10
Canisius High School Today
Alumni Connections
Brady and Perez
Educate
and Entertain
Downtowners
Erik Brady ’72 has traveled to all corners of the
globe as a sports reporter, but despite amore than
25-year career in Washington, D.C., his roots re-
main firmly in the soil of Western New York.
Brady returned to Buffalo in July and treated
some 90 Canisius alumni and guests to his quick
humor and experienced insight. His remarks
which ranged fromhis first assignment as a writ-
er for the Citadel and the day he met his wife,
Carol Stevens, at the “Courier Express” newspa-
per, to his current position at “USA Today.” Brady
leads all “USA Today” reporters with cover sto-
ries and stories about Buffalo.
During the question-and-answer period,
Brady offered his perspective on topics like the
future of print newspapers and the differenc-
es covering the Olympics and the Super Bowl.
Family was an underlying theme throughout
the afternoon, and a question about the poten-
tial relocation of the Buffalo Bills offered Brady
the opportunity to highlight a financial initia-
tive conceptualized by his son Steve Brady, “Bill
Bonds”. The younger Brady shared an abbreviat-
ed plan of his businessmodel to keep the beloved
Bills inWestern NewYork: by financing bonds to
produce enough capital to subsidize the cost of
purchasing the team fromRalphWilson’s estate.
Tom Perez ’79 was the final speaker of the
2011 Downtowners series. As assistant attor-
ney general, Civil Rights Division, Perez is asked
the same question time after time: “Why does
the Attorney General’s Office need a Civil Rights
Division in 2012?” Perez eloquently educated
luncheon attendees on the importance and ne-
cessity of his office, which is charged with ensur-
ing opportunity is available to every American
regardless of race, sex, orientation or creed.
Perez provided numerous examples of cas-
es he has fought in the past few years in which
discrimination not only existed but at times
led to violence and death. He described the tre-
mendous commitment of resources by the
Department of Justice to help NewOrleans over-
come the loss of trust and confidence in the
government and police force after Hurricane
Katrina. Perez expressed his concern with the
common occurrences of discrimination to-
ward Muslim communities in the United States,
drawing parallels between the present situa-
tion facing Imams and their communities to
the persecution of Irish and German Catholics
of the 1850s. Perez emphasizes that his job and
the charge of his office is to prosecute those
who illegally and deliberately limit or block op-
portunity to pursue the American Dream.
✠
Erik Brady with son Steve and Steve’s
fiancee, Shannon Foley, after his talk in
the Downtowners series.