Thomas Casey

http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/wawli/Nos.729-735.html

TOM CASEY, 70, CHAMPION ROWER, WRESTLER

(Boston Sunday Globe, May 26, 1985)

By William P. Coughlin

In 1940, The Boston Globe sports pages carried a challenge: "The Famous Casey Brothers of Boston would race any crew in the United States."

That was quite a gauntlet to toss before the proud society of Boston and Cambridge rowing circles by sons of Irish immigrants.

Steve (Crusher) Casey of Cohasset, former world professional wrestling champion (1938-48) recalls:

"A Philadelphia crew took us on, but backed out . . . Then Russell Codman, former Boston fire commissioner under Mayor Jim Curley, himself a national champion, came forward and said, 'I will row the three Casey brothers and beat them in single sculls . . . '"

Tom Casey won that race. Jim Casey came in second. Steve Casey finished third. Codman was fourth.

Tom Casey, then virtually unknown to Codman, would move a rowing shell in the fastest time ever seen then on the Charles River -- under a minute for the quarter-mile dash. Singly and with his brothers, Tom Casey would win every race he entered thereafter, at the then unheard of pace of more than 40 strokes a minute -- a pace that would not become commonplace in rowing for three more decades.

"Nobody," Steve Casey said, "ever beat Tom when he was rowing."

Thomas Casey of Boston, one of those seven famous Irish-born brothers from a family of rowing champions and nationally famous wrestlers, died Friday in Youville Hospital in Cambridge. He had suffered a stroke three years ago. He was 70.

Steve Casey unveiled the Casey secret of success as an oarsman and in wrestling rings in a telephone interview yesterday.

"You cannot beat youth," he said. "I was oldest. I was 17. We were racing these guys that were 30 or 35 years old. They underestimated our youth . . . they underestimated our teamwork. You can't beat a brother team's teamwork . . . The reason we were called 'The Famous Caseys' is because we never lost a boat race."

His brother Tom started wrestling around 1934 in Southern Ireland and England, and with his brothers had also qualified in rowing single sculls in the 1936 Olympics at Berlin -- the year Jesse Owens beat back the pride of Hitler's youth in track and field events.

Steve Casey remembers somewhat bitterly:

"The five Caseys were disqualified by the England and Ireland Olympic Association because they said that two, Paddy and Jim, took money for a wrestling match in South London. They barred us all from racing in the Olympics. Paddy and Jim swore they didn't take any money . . . "

Casey recalled how they got started.

"We'd come from Kerry County. My father, Michael, and my uncles -- my mother's two brothers, John and Pat Sullivan -- were rowers, too." His mother, Steve Casey said, was the former Bridget Sullivan, a distant kin of the famed bare-fisted heavyweight Boston prizefighter, John L. Sullivan.

"Uncle Pat was the skipper of Cornelius Vanderbilt's yacht in Newport, Rhode Island," Casey said. "One day he told Vanderbilt he could get a crew to win the world rowing championship. Vanderbilt said, 'If you can get them, I'll pay their way to Newport to train' . . . That's how it started."

A Casey niece, Amy Marr, was carrying on the family tradition yesterday in Worcester, rowing in a crew of eight for Phillips Academy.

As wrestlers, the Casey brothers took on the best, all over the country. They had turned pro in 1935 after the Olympics episode and were wrestling for the late Paul Bowser. Many a donnybrook involving the Caseys was seen at the old Mechanics Building, the Boston Arena, Boston Garden and New York's Madison Square Garden.

Steve recalled one such ring "war" when three Caseys, Steve, Tom and Jim, wrestled the three Dusek brothers, Wally, Ernie and Emil, in Boston Garden.

"Now that was a Donnybrook, between the Caseys and the Duseks. It was a draw."

Tom retired from wrestling when he was 50, his wife of 42 years, Bernadette (Theriault) said yesterday.

Besides his wife and his brother Steve, Mr. Casey leaves five brothers, James of Houston, and Patrick, Michael, Daniel and Jack of Ireland and England; a sister, Margaret Hawley of Manchester, England; and several nieces and nephews.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Tuesday in St. Anne's Church, St. Stephen street, Boston.