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| Billy
Backus |
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Mohawk Valley
connection:
Canastota native
Claim to
fame:
Former world
welterweight boxing champion
Did you
know?
Billy Backus
is the nephew of Canastota's Carmen
Basilio, also a former world
champion.
Suggest
a celebrity
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Photo
by MICHAEL DOHERTY
A statue of former welterweight
boxing champion
Billy Backus in the International
Boxing Hall of Fame, in Canastota,
May 22, 1997. |
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Backus wants to
head athletic commission
Originally Published
June 1998
By JOSH BARNETT
Observer-Dispatch
CANASTOTA —
Former world welterweight champion Billy
Backus of Canastota is seeking to become
New York State’s highest ranking boxing
official.
Backus is campaigning to be chairman of
the New York State Athletic Commission —
a position which has been vacant since Floyd
Patterson resigned due to health problems
several months ago. Backus, who has been
an inspector and deputy commissioner for
17 years, would have to be appointed by
Gov. George Pataki and confirmed by the
state Senate.
Backus, a regular at the International Boxing
Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, appeared
at the Hall of Fame Friday with Sen. Nancy
Larraine Hoffmann, D-Syracuse. Hoffmann
urged the crowd to write to Pataki in support
of Backus.
“There is nobody else that’s been
on the commission as long as I have,”
Backus said. “I know I can bring boxing
back to our area.”
Backus said with the prominence once given
to boxing at Madison Square Garden gone
because of its proximity to Atlantic City,
N.J., encouraging boxing upstate should
be a priority.
“Let’s eliminate the city and
come back to Syracuse and Buffalo and Rochester
and we can put on a good show up here,”
Backus said. “There’s a lot of
boxers and a lot of guys who want to promote.
“(New York State) was the mecca of
boxing. Let’s bring the state back
up to where it belongs.”
Hoffmann said she has known Backus through
her involvement with the Hall of Fame, which
grew from an idea to honor Backus and his
uncle, former world champion Carmen Basilio.
“He knows the fight business from an
Upstate perspective,” Hoffmann said
of Backus. “It’s important to
have someone who can help bring the venues
into this area.”
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