Have a dream, and take steps to make it come true, 'Boom Boom' tells Chaney grads

YOUNGSTOWN

“Things were different” when Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini grew up and graduated from high school in the 1970s.

“We were taught — get a job in the mill and raise a family,” he told the Chaney High School graduating Class of 2015 at commencement Friday evening.

It was a great life, he acknowledged.

“But I wanted something different,” he said.

Ever since he was a little boy growing up in Youngstown, he told the 67 graduates seated before him, he wanted to be a world championship boxer like his father, the original Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini.

When he told people, they’d smile and say, “Isn’t that cute!”

But he ignored how they made light of his aspiration.

“I had a dream, a goal,” he said.

He accepted that was his path, and he never doubted it.

But that wasn’t enough.

“Taking steps to get there — that’s how you make it come true,” he said.

It wasn’t always easy — starting with homesickness.

“When I went to New York in 1979,” he said, “I cried my eyes out on the plane. But I knew I had to go. I had to leave my family. and I said, ‘I’m not coming back unless I’m successful.”

Mancini became the World Boxing Association lightweight champion in 1982.

It’s never an easy path to success, he said.

“You’re gonna fall down,” he said.

Read more of his remarks and hear some of the grads' plans for their futures in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.