Bob Halloran wasn't about to be pigeonholed.
So while the Milton resident was building a career as a sportscaster equally at ease doing news, he always kept his eye on a writing career.
Now Halloran, 44, is winning plaudits for a new boxing book, "Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward," based on the life of the Lowell native whose trilogy of fights against champion Arturo Gatti captured the imagination of sports fans worldwide.
He has also signed on as a technical consultant on Paramount Pictures' upcoming film "The Fighter," which is based on the lives of Ward and his half-brother, Dickie Eklund, and will star Mark Wahlberg as Ward and Brad Pitt as Ecklund. With the end of the writers' strike, filming is set to begin in Lowell this fall.
Scot Silver's screenplay won't be based on Halloran's book, but Halloran expects the research and interviews he compiled along the way will help Silver in fleshing out certain scenes and situations.
Halloran, who has been a sportscaster and news anchor for WCVB-TV for the past five years, said he has always considered himself a writer as well as a broadcaster. "I'm proud of my writing. When I'm talking sports on TV, 99 percent of it is me."
He wrote frequently for ESPN.com during the three years he was an anchor for ESPN News. Now he writes a column for the Boston Metro, is a frequent guest on the Michael Felger show on ESPN Radio in Boston, and has also guest-hosted on the sports-talk radio station WEEI.
Halloran described his self-published 2003 book, "Destiny Derailed" - a look at the Red Sox' failed bid to unseat the Yankees in 2003 - as more or less a "writing workout," a self-test to see if he could bring a book project to completion. It whetted his appetite. "I knew I wanted to tackle something significant," he said.
So he met with a literary agent and threw some ideas at him.
"He told me everyone was looking for the next 'Friday Night Lights,' " said Halloran, referring to the best-selling book about high school football in Odessa, Texas. "I took that to mean a non-fiction sports book with some built-in human drama plus the passion of a community. That got me thinking about boxing in New England, and that led me to Micky."
Halloran had always been a fan of the "big fights" on TV and had covered former champion Vinny Pazienza extensively while sports director of WPRI-TV in Providence.
Ward, 42, was cooperative, but upfront about the fact he had sold the rights to his life story to a movie studio. Paramount had no problem with Halloran's book unless it interfered with the film version. Halloran plugged on.
He began writing the Ward book in August 2005, and finished it in November 2006. Then came the hard part: Finding a publisher. Halloran said he must have been rejected 20 times before Globe Pequot Press said yes. The book was released Nov. 1.
Reaction to the book has been positive on websites devoted to boxing, and boxing bloggers have also praised it. But Halloran was stung by criticisms made by Boston Herald boxing columnist George Kimball, who cited misspellings of the names of three prominent boxing judges, and questioned whether Halloran used the correct date for an incident involving Ward's manager, Sal LoNano, and one of Ward's sisters.
Halloran admitted the spelling errors, but said that the description of the incident came from LoNano himself, and he stands by it.
Halloran is hard at work on his next project, a look at the 2006 season of the Chelsea High football team and its police officer turned coach, James Atkins. It doesn't quite have an ending yet - Atkins was placed on paid leave last August until the Suffolk district attorney's office completes an investigation of allegations of misappropriated football program funds - but Halloran hopes Globe Pequot Press will also pick it up.
Halloran is married to WBZ-TV news reporter Eileen Curran. They have a daughter, Grace, and Halloran has three sons from a previous marriage - Sean, Daniel, and Liam.
His job at WCVB-TV has helped open doors when it comes to promotional appearances for "Irish Thunder." And those appearances can mean a lot when it comes to a niche book.
Take a recent book signing in Nashua.
"I probably signed about 25 books that day. The next time I looked on
Rich Fahey can be reached at faheywrite@yahoo.com.
