Marotta establishes inaugural Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame

Longtime boxing commentator and historian, Rich Marotta, has informed RingTV.com that he will will announce the establishment of an inaugural Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame on Tuesday.

"After I did the research, I was astounded to find out that there was not a Nevada State Boxing Hall of Fame, so I set about this year to establishing one. So I've been working on that for the past few months. It's been quite involved with forming a corporation, and forming a board of directors, and then getting IRS approval and all of that," said Marotta, of KFI Radio, Los Angeles.

"So finally, I've gone through all of that preliminary stuff, and I've gotten full, IRS approval, etc. I'm ready to announce the establishment of the Nevada Hall of Fame..."We have no physical actual museum at this point. This is just a creation, and this it the beginning of it. Hopefully it will lead to that in the near future. But right now, it's a virtual honor roll. But we will be displaying the plaques or whatever somewhere in Las Vegas so that people will always see those."

After being inducted into the California Hall of Fame, Marotta said he turned his sights toward Nevada.

"That's when I started thinking about this one. There are state Hall of Fames in a lot of the different states, the most recent being New York. So Maryland also has one. Florida has one and Connecticut, as do Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota. New York started this year, and they've had a successful push off and first event," said Marotta.

"So I wanted to do that for boxing here in Nevada. Nevada obviously has an extremely rich boxing history and tradition. Nevada has a great boxing community here, with a lot of people both active in boxing in the community along with a great fan base, of course, so I wanted to try to establish a Hall of Fame to bring all of that together here, and I'm ready to announce it."

In terms of the Boxing Hall of Fame, said Marotta, "we will choose from several different categories, including boxers and non-boxers, such as trainers, managers, officials and media and special contributors, because there have been a lot in Nevada."

"It's a complete non-profit, charitable organization, and we're planning on having several events during the course of the year, and not just have one event and then go away for the rest of the year. The center piece, of course, would be an annual induction ceremony and a dinner in Las Vegas for those who are elected into the Hall of Fame. We're planning on having an induction ceremony in the summer of 2013," said Marotta.

"But we're going to have events during the course of the year prior to that, like two nights with the Nevada Hall of Fame -- one in Las Vegas and then one in Reno. We'll have boxers, panel discussions with the media, some Q&A kind of cocktail parties and things that would introduce people to the Nevada Hall of Fame, and to bring fans together with those in the boxing community."

The annual NVBHOF Hall of Fame dinner ceremonies will announce winners of Nevada-centric awards, including the states Fight of the Year, Fighter of the Year, Female Fighter of the Year, Prospect of the Year and Amateur Boxer of the Year.

NVBHOF's officers are comprised of Marotta, secretary James Wimberly, treasurer Saville Kellner.

Directors are comprised of senior vice president Scott Voeller, former bantamweight titleholder Wayne McCullough, Hall of Fame referee Richard Steele, Yahoo!Sports boxing columnist Kevin Iole, boxing commentator Bob Sheridan, ESPN's Dave Cokin and ESPN Deportes' Alvaro Puentes.

Also among the directors are Marty Corwin, of Las Vegas-based M.C. Productions, and social media manager Joseph Marotta, director digital strategy.
 
The honorary advisory committee lists Bob Miller, Barry Tompkins, Anthony Roman and Fred Sternburg.

Miller is president of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association and a play-by-play broadcaster for the Los Angeles Kings and an NHL Hall of Fame inductee. Tompkins is an award-winning boxing broadcaster and analyst, Roman is founder and CEO of RadioFlag, and Sternburg is a noted publicist and president of Sternburg Communications, Inc.

Donations to the NVBHOF are tax-deductible, as are tickets purchased to NVBHOF-sponsored events. Donations can be made by visiting the NVBHOF website: www.nvbhof.com. The NVBHOF is on Facebook at facebook.com/nvbhof, and can be followed on  Twitter (@nvbhof).

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lemuel.satterfield@gmail.com