Hope held out for News reporter still in critical condition after fall
Tom Borrelli, a Buffalo News sportswriter and the only journalist in the National Lacrosse League’s Hall of Fame, remains in critical condition in Erie County Medical Center after taking a fall while covering a high school football game Saturday at Buffalo’s All High Stadium.
Borrelli, 51, is breathing with a respirator and is unable to move his arms and legs, said family members who are holding out hope his condition will improve once his extensive swelling goes down.
“He can understand, he’s in there,” said his wife, Karen, also a member of The News sports staff.
“He’s a determined guy,” said his father, George Borrelli, the retired News political reporter. “We’re hoping he’ll improve.”
Margaret Sullivan, editor and vice president of The News, called the staff together Monday to discuss Borrelli’s condition.
“Tom is a very well-liked, knowledgeable and much-respected member of The News staff,” Sullivan said. “We’re all just stunned about this accident and very concerned for Tom and his family.”
Borrelli fell down a steep set of iron stairs leading to the press box at All High Stadium. Located behind Bennett High School, the field underwent a $9 million renovation in 2007.
Plans for a new press box and an elevator to get to it were in the initial plans but got cut because of project overruns, said a spokesman for LP Ciminelli.
Stefan Mychajliw, spokesman for the Buffalo Public Schools, was asked about how the renovations got cut. He responded with a message from Superintendent James A. Williams that he hoped for the best for Borrelli’s recovery.
Borrelli was covering a game between McKinley and Riverside high schools, which was called off at halftime because he was injured so badly.
Others who have covered sports events at All High called the press box stairs dangerous. Some reporters refused to use the press box because of them.
“That was an accident waiting to happen,” said longtime Grover Cleveland High School coach Art Serotte, who is a close friend of Borrelli.
Serotte was doing color commentary from the press box Saturday with play-by-play man Rich Kozak.
Neither man saw the accident happen, but Kozak said he thought Borrelli was coming up to the press box at halftime, apparently to get the first-half statistics.
“He was on the ladder, he hit his head and fell back,” his father said.
Serotte and Kozak said they heard a commotion, went to the stairway and saw Borrelli, bleeding profusely, lying at the bottom of the stairs.
Kozak said he has been in the press box every fall weekend for the last 10 years. He said he nearly fell down the stairs himself in 2001.
“My former color guy had to grab me,” Kozak said. “I almost did a full gainer the same exact way.”
Kozak said he frequently hits his head on a girder at the top of the stairs, either going up or coming down.
“At least once a week, someone would say, it’s a wonder that somebody doesn’t get killed,” he said.
To get to the press box, reporters climb what a project architect said is essentially a ship’s ladder, with two handrails. They then climb through a trap door and walk along a catwalk on the stadium roof to the press box.
“The stadium was dedicated on May 29, 1929,” Kozak said. “I bet you those stairs are the same ones.”
Kevin Schuler, a spokesman for LP Ciminelli, the contractor that renovated Bennett High School and the stadium, said a new press box and elevator were in the initial plans.
But he said the bids came in over budget and the elevator was cut. He also said the school system had questions about the press box design and that, too, was cut.
Schuler said that funding restrictions on the school renovations made any renovation of All High a stretch.
Kozak said the only improvements to the press box were new windows and a new paint job.
Borrelli, a graduate of Buffalo State College, began as a sportswriter in Painesville, Ohio, and then became sports editor of the Bluefield, W. Va., Daily Telegraph.
While he was there, he hired the paper’s first female sportswriter, who later became his wife, Karen.
He moved to the Binghamton Press and in 1989 went to work for the sports department at The News. He began covering the Buffalo Bandits in 1992 and more recently began writing a weekly fantasy sports column.
In 2005, the National Lacrosse League honored him by creating the Tom Borrelli Award, given annually by the league to the writer of the year.
Two years later, he was honored in Philadelphia by being the first writer named to the league’s hall of fame.
