Born Richard Lee Samuels February 2, 1947 in Pennsville, NJ. Samuels began his career writing for local papers, including the Pennsville Progress, Pennsgrove Record and Camden Courier-Post, before being hired as a sportswriter by the Philadelphia Bulletin in 1974, covering basketball, auto racing and boxing (including Ali vs. Spinks I) until the paper folded in 1982.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum hired Samuels in 1983 to handle east coast publicity for his burgeoning ESPN boxing series. Four years later he handled publicity for Marvelous Marvin Hagler for his bout with Sugar Ray Leonard. Samuels left Top Rank from 1993-96 to work at the Las Vegas Hilton sport book but returned to work De La Hoya vs. Chavez I and was publicist there until 2017. In over three decades in the sport, he has earned a reputation for accuracy, promptness and willingness to assist. Samuels is a master at scheduling press conferences, conference calls and other related publicity events, as well as routinely producing insightful press kits packed with pertinent information.
Highly respected throughout the boxing community, he was awarded the 2006 Marvin Kohn Good Guy Award and the 2013 Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service by the BWAA. Since 2017, he was been coordinator with Top Rank.
Born: Feb. 2, 1947
Induction: 2019
Lee Samuels
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