History.

That’s one of the great things about sports on any level, in any region.

It provides lasting memories that can be honored and cherished as historical moments.

And what place in Nashua has more sports history than Holman Stadium?

That’s what the Lions Club Holman Stadium Sports Legends Hall of Fame is all about. It takes Nashua’s exciting past and puts it in the present.

Monday night you’ll see the past honored in a big way. For example, how many people now in the city know that their was a family that was the poster for professional football?

"Unfortunately," longtime broadcaster Ed Lecius said, "those that know are no longer with us."

Lecius himself is a worthy inductee and that will happen this year. He knows more, has seen more, and has provided fans and residents more information and live accounts of Holman Stadium events than anybody in his days of broadcasting games on WSMN.

Then there’s the Kissell brothers, the family we’re talking about. All five brothers – Big John (Browns), Ed (Steelers), Adolf (Bears), Jim (Giants) and Vito (Colts). Only Ed, who lives in Bedford with his wife Pat at the ripe young age of 87, is still with us.

"I’m very surprised," he said earlier this week at the honor. "And very happy about it. The family’s all gone, we haven’t been around for a long time."

How about the late Ray Oban? He was such a contributor to youth that he had his own youth baseball league named after him. When yours truly got to know him in the 1980s, Oban’s main job at the time was as Bill Dod’s spunky, feisty pitching coach at Bishop Guertin. The man knew his stuff and it’s great that he’s being rightfully recognized.

Lecius, of course, has history with most all of the inductees, either through knowledge or direct contact. He has so many great stories. He broadcast the first and last Nashua-Bishop Guertin Turkey Bowls. He saw in one of the earl 1980s games how Ricky Piwowarski fired up and convinced his Cardinal teammates that they could beat the Panthers just days after Nashua had won a title, and they did.

Lecius always laments the fact it took minor league baseball to force the city into rennovations for Holman that should have been done much earlier. He remembers broadcasting Nashua Angels minor league Double-A games and seeing then-Red Sox owner/managing general partner Haywood Sullivan come up to the old left field Holman press box to see his son Marc, a catcher, play for New Britain. "He would just quietly come up and sit with us, didn’t want us to talk about it, and nobody even knew it," Lecius said.

These are stories you don’t get anywhere else. The one thing yours truly has always admired about Lecius is his devotion to the memory of his father, Ed Sr., who was a radio icon in Nashua, also in the Holman Fame club, and with whom Ed broadcast games under the name "Lee Edwards" to avoid confusion. The Edward F. Lecius Memorial Trophy, in his father’s name, is given out every year to the Turkey Bowl (now Turkey Eve Bowl) winner.

And in November of 2014, Lecius himself was inducted into the NHIAA Hall of Fame. So he’s had a good several months.

You talk to Ed Kissell, you get another person who is full of memories. Nashua High School back in the 1940s was known as the Nashua Royal Blue (not Purple Panthers), but he didn’t play football because at 5-11 he was deemed too small. But he got into a prep school, played there, and played at Wake Forest University before being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played against the late former Steelers Super Bowl coach Chuck Knoll, who ironically at that time was a Cleveland Brown.

He also played against his brother, John, considered the best of the bunch when he was with the Rams and then the Browns, "but only on extra points" because both were on defense.

And oh how the game has changed today. Ed doesn’t follow the Steelers much anymore, he’s a Patriots fan. "I root for Brady," he said with a chuckle. But he doesn’t like today’s game.

"It’s changed immensely," Kissell said. "Everything is so much faster, so much bigger. There’s too much passing for me right now."

Kissell, a corner in the pros, actually played quarterback in college, because back then "a quarterback never got hit."

Gotta love it.

"I’m very proud, very happy," Kissell said. "Who knows what would’ve happened if we didn’t play?"

History doesn’t worry about it. It only smiles, as it will on Monday night.

Tom King can be reached at 594-6468, tking@nashuatelegraph.com or
@Telegraph_TomK.