According to FBI records, retired Boston Celtics star point guard Bob Cousy had social relationships with powerful east coast mobsters Jerry Angiulo and Frank (Frankie Sky Ball) Scibelli during and after his playing days in the NBA and was eyed by the feds for possible wrongdoing. Cousy is considered one of the greatest floor generals in pro basketball history and won six world championships as a player. He was the NBA’s MVP in 1957 and a 13-time All-Star selection. Despite the interest from law enforcement about the company he kept, Cousy never faced any charges and was never implicated in any impropriety.
Angiulo was the mafia don of Boston from the late 1950s — the underboss of New England’s Patriarca crime family —- until he was imprisoned for racketeering in 1983. Sky Ball Scibelli was overseer of the Western Massachusetts rackets for the Genovese crime family out of New York in the 1980s and 1990s.
Cousy has admitted to partying, golfing and discussing sports gambling details with members of Scibelli’s Springfield-based crew, including prolific bookie Andy (The Arm) Pradella. Back in 1967, he broke down in tears at a press conference discussing his friendship with Pradella in response to a Time Magazine article that linked the two together.
Pradella was the biggest bookmaker in Western Massachusetts in his day. In interviews with the FBI, Cousy confirmed he had accompanied Pradella to a mob get-together in Hartford, Connecticut in 1966 attended by the entire Springfield mob crew, at that time a regime ran by Salvatore (Big Nose Sam) Cufari with Frankie Sky Ball acting as his No. 2 man.
Before becoming a pro, Cousy was an All-American college hoopster at nearby Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He met Pradella in 1954 when Pradella sent his sons to his summer basketball camp held on the Holy Cross campus.
Cousy was the head coach of Boston College’s men’s basketball program from 1963 through 1969. Jerry Angiulo frequently sat courtside for Eagles games when “Cooz” was on the BC bench in Chestnut Hill. Angiulo headquartered in the city’s historic North End.
Last month, Cousy, 91, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Donald Trump. Some journalists in Massachusetts pointed out Cousy’s past connections to organized crime figures in New England in op-eds written on Cousy’s August trip to the White House.
The post Bob Cousy & The Mob: NBA MVP Cozied Up To Massachusetts Mafia appeared first on The Gangster Report.