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Fund-raising philanthropist Susan Hurley, who died at 62, was Boston’s marathon woman – The Boston Globe

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Fund-raising philanthropist Susan Hurley, who died at 62, was Boston’s marathon woman – The Boston Globe


And then there was her personal approach to preparing first-time marathoners to toe the starting line. Over the years she took thousands of runners on countless miles of training runs leading up to Boston Marathon day.

“It’s fun,” she said in an interview posted on YouTube. “I mean, this is what I live for. I want to see people succeed. This is life-changing for them to be able to run a marathon and be inspired by a charity and earn their spot at the starting line that way. For them, it’s the Super Bowl of running.”

Ms. Hurley, who helped raise her final millions while running her last two Boston Marathons after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, died Nov. 1. She was 62 and lived in North Andover.

“I always love to be known as Boston’s biggest cheerleader,” Ms. Hurley, a cheerleader in high school and later for the New England Patriots, said in the 2020 YouTube interview with Thom Gilligan, founder and chief executive of Marathon Tours & Travel.

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Trading football field sidelines for road racecourses, she cheered on year after year of runners, even while running in the marathons herself.

“In addition to being everyone’s cheerleader, she was everyone’s mom. She really cared about all her runners,” said Sarah Wessmann, team captain and a member of each year’s marathon contingent for Last Call Foundation. The charity, inspired by the heroic life and line-of-duty death in 2014 of her then-fiancé, Boston firefighter Michael Kennedy, funds education and research to advance firefighter safety.

Near the end of each Boston Marathon, Ms. Hurley’s son Ryan McGillivray recalled, she could be spotted with her arm around the waist of another runner — helping a member of her charity team or even a stranger whose strength was fading.

From the beginning of marathon preparations, Ms. Hurley stressed that all runners should have “their Boylston Street moment, hearing the crowd roar and seeing the finish line in the distance, and the happiness that brings,” said Ryan, who lives in Wrentham and is vice president of operations for DMSE Sports, the event management firm founded by his father, Dave McGillivray.

During weeks of training runs, Ms. Hurley helped newcomers prepare for the vagaries of the potentially punishing weather, and for the constancy of Heartbreak Hill.

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In February she would hold the fund-raising “Superhero 17” – a 17-mile run along the marathon course in which participants ran dressed as superheroes, their merriment a distraction from the arduous training workout.

And Ms. Hurley “didn’t just run the marathon. She had you learn about the course and the history and why things matter,” said Wessmann, who was among the runners Ms. Hurley helped train.

Ms. Hurley made sure runners knew about legendary Olympian Johnny Kelley, who completed the Boston Marathon nearly 60 times. She led training runs to Kelley’s statue in Newton so everyone could pay their respects.

“It’s a cliché,” Wessmann said, “but she really did put the fun in fund-raising.”

The third of four sisters, Susan Ann Hurley was born on April 8, 1963, and grew up in North Reading.

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Her mother, Sylvia Bidmead Hurley, was a real estate title examiner, and her father, James Hurley, was assistant register at Middlesex Family and Probate Court.

A cheerleading squad champion at North Reading High School, Ms. Hurley became a runner early on.

“I started running when I used to miss the bus in high school and I haven’t stopped,” she told Boston Magazine just before the 2013 marathon. “I’m proud to say I am a person who has worked out her whole life and never stopped and rarely missed a day.”

Ms. Hurley, who attended Emerson College, formerly was married to Dave McGillivray, with whom she had two sons, Ryan and Max.

She was as enthusiastic a mother as she was training runners and raising millions, said Max, who lives in Los Angeles.

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“Energetic doesn’t even cover it,” he said. “Her energy, her light, her celebratory nature was just infectious. Everyone will say it: she was a cheerleader in every sense of the word.”

Ms. Hurley found ways to make the marathon experience possible for participants facing a wide variety of hurdles, from spinal cord injuries to living without homes.

“The list goes on and on,” Max said, “and no person, in my eyes, was ever turned away from her light.”

Russell Hoyt, president and chief executive of Team Hoyt and the Hoyt Foundation, said Ms. Hurley was instrumental in helping the family organizations expand their reach and ensure their legacy after the deaths of his father, Dick Hoyt, and brother, Rick Hoyt, who had pioneered duo wheelchair road racing.

