A Philosophy Professor and a Boxing Coach, Gordon Marino Wears Dissimilar Hats

Published

4 years ago

April 29, 2021

Rick Assad

A Philosophy Professor and a Boxing Coach, Gordon Marino Wears Dissimilar Hats

Academia and scholarship are prim and proper and generally take place in ivy-covered brick buildings