Last Friday afternoon, the Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) club at West welcomed local boxing legend, Cranston High School East graduate and five-time world champion Vinny Pazienza to a standing-room-only auditorium. Pazienza was recently featured in a new movie, Bleed for This, a Hollywood biopic of the boxer's life, shot entirely in Rhode Island.

"Today we are fortunate to have a guest speaker who has overcome many obstacles in his life and in his professional career," said junior SADD member Sara Lancelotta. "He worked hard and was determined and he never gave up."

Before Pazienza spoke, the audience viewed a DVD presentation showing clips from many of Pazienza's fights, and the reaction from the students as they watched varied from being able to hear a pin drop to shocked gasps as they watched the hits keep coming. The movie also showed Pazienza's fight to recover from a broken neck, which was the result of a car crash.

"That movie you watched is pretty strong, and it encompasses a lot," Pazienza said when he began to address the students. "I am here to talk to you today because of my persistence and my determination. I worked hard. You can't quit, and that's the reason why I won five world titles."

He asked for a show of hands as to how many had seen Bleed for This and told them he was pleased with it.

"Go see it if you can," he said. "It'll change things in your life a little bit; you'll see things from a different aspect. It'll make you get up off the couch. It's a strong movie, and I'm proud of it."

Pazienza empathized with the students, remembering the pressures of high school when he was a student at CHSE, and he told the students that the pressures now seem so much worse than back then.

"I don't know how people do it," he said. "It's a crazy world, but you've got to be strong no matter what. You can't quit. You will find yourself on top of the world; you will find yourself at the bottom of the ocean. I've been in both places, but you've got to stay strong."

He used boxing as a metaphor for life.

"Boxing is hard, like life is hard. I know but you have to be strong, stay strong, focus and you've got to have goals. Work hard; don't quit. That's why I'm a five-time world champion and it's that persistence and determination that made me able to win 50 professional fights. That takes persistence, but you can't quit."

Pazienza referred to a quote from past president Calvin Coolidge when he said, "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

"I think about that every day and whenever a situation arises," Pazienza said. "People wanted to see me fight because I wouldn't quit. I had some of the biggest audiences and TV crowds for one reason, and that's because they knew I wouldn't quit. It's not how many times you fall that matters, it's how many times you rise that counts. It's going to happen to you in life. It may be big, it may be small, but always, you must rise again. In life you can't stay down."

Pazienza credited Muhammad Ali for inspiring him to become a boxer, and stated that he felt lucky to know exactly what he wanted to do, from a young age, and to be driven to achieve that goal.

"I went to his funeral in Kentucky, and I cried," he said. "I am here because of him and I know that if it wasn't for him, I don't know what I'd be doing."

He told a story about how in 1990 he fought a world champion and was beaten in that fight.

"After the fight, at that time I didn't like my manager, and he told me to quit. He told me to quit after I'd lost a fight with a world champion," Pazienza said. "If I had listened I wouldn't be here now. There are some mad obstacles in front of you in life, and literally I went on after he told me to quit and I came back and won three more world titles after that."

Pazienza also touched on his recovery from a broken neck. "After that car accident they put screws in my skull," he said. "That was unbelievable. I wasn't supposed to fight again, but do you guys think I listened to the doctors? I had four screws screwed into my head, and that was a crazy period in my life, but I worked hard to get a little bit stronger and I had them take those screws out at the end, with no medication."

Kevin Ascoli, faculty advisor for the CSHW SADD club, later referred to Pazienza's known resistance to peer pressure, and his never having tried drugs or even taken a sip of alcohol until he was 24 years old.

"I never did drugs, I have never had a puff on a cigarette," Pazienza said. "In high school everyone wants you to smoke cigarettes or smoke pot or drink beer, but I didn't do any of it. I didn't have my first sip of alcohol until after I'd won my first world title. I had tunnel vision until then and I didn't fall to peer pressure. Do not do drugs, do not smoke, do not drink. You guys have a lot of pressure to do all three. Stay strong."

He took the time to answer questions and later to speak individually and take photos with anyone who wanted one.

When asked by a student during the question and answer period what his pre-fight meal was, Pazienza laughed and said pizza.

"I had to make sure that I made weight before every fight, so I couldn't ever eat pizza, but before the fight I would have a pizza sent to me," he said.

Pazienza cited another inspirational quote, this time from Super Bowl coach Vince Lombardi.

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

"You have to keep that in your mind," Pazienza said. "Life is a battle every day and the war is only over when you quit. That quote is mine, Vinny Paz. Hopefully you'll remember that, and hopefully some day one of you will come up to me and say that today made a difference in your life. Rhode Island is a small state, and I'm sure I'll see some of you again."

At the end of the event, one audience member, Kyle Ascoli, asked Pazienza what he does for a job now, since his retirement from fighting.

"I do this," he said. "I go around and speak to students like you. I know that I wish that I had someone come to my school and speak to us like this."