Bill Newell, one of the area’s most versatile broadcasters in a long while, has finally stepped away from the myriad of activities in which he was engaged for nearly 40 years.
Newell, 70, of Nahant (but who lived in Lynnfield for nearly 30 years), took leave recently of his final duty for the North Shore sports scene: working on the MooreStuffOnline (MSO) website.
If you were heavily into high school and college sports in the last four decades. Newell was a soothing presence on your ears. He broadcast football, basketball, hockey and even some baseball, first for WESX-AM in Salem, where he was sports director until the station was sold. From then on, it was “have microphone will travel.”
Newell was both basketball and hockey broadcaster (he shared the mic at BC with Ted Sarandis), as well as Harvard University hockey (he broadcast the Crimson’s national championship game).
When longtime friend and colleague Rick Moore began talking about a web-streaming service, Newell was right there to assist and help with the on-air features. MSO broadcast games, as well as did off-day features too.
“It started out, and it was just broadcasting,” he said. “And I ended up working on the website. I found that to be a lot of fun.”
Newell, a Burlington, Vt., native, worked for two small local radio stations in the Green Mountain State before a friend in sales told him about the job opportunity as sports director for WESX in Salem. Newell jumped at the chance and got the position (which Mike Lynch, later of Channel 5, also pursued).
It was a big step, both for the station and for Newell. Thanks to Newell, among others, WESX separated itself from many local stations with its full-time sports report. Newell jumped into the job with both feet, doing sports and providing color commentary as well as on-air features. He also hosted talk shows and helped put together a Saturday afternoon post-game football scoreboard that became required listening for football fans everywhere.
“That went from being just Al Needham (the last news broadcaster) reading scores and marching band music,” said Newell, “to a full-fledged show.”
He credits the late Jay Polley with helping to bring that about.
“Jay really added a lot to that show,” Newell said.
By 1989, Newell was pretty much a fixture in the area and it was then he was at a game and saw something that horrified him. Saugus’ Mike Maruzzi was paralyzed after he crashed into a corner during a hockey game at Salem State.
“At the time,” he said, “we didn’t know how badly he was hurt. Afterwards, it was such a stressful thing for everybody.”
Once WESX was sold, Newell became a free agent. He hooked up with Starr sports network, which is where he picked up the Harvard gig. And through Paul Kelley’s network, he got the BC games. He was also the play-by-play radio voice of the 1992 Stanley Cup Final. Still, his most memorable moments came with high school sports. He was also a host of an overnight show called “Sports Final” on WEEI.
“The Salem teachers’ strike (1994), that was a crazy time,” he said.
That was when the city of Salem ruled that Ken Perrone, the popular football coach, and any member of his staff who was part of the striking union, could not take part in the game against Swampscott that would decide the Northeastern Conference championship.
“There were so many live standups,” Newell said. “There was a huge pre-game buildup.”
In the end, Perrone and his staff coached, Salem won, and Perrone was fired.
While all this was going on, Newell found the time to earn his teaching credentials, thanks, he says, to former coach and Swampscott athletic director Fran York, who encouraged him to pursue them.
“By this time,” Newell said, “the business was changing. Stations were being sold, and finding work was harder and harder. Fran told me I should go for it, so I did.”
After getting his degree, Newell taught at-risk teens in both Lynn and Salem.
Newell always appreciated that he found himself in the middle of a strong North Shore sports media scene.
“That was always great,” he said. “The Item, the Salem News, the writers and editors — it made for a nice atmosphere, and a lot like it was back home (in Burlington).”
His fondest memories involve the Beverly-Salem Thanksgiving Day football game — and Thanksgiving in general.
“You could tell how much those games meant to those kids,” he said. “That’s one of the things I like least about the (latest Super Bowl) ratings system. Thanksgiving has been taken out of the mix.”
He hopes that a new system — devised by former Swampscott coach Steve Dembowski, and that puts Thanksgiving back on the table as a game that counts toward post-season qualifying, catches on.
“Thanksgiving has to matter,” he said.
For all his experience, he hesitates to call himself a Renaissance man.
“I don’t know about that,” he laughed. “But I had a lot of different experiences.”
He hasn’t thought much about a legacy.
“I just always wanted to give the coaches and the players I covered a voice,” he said.
