"Glory days, yeah they'll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girls eye"
Bruce Springsteen
Read of the passing of another from my home town. Someone I only remember as, (myself being only a fifteen year old), a scrappy little blond haired kid whose boxing skills belied his young age. Whacking a heavy bag with jabs and rights with gloves larger than his head. I was transported back to a small garage in an alley in the old part of town off of second Ave, that had been transformed into a small boxing gym, barely the size of a single car garage run by a, kindly old white haired Bill Moran whose house it was located behind. A small ring with boxing posters taped to the walls, the one I recall depicting 1969's National Golden Gloves champs of which Ron Lyle, a former Colorado state prisoner was one. Seems like the season was always Winter as I also remember the cold drive navigating icy streets while picking up and dropping off various friends afterwards. Windshield of my 61 Ford steamed up by all the sweat. Or seeing Earl, a former Marine and if memory serves a Vietnam vet jogging up the wet sidewalks in the dark. Green nylon military jacket and old gray sweat pants not unlike those in the Rocky movie that wouldn't be made for several years, with a white towel hooding his head. Earl was the pearl of the gym, (yeah it rhymes) a boxer of considerable skill and toughness. I'm shooting from memory but as I recall he went to Nationals on several occasions. And though he benefited exactly zero, Earl would don the gloves and spar with each one of us and amazingly, no one ever got hurt. With skills far beyond ours, he somehow looked like he was actually sparring as hard as say with, Woody Turley, one of the other older greats. An extremely cool thing to watch at that time. But Earl, underage as you might be, would deliver a stinging hook if you dropped a glove below your ear just to make sure you were taking all of this seriously. My dad had said no to this whole boxing interest several times before, envisioning the Cauliflower Ears and punch drunk demeanor that can accompany long term involvement, but eventually relented. Apparently not to concerned about my good looks. But anyways, so myself and many of my friends spent many evenings the winter there eating a lot of boxing glove leather, coached patiently by a number of highly knowledgeable old guys, in the hopes of learning something that could give us some kind of edge if we ever found ourselves in a random, unescapable encounter with a number of tough guys who proliferated in our little town. So hell, anything that might help you survive. But there was also just that allure of the test. Yourself and those other guys. So on any given night that ring would be full of young men from ten to whatever years of age. This was the heyday of boxing in the old Magic Valley. Where some of the locals enjoyed almost as much fame as the greats of the day. I recall an amateur match in Gooding, Idaho attended by the great Gene Fullmer .
Years later I would meet Matt whose dad, a one time pro of some stature raised his kids with a good knowledge and experience base of the manly arts. That journey over several years led to various boxing gyms around Boise.
I would meet the great Harry Kidd Matthews from Emmett, Idaho, a one time foe of Rocky Marciano in a fight considered one of the greatest. Ok, he was presenting trophies but still I got to shake his hand.
Still later, I would get to meet and talk with George Logan (Toughest Cat in Boise). George, a one time great would drop by the gyms and spar with some of the better amateurs. The conversation was short but I had the opportunity to talk with him about his fight with Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) in 1961 and who had beaten one time champion Ezzard Charles. Of Charles I remember Logan, a really polite self deprecating guy saying "he was past his prime." But Ali? I remember the words "really great" spoken. Yeah I know, it's a little different from the article but remember, George was talking to a kid at a local boxing gym and it was pretty clear he had a great deal of respect for the man.
This was very heady stuff in my youth but certainly credited to an interest that I had that brought me experiences that you couldn't buy from me now. Then I rarely gave a second thought to. Memories like before a match I once had, my buddy Matt loaned me a cup that he said was once owned by Archie Moore. Another great champion. Jeez. I'm not sure if it was true or not or he was just trying to give me an edge . Think about being the guy who fills those shoes, or cup so to speak. All of us played a sport or two, we might reminisce a bit about "back in the day" but there's just something about the connection of being in a ring in a solo encounter with another whose abilities were at least as much as your own. And really something everybody should experience. My few fights were bloody, each time. Sometimes the other guy a little more. It didn't matter so much. Boxing was a sport that tested your will as much as your toughness. A sport touted in the seventies by Playboy magazine of all things to be the toughest of them all. Yeah, there's comparative sports now (think MMA) But I don't think that option is as available to guys of questionable athletic bent as we were. Nor are the kindly old coaches willing to spend time to teach the finer points of an art that they themselves had loved and were willing to pass on to anybody who'd pay attention, not just the prodigy. (As I myself have) But boxing and all of us old guys who share a little bit of that history, from those small towns, who at one time or another put it all up there, there is a treasured corner for all those shared memories and believe it or not a feeling of community. And when an old great like Joe Frazier, Ron Lyle or Ken Norton, to just a local standout like Rick Adams passes, There's a communal wail from a bunch of guys, not a one under fifty who shared a time some thirty to forty years ago when in our minds, the real glory days of the sport were.
