Richard Francis Sullivan

Richard Sullivan a remarkable person and in so many dimensions. It was very compassionate and a patient man possessed with a very high intelligence. He later became a physician and later in life he married as he had told me before this is something that he wanted to do. He was a very good and loyal friend and he oozed of optimism in terms of his love of people and of life. I considered him a blessing to be around and found him very inspiring.

When I was in HS, Coach Lee would have us over to the MAC to wrestle around with the college guys and other area HS kids. Coach Peckham and Coach Chassey were usually there too as well as local wrestling alum like Dr. Rick who was maybe in his 30´s and considered an "old guy" by us young whippersnappers. One Saturday, I was there with my brother, Bob Latessa, a HS sophmore at the time. Dr. Rick was graciously giving us pointers as we were drilling. Time to go live in the neutral position. Dr.Rick paired up with my brother. At the time he was wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, and no headgear. Whistle blows and my brother taps Dr. Rick in the face and hits a low single taking him down. Whistle blows to restart and Dr. Rick calmly removes his sweats, snaps on a headgear and proceeds to dispense some valuable wrestling life lessons to my brother for the rest of the session. RIP and thank you Dr. Rick.- Mike Latessa