Russell said Ms. Hurley helped the organizations reach beyond the Boston Marathon to other major events, and to launch the Dick and Judy Hoyt “Yes You Can” inclusion grants, named for his parents, to assist families in getting their children with disabilities included in activities alongside non-disabled peers.

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“Sue helped us do something new and more powerful,” Hoyt said, adding that “she was the type of person who made you want to be a better person yourself, just by spending time with her.”

A service has been held for Ms. Hurley, who in addition to her two sons, mother, and former husband leaves three sisters, Lisa First of Alvin, Texas, Mary of Norfolk, and Cheryl Cuoco of Wrentham; her fiancé, Barry Foland of Owings Mills, Md.; and three stepchildren, Elle, Luke, and Chloe McGillivray, all of North Andover.

In August, Ms. Hurley spoke at the opening of Gronk Playground on the Charles River Esplanade, which was funded by her friend Rob Gronkowski, the former star New England Patriots tight end.

Ms. Hurley and Rob Gronkowski at the August opening of the Gronk Playground on the Charles River Esplanade.PSPH/Photo Credit: Liz Oberacker Pure

Gronkowski was overcome with emotion more than once, speaking a few feet away from where she sat next to Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

When it was her turn to speak, Ms. Hurley thanked Gronkowski for his philanthropy and floated an idea: “Can we just make it official and sign him for a day so he can retire a Patriot?”

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Several days after she died, Kraft and Gronkowski announced they would honor her wish.

On Instagram, Gronkowski wrote that “her strength and resilience were truly inspirational,” and added that “without Susan, there would be no Gronk Playground.”

In a CBS Boston interview posted on YouTube in 2023, a year after she was diagnosed, Ms. Hurley was back to her energetic pace, managing 500 runners and pushing that year’s fund-raising past the $4 million mark.

The cancer diagnosis had come as a shock, she said. A doctor broke the news a day after she had completed a 17-mile training run. In that interview, she was grateful for a reprieve treatment had brought.

“It is a miracle. I believe it’s God’s hand,” she said. “I really, truly, truly believe that there is a plan for me and I’m not ready to leave this planet and leave this earth. There’s work for me to do here.”

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Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.





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Shay Maloney’s overtime goal lifts Boston Fleet to road victory

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Shay Maloney’s overtime goal lifts Boston Fleet to road victory


VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Shay Maloney scored 41 seconds into overtime and the Boston Fleet edged the Vancouver Goldeneyes 2-1 on Tuesday night.

Much of the game was a goalie duel, with neither side scoring until the third period.

Haley Winn was first to strike, getting the Fleet on the board early in the final frame with her second goal of the year.

Hannah Miller responded for the Goldeneyes with 3:26 remaining, blasting a one-timer past Boston goalie Aerin Frankel from just inside the blue line. Frankel stopped 25 of the 26 shots she faced, and the Fleet won its sixth straight game.

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Kristen Campbell made 25 saves in the Vancouver net.

The win moved the Fleet back into sole possession of first place in the league standings, two points ahead of the Montreal Victoire.

Vancouver was without goalie Emerance Maschmeyer, who is listed as day to day with an upper-body injury. Kimberly Newell served as Campbell’s backup.



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Boston Police Blotter: Southie pub brawl leads to alleged stabbing

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Boston Police Blotter: Southie pub brawl leads to alleged stabbing


Two people were stabbed following an alleged bar brawl in Southie over the weekend.

According to a police report, officers arrived at Tom English’s around 10:30 p.m., Friday for a report of a fight. When they arrived on the scene, a victim told police that he was sucker punched during a fight and pointed out a person who was the “main aggressor” throughout the incident.

The suspect was pat frisked by police, but the report said they did not find any weapons. “The suspect stated that he was jumped [by the party of the victim,” the report said. “The suspect refused to cooperate any further after repeated attempts by officers to get his version of events.”

Both the suspect and victim declined EMS.

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Then about an hour later, three more victims arrived at a nearby police station to report that two of them had been stabbed in the fight at Tom English. One of the unnamed victims said that the fight started after the suspect kept moving coins he put down to play pool. The suspect, according to one of the other victims, told them to meet him outside.