Glory days, in the wink of a young girls eye"
Bruce Springsteen
Read of the passing of another from my home town. Someone I only remember as, (myself being only a fifteen year old), a scrappy little blond haired kid whose boxing skills belied his young age. Whacking a heavy bag with jabs and rights with gloves larger than his head. I was transported back to a small garage in an alley in the old part of town off of second Ave, that had been transformed into a small boxing gym, barely the size of a single car garage run by a, kindly old white haired Bill Moran whose house it was located behind. A small ring with boxing posters taped to the walls, the one I recall depicting 1969's National Golden Gloves champs of which Ron Lyle, a former Colorado state prisoner was one. Seems like the season was always Winter as I also remember the cold drive navigating icy streets while picking up and dropping off various friends afterwards. Windshield of my 61 Ford steamed up by all the sweat. Or seeing Earl, a former Marine and if memory serves a Vietnam vet jogging up the wet sidewalks in the dark. Green nylon military jacket and old gray sweat pants not unlike those in the Rocky movie that wouldn't be made for several years, with a white towel hooding his head. Earl was the pearl of the gym, (yeah it rhymes) a boxer of considerable skill and toughness. I'm shooting from memory but as I recall he went to Nationals on several occasions. And though he benefited exactly zero, Earl would don the gloves and spar with each one of us and amazingly, no one ever got hurt. With skills far beyond ours, he somehow looked like he was actually sparring as hard as say with, Woody Turley, one of the other older greats. An extremely cool thing to watch at that time. But Earl, underage as you might be, would deliver a stinging hook if you dropped a glove below your ear just to make sure you were taking all of this seriously. My dad had said no to this whole boxing interest several times before, envisioning the Cauliflower Ears and punch drunk demeanor that can accompany long term involvement, but eventually relented. Apparently not to concerned about my good looks. But anyways, so myself and many of my friends spent many evenings the winter there eating a lot of boxing glove leather, coached patiently by a number of highly knowledgeable old guys, in the hopes of learning something that could give us some kind of edge if we ever found ourselves in a random, unescapable encounter with a number of tough guys who proliferated in our little town. So hell, anything that might help you survive. But there was also just that allure of the test. Yourself and those other guys. So on any given night that ring would be full of young men from ten to whatever years of age. This was the heyday of boxing in the old Magic Valley. Where some of the locals enjoyed almost as much fame as the greats of the day. I recall an amateur match in Gooding, Idaho attended by the great Gene Fullmer .
Years later I would meet Matt whose dad, a one time pro of some stature raised his kids with a good knowledge and experience base of the manly arts. That journey over several years led to various boxing gyms around Boise.
I would meet the great Harry Kidd Matthews from Emmett, Idaho, a one time foe of Rocky Marciano in a fight considered one of the greatest. Ok, he was presenting trophies but still I got to shake his hand.
Still later, I would get to meet and talk with George Logan (Toughest Cat in Boise). George, a one time great would drop by the gyms and spar with some of the better amateurs. The conversation was short but I had the opportunity to talk with him about his fight with Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) in 1961 and who had beaten one time champion Ezzard Charles. Of Charles I remember Logan, a really polite self deprecating guy saying "he was past his prime." But Ali? I remember the words "really great" spoken. Yeah I know, it's a little different from the article but remember, George was talking to a kid at a local boxing gym and it was pretty clear he had a great deal of respect for the man.
This was very heady stuff in my youth but certainly credited to an interest that I had that brought me experiences that you couldn't buy from me now. Then I rarely gave a second thought to. Memories like before a match I once had, my buddy Matt loaned me a cup that he said was once owned by Archie Moore. Another great champion. Jeez. I'm not sure if it was true or not or he was just trying to give me an edge . Think about being the guy who fills those shoes, or cup so to speak. All of us played a sport or two, we might reminisce a bit about "back in the day" but there's just something about the connection of being in a ring in a solo encounter with another whose abilities were at least as much as your own. And really something everybody should experience. My few fights were bloody, each time. Sometimes the other guy a little more. It didn't matter so much. Boxing was a sport that tested your will as much as your toughness. A sport touted in the seventies by Playboy magazine of all things to be the toughest of them all. Yeah, there's comparative sports now (think MMA) But I don't think that option is as available to guys of questionable athletic bent as we were. Nor are the kindly old coaches willing to spend time to teach the finer points of an art that they themselves had loved and were willing to pass on to anybody who'd pay attention, not just the prodigy. (As I myself have) But boxing and all of us old guys who share a little bit of that history, from those small towns, who at one time or another put it all up there, there is a treasured corner for all those shared memories and believe it or not a feeling of community. And when an old great like Joe Frazier, Ron Lyle or Ken Norton, to just a local standout like Rick Adams passes, There's a communal wail from a bunch of guys, not a one under fifty who shared a time some thirty to forty years ago when in our minds, the real glory days of the sport were.
,
Harry Kid Matthews vs Rocky Marciano
No comments:
Post a Comment