Salesman

Whenever you drink a National Premium or Natty Boh, think of Jerome "Jerry" DiPaolo, the colorful National Brewing Co. salesman and executive who helped make it one of the most recognizable and respected beers for more than 40 years in Baltimore and Maryland. It's sad that DiPaolo, who recently died at 95, never got a chance to enjoy the new National Premium. Once his former employer's flagship product, it is now back in bars, but not on tap, and on liquor store shelves. The beer, which last crossed the bar and coursed down the throats of its many fans more than 15 years ago, was recently revived by Tim Miller, an Eastern Shore businessman.

John Oliver DeVries II, a retired real estate salesman and former lacrosse player, died July 7 of complications after surgery at Gilchrist Hospice. He was 83 and had lived in Roland Park. Born in Baltimore and raised on Keswick Road, he attended the old Mount Washington Country School for Boys and was a 1946 graduate of Loyola High School, where he played football and swam. He then enlisted in the Marine Corps and was stationed in Guam. He also played on a Marine football team.

The comments former Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin made about the criteria he uses in choosing his assistant coaches at Vanderbilt came as a surprise to me. I always thought Franklin, like a lot of college coaches, was a used car salesman, not a sexist. If you haven't heard, the second-year Vanderbilt coach was chatting up a Nashville radio talk show when the subject of assistant coaches came up. Instead of saying something like, “I took the best guys off Ralph Friedgen's staff and cost him his job,” Franklin said, “I've been saying for a long time, I will not hire an assistant until I've seen his wife.

Robert T. Barry, a retired Exxon Oil Co. salesman and avid sports fan, died Friday from congestive heart failure at his Mays Chapel home. He was 83. The son of a lawyer and a homemaker, Robert Thomas Barry was born in Baltimore and raised on Dukeland Street. An outstanding athlete, he played varsity basketball, football and baseball at Loyola High School, from which he graduated in 1946. He was selected as a member of the All-Catholic Prep Football Team in 1945. Mr. Barry continued playing sports at what is now Loyola University Maryland, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1949.

Thomas Walter Gough Jr., a retired printing salesman and lacrosse coach, died April 13 of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 85. The son of a state worker and a homemaker, Thomas Walter Gough Jr. was born and raised in Towson. He was a 1946 graduate of St. Paul's School, where he was an outstanding lacrosse, football and basketball player. In 2010, he was inducted into St. Paul's Athletic Hall of Fame for his lacrosse and football prowess. Mr. Gough earned a bachelor's degree in 1950 from the Johns Hopkins University, where he played lacrosse and football.

John Y. Crow, a retired salesman of dairy products and a decorated World War II veteran, died of complications from pneumonia April 8 at Charlotte Hall Veterans Home in Southern Maryland. He was 89 and had lived in North Baltimore. Born in Uniontown, Pa., and raised in Towson, he was a 1941 graduate of Towson High School. He earned an animal husbandry degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he also attended a Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. He went into military service in the Army.

Sisto Joseph Averno Sr., a guard who played on the Baltimore Colts in the 1950s and went on to sell Chevrolets for 57 years, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Monday at Northwest Hospital. He was 86 and lived in Pikesville. Born in Paterson, N.J., he was the son of Roberto Averno and Elvira Isabella Salerno. While a student at Paterson High School, he played football and was scouted by colleges. He won athletic scholarships, but he forged a birth certificate so he could enlist in the Navy during World War II. He was assigned to the South Pacific and served as a gunner's mate aboard a destroyer.

The Fells Point Corner Theatre production ofEugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" is being staged in the right Baltimore neighborhood, because the entire play takes place in a bar. This is such a hard-drinking play that the word-drunk characters only shut up when they pass out, and even then they mumble in their sleep. Let's just say that the personally troubled, Pulitzer- and Nobel-prize winning playwright knew his down-and-out characters well, because O'Neill is completely persuasive in depicting their boasting and their brawls.

Richard P. Gangler, a paper salesman and sports coach, died of head and neck cancer Dec. 17 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Towson resident was 61. Born in Baltimore and raised on Chesterfield Avenue, he attended Shrine of the Little Flower School and was a 1968 graduate of Archbishop Curley High School, where he played soccer, basketball and lacrosse. He belonged to the Lancers Boys Club and was a volunteer at Camp Skylemar in Maine. He earned a political science degree at Loyola University of Maryland, where he also played lacrosse, soccer and basketball.

William Baynes MacLea, a retired industrial salesman whose career spanned three decades, died of heart failure Monday at his Towson home. He was 81. The son of a lumberyard owner and a homemaker, Mr. MacLea was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park. He attended the McDonogh School and graduated in 1949 from the Severn School. In his youth, he worked for the family business, MacLea Lumber Co., in Baltimore. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and was stationed in Japan during the Korean War. After leaving the service, he attended the University of Virginia, where he studied history and played lacrosse.