Charles Clifford McDonald, Jr.
Charles Clifford McDonald, Jr. was born in Boston January 13, 1949. He was the son of Charles Clifford McDonald and Marian Ruth Farrar McDonald who met and married in England during World War II while his father was serving in the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division and his mother was serving in Britain’s Women’s Land Army. Cliff, as he was known, was the second child and first son of the nine children they would eventually have.
When Cliff was a child he lived in South Boston and attended Gate of Heaven School through eighth grade and later South Boston High School. A good student and an outstanding athlete, he was awarded a full scholarship to the University of New Hampshire where he played football as both an offensive and defensive lineman. He was captain of the team in 1970. While in college, Cliff began boxing professionally. In 1972 he earned the New England Heavyweight Champion title. Also that year he fought two rounds of exhibition boxing with Mohammed Ali in Boston Garden. He was inducted into the UNH Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991.
While in college, Cliff married Jane E. McClintock, also a UNH student, and they had two children, Amy E. McDonald and Charles C. McDonald III. After living in Dorchester and Saugus, the family moved to Melrose in 1979 where the children attended Melrose Public Schools. Like their father, Cliff’s children were good students and excelled athletically in high school – field hockey, basketball, track & field, football, and wrestling.
Cliff was a physical education & health teacher in the Boston Public Schools where he was employed for over thirty years. As a teacher, he touched the lives of thousands of children. He was a positive role model not only with regard to athletics but also more importantly with regard to character development, emphasizing good health and nutrition, hard work and determination, commitment, kindness, and respect. On a personal level, he was an outstanding father who encouraged his children to “have fun” and enjoy their athletic experiences. He greatly appreciated being able to raise his children in Melrose and having them benefit by the experience of being student- athletes in such a fine community. Cliff passed away unexpectedly in 2004. Because of his strong, positive feelings about Melrose, his family decided to establish a scholarship in his name that would be awarded to a boy or girl who represented the qualities he valued and strove to instill in his own children and those he taught throughout his career.