By Sandy Stevens, Special for WIN

It was 1958 and new vocal music teacher Ed Aliverti had inherited just 13 singers in a school of 700 students. He set about recruiting and one day six guys, calling themselves “wrestlers,” joined the choir.

            “I didn’t know what ‘wrestlers’ did,” Ed recalled.

                 He asked the Edmonds (Wash.) High School coach to explain, but the coach said he’d need to demonstrate. So Ed joined wrestling practice.

            “My wife told me I was crazy,” he said. “When I tried to get up the next morning, I thought so, too.”

            After two weeks, the coach said, “OK, you’ve got to do something for me: announce our first match.”

            “What does that mean?” Ed asked.

             “Read the names,” the coach replied.

               Not only did Ed amass 129 vocalists by their first concert that winter, wrestling got a hold on him that would last for 50 years.

             He recalls that first season of announcing the school’s meets.

             “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I realized the audience wasn’t really involved,” he said. “I came home and told my wife that I need to do something to bring the fans down to the mat — ‘Folks, as you can see, this is a caution …’

             “I tried very hard to make them think I was talking to them, but to still be respective of (the wrestlers) so that they’d have the information that matters.”

            After a half century of announcing — including the Olympic Games in Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney; more than 20 World Championships; several decades of NCAA and NAIA Championships; countless high school tournaments; and induction into five halls of fame — Ed, 76, is retiring from the wrestling mic.

            “We figured we’re pushing a half million matches,” he said.

            “We,” of course, means Shirley, Ed’s wife of 55 years. The Alivertis are parents of former Edmonds mat maids Jann, of Washington State; Leslie, Alaska; and Gina, Alabama, and grandparents of four.

             Shirley has been matside with Ed almost from the beginning. Early on, she sat in the stands, but after an Ed remark during one meet, she moved down to ask him, “What did that mean? Say it so I understand it.”

             “I used her as my sounding board,” Ed said.

              From that day on, Shirley partnered at nearly every meet, serving as Ed’s liaison to the press table, pointing out wrestlers’ biographical notes or placing notes of on-deck matches in their places.

             “She did it all,” Ed said. “She kept me organized. Since when are Italian men supposed to be logical?”

              Continuing to announce, Ed went on to serve as a high school counselor and director of student activities and eventually, Edmonds Community College’s first public relations director.

              Wrestling fans also associate Ed with his powerful singing of the National Anthem, but his first wrestling-related performance came unexpectedly at the state high school championships, when the scheduled musician didn’t show. “And I’ve been singing it ever since,” Ed said.

             Later he would add the Korean, French, Russian, Japanese, Canadian and Cuban national anthems to his repertoire.

              Ed has performed extensively for more than 40 years, and he directs the Fabulous Stardust Follies, a group of singers and dancers ages 65 to 83. (Google the group to view a video.)

             For the last six years, Ed has also battled three types of cancer. “The first two we’ve battled very successfully and won the fight,” he said.

             With the third type, pancreatic cancer, he underwent chemotherapy and 23 radiation treatments, the heaviest treatment available. His weight dropped from 185 to 122, and he lost his dark, wavy hair.

             “But the third (battle) appears to be successful only because we caught it so early,” Ed said.

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