All parties were kicked out by a bouncer and “a large brawl ensued,” the report said. The victims told police that that suspect brandished a knife and the victims said they “fled the scene on foot fearing for their lives.”

In the report, police noted that they saw wounds on two of the victims. EMS was called to treat them.

BPD did not confirm whether the suspect was arrested.

Fireworks call leads to firearm recovery in Mattapan

Reports of fireworks led Boston Police to recover a firearm Monday night in Mattapan.

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Officers responded to the area around Callender Street at about 10 p.m. for a call of shots fire, but a supervisor alerted them that individuals were shooting off fireworks.

When police got to the scene, they said they saw a group of people standing near a car that had several packages of fireworks. As officers approached, one man started to sprint towards Blue Hill Ave., throwing a jacket off as he ran, according to BPD.

Multiple officers responded to detain the suspect and a pat frisk of the jacket uncovered a ghost gun with 7 rounds in the magazine, police said.

Kahnari White, 24, of Mattapan was charged with carrying a loaded firearm without a license, carrying a firearm without a license, possession of a firearm without an FID card, and possession of a large capacity feeding device.

While the foot pursuit and arrest of White unfolded, police said the group standing with the fireworks began to become “hostile and threatening to an officer who remained with them on scene.”

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One person allegedly continued to threaten an officer and bumped him on the chest as more officers arrived.

“Multiple de-escalation tactics were attempted, but the suspect continued to threaten officers,” Boston police said in a statement.

Eventually, officers were able to detain Sean Galvez, 40, of Quincy. Galvez was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault and battery on a police officer.

Both suspects are expected to be arraigned at Dorchester District Court.

Gun recovered after foot chase in Dorchester

A 22-year-old from Dorchester was arrested on gun charges after police said they approached the suspect for drinking in public Monday night.

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Officers saw a group on Draper St. drinking publicly around 8:30 p.m., and when they approached them, one individual started to walk away.

“When officers advised the male that he could not be drinking alcohol in public, he fled on foot,” Boston Police said in a statement. “A foot pursuit ensued, and officers stopped the suspect.”

Police recovered a Smith and Wesson M&P Bodyguard .380 with nine rounds in the magazine during a pat frisk and said that the serial number on the gun was defaced.

Denilson Pires was arrested and charged with carrying a firearm without a license, possession of ammunition without an FID card, and defacing a firearm serial number.

He is expected to be arraigned at Dorchester District Court.

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‘More than just a game’: Free chess classes aim to reduce youth violence in Boston – The Boston Globe

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‘More than just a game’: Free chess classes aim to reduce youth violence in Boston – The Boston Globe


“I know we’re used to rushing, but this is a mind game. So we want to slow down and think,” Shaheed said. “Don’t move off of impulse.”

It’s a message that extends far beyond the chess board.

Organizers of Boston’s new Chess for Peace program are using one of history’s oldest board games to teach kids important life skills, including strategic thinking and conflict resolution. Their goals are to reduce youth violence and address the negative impacts of technology.

The program offers free chess classes Sunday afternoons in the basement of the Madison Park High School gym in Roxbury. It’s affiliated with a Boston Public Schools initiative that also includes basketball, boxing, yoga, rugby, and more, an effort to support families and keep students engaged throughout the week.

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Kids, including Jacquami Pierre, 7, participate in the Chess for Peace program at Madison Park High School.
Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

The 6-WON-7 program, which has grown significantly over the past couple years, is about to mark its 100th Sunday, said Cory McCarthy, director of student support at Boston Public Schools. School administrators launched the program partly in response to reports about unruly teenagers causing chaos at the South Bay shopping center and elsewhere on weekends, McCarthy said.

“School should feel like a community,” he said. “It’s the forgotten piece in the academic journey. It’s a safety issue. It’s violence prevention, it’s youth development, it’s all part of student wellness.”

While violent crime has decreased overall, youth violence remains a concern in Boston, largely concentrated among small groups of teenagers and sometimes fueled by gang affiliations. Social media often plays a role, experts say, with kids posting threats or bragging about crimes they’ve committed.

As technology shortens our attention spans, encourages rash decision-making and limits in-person interactions, playing chess can be a robust kind of antidote, said Renee Callender, a retired Boston police detective who spearheaded the program.

