James Musuraca
James Musuraca — known as Jim, Maz, Number 47, or just Dad — died at home in New York City on Jan. 8, 2026, after a long illness. A gifted athlete and fierce competitor (once called “an animal” by a sportswriter), Jim’s remarkable record at East Liverpool High (Bill Booth Award, 1969) won him a full-ride football scholarship to the University of Notre Dame, where he played starting linebacker from 1971-73.
Disqualified from the professional sports arena by injury, Jim shook off disappointment and took up the law; he earned his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1977, and in the process, met his future wife at a Bar (review course). Jim served as an Assistant Ohio Attorney General until 1980 before stepping into a long career in civil litigation. Married in 1983, the inveterate and reluctant Midwesterner joined his wife and young son in New York City in 1991, and before long his legal vocabulary had expanded to include terms such as “shvitz” and “bupkis.”
Jim’s notable accomplishments, outside his distinguished record in insurance litigation, include coaching his son’s Little League team to an undefeated season, keeping his beloved koi alive through icy upstate winters, and teaching his pitbull to “cross his paws” with an anxious cosmopolitan air that never failed to elicit laughter. Though he remained a fierce competitor in the courtroom and on the racquetball court, Jim was considered to be among the kindest, gentlest, and funniest of men by all who knew him. After his retirement in 2017, a degenerative illness of the brain — caused, he believed, by head injuries sustained while playing football — gradually took everything from him it could find. It never found his essential sweetness and decency.
He is survived by his wife Erin Moriarty, son Nicholas Musurca, brothers Nick and Scott Musuraca, and sisters Beth Manuel, Maria Hickey, and Peggy Concilla, who all miss him terribly. Donations in his memory may be made to Boston University’s CTE Center. donate.musurca.com.
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