Author Jack Cavanaugh and boxer Gene Tunney are connected by more than the Pulitzer prize-nominated book that Cavanaugh wrote about the famous pugilist. The two also share the distinction of having addressed the Rotary Club of Greenwich, Conn., USA – 81 years apart.

Cavanaugh’s book Tunney: Boxing’s Brainiest Champ and His Upset of the Great Jack Dempsey tells the story of the world heavyweight champion of 1926-28 – a poor immigrant’s son who defied the odds to become a boxing star, scholar, and successful businessman.

Tunney had ties to both Greenwich and its Rotary club, Cavanaugh told a packed house. He was a good friend of Greenwich club member Sam Pryor, the author said, and “apparently went to a number of meetings. He enjoyed the companionship and camaraderie of Rotarians.”

Shortly after being invited to speak at a meeting, Tunney beat the more-famous Dempsey to win the 1926 heavyweight boxing championship.

“To me, it was an American story that Gene Tunney, who came from poverty, could rise to the level that he did in intellectual fields as well as athletic,” said club member Thelma Hoyt. “In this country, there is nothing you can’t do if you are determined enough or smart enough.”

An avid reader and self-taught intellectual, Tunney fought Dempsey in a rematch at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 1927 after his 1926 win was contested. Although he was victorious a second time in front of a record crowd and negotiated the first million-dollar paycheck for an athlete, it is Dempsey’s name that is better known.

The boxer was often ridiculed for his scholastic leanings, Cavanaugh said. After retiring from the sport in 1928, Tunney lectured on Shakespeare at Yale University and became a successful banking and insurance executive. One of his children, John V. Tunney, served in the U.S. Senate from 1971 to 1977.

Cavanaugh, whose book was nominated for the Pulitzer in the biography category in 2007, has written for the New York Times and Sports Illustrated and is a former sports reporter for ABC and CBS news. He teaches feature writing and sports reporting at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., and has also spoken about his book to the Rotary clubs of Westport and Westport Sunrise.