his career as an educator and coach in Lynn, Boverini moved on to the political field and was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1970 to represent the then-9th Essex District. He was then elected to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1972 to serve the 1st Essex District. He was appointed Majority Whip in 1979, serving in that capacity for six years before being appointed Senate Majority Leader in 1985, a position he held until his retirement from politics in 1994.
As for what’s next, the plan for English, Classical and Tech is to bring in KIPP and start a new tournament — to be named the Ron Bennett Memorial Classic — this coming winter. The tournament, which will likely be played around Christmas, will be named after former English basketball and baseball coach Ron Bennett, who coached at the school for 41 years, recorded approximately 800 wins across both sports and won a state title in baseball back in 1980. He was inducted into the English Hall of Fame in 2013. Bennett died in 2018 at age 80.
“This is a great way for us to keep the memory alive of a man who dedicated his life to coaching Lynn kids,” said Newton, who played for Bennett on the baseball diamond back in the late 1970s.
“Ron was always a true gentleman, and even though I was a Classical kid who played baseball against him for a bunch of years, you always appreciated how well-coached his teams were,” said Devin. “It will be great to be able to honor him.”
For St. Mary’s, the plan is to continue the tradition of the Boverini Tournament and invite three new teams to compete. Newhall said he’s already had preliminary talks with teams like Beverly and Springfield Cathedral about potentially joining, but he admitted that power rankings and the new landscape of high-school sports may also have an impact on who is invited to play.
“Obviously one of the things we struggle with still is finding games to schedule, so it will always be tough to find replacements,” said Newhall. “But the plan is to continue the Boverini in his name and invite some of the best teams in the state to come and compete.”