“It’s more than just a game. It actually mirrors life,” she said. “In the game of chess, like life, every action comes with consequences.”

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During more than three decades on the police force, Callender saw firsthand how cycles of violence start and end. She also founded a nonprofit called Promoting Conflict Resolution, Inc.

Instructed by Ishmael Shaheed, center rear, kids participate in the Chess for Peace program at Madison Park High School.Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

She said the idea for the program came from watching a youth chess tournament on TV; she was impressed by how poised and attentive the players looked. Maybe this could help kids in Boston stay out of trouble, she thought.

“It’s not only about how to play but how to lose,” she said. “How to gracefully lose. How to be humble.”

Indeed, it’s all fun and games until your king is in check.

Jacquami eventually lost to his opponent, 7-year-old Filip Rancic, who said his winning strategy involved steadily advancing his pieces toward the middle of the board.

“Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses. So that’s good for him,” said Filip’s dad, Milan Rancic.

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“They need to learn to be patient enough to develop a strategy, and obviously avoid a tantrum when they lose — pretty much everything we want our kids to learn,” he added.

During the class, three sets of players sat across from each other at classroom desks, with Shaheed monitoring their games and offering instruction. Sometimes the clink of plastic chess pieces was the only sound in the room.

“I think I got checkmate,” exclaimed Henry Lee, 10, bouncing excitedly in his chair.

Shaheed inspected the board and confirmed — checkmate, indeed.

“Good game,” Lee said, reaching out to shake hands with his opponent, 11-year-old Jesus Beltran.

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“Can you believe you just lost to a 10-year-old?” he asked, grinning.

Beltran laughed, rolled his eyes and started setting up the board again; he had won the previous match. In addition to chess, the boys play soccer together. They agreed their friendship can easily withstand some light-hearted competition.

Kids, including Zoya Thurston, 10, participate in the Chess for Peace program held at Madison Park High School.
Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

A few turns into the next game, Lee made a move he instantly regretted.

“Can I have that turn back?” he asked Beltran, who smiled and shook his head no.

“So often, they’re focused on just one piece,” said Rhodes Pierre, another instructor with the program. “I tell them to examine the entire board.”

Pierre, who grew up in Mattapan, has experienced firsthand the impacts of violence. His older brother was shot and killed in 1994 near their childhood home, about two weeks after he inadvertently witnessed another daytime shooting nearby. The case was later linked to a neighborhood drug gang, according to news reports at the time.

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Pierre said he started playing chess in college and quickly came to appreciate the life skills it teaches.

“Giving people another outlet to express themselves without having to revert to violence, that’s a good thing,” he said. “Making people sit down and think. It’s a better avenue than what we have right now.”

While kids participate in the Chess for Peace program, parents and other family members watch nearby in Madison Park High School.Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

While sprinkling in the basics of chess strategy, Shaheed sends a similar message.

“It’s about seeing the moves behind the moves,” he told the class. “It takes paying attention, hearing your own self think. Most games are won or lost because of focus.”

It’s something he personally learned the hard way, Shaheed said.

Now 45, he spent much of his youth caught in a cycle of poverty, crime, incarceration, and mental illness. From foster care and psychiatric institutions to jails and prison, he ended up playing a lot of chess.

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The game took on a central role in his life, an overarching metaphor that changed the way he approached decision-making, Shaheed said. Especially when he found himself in a hostile environment, he would think about the moves available to him and their potential consequences. That finally helped him leave the streets behind and forge a new path.

“The easy money, it wasn’t working. It was almost like a setup — nothing made sense anymore,” he said. “I needed a better move.”

Instructed by Ishmael Shaheed, kids participate in the Chess for Peace program, held at Madison Park High School. At left is Filip Rancic, 7, Levi Ilse, 7, at right.Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

He still plays chess regularly with various partners he’s befriended around Boston. He said he hopes younger generations will find some of the same benefits he’s experienced.

“Chess is a game of distress, tribulations, defeat, obstacles, resistance, competition, sorrow, and conquest,” Shaheed wrote in his recently published book, “Games Over: The Real Story About Chess and Life.”

“And that’s what life is all about — overcoming barriers and making progress.”


Lea Skene can be reached at lea.skene@globe.com. Follow her on X @lea_skene.

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