Here’s a fun recollection in Kevin McNamara’s Sunday profile of Ed Cooley, PC’s new basketball coach:

Cooley’s life is a Full Rhode Island. His mother is a Narragansett Indian and his family tree owns branches that are seemingly never-ending. “I have more than 300-350 relatives. Easy,” he says.

He played for the Eighth Ward Democrats in the Elmwood Little League against two future mayors, Cranston’s Allan Fung and Providence’s Angel Taveras. Another ex-mayor, Cranston’s Michael Traficante, was his youth football coach with the Edgewood Eagles. When Cooley was at Central High, Taveras played baseball at Classical with some of his friends. “He was a good baseball player,” Cooley says, “a funny guy. Big personality. To see him now, he’s, well, kind of geeky. He wasn’t like that as a kid. I am so proud of Angel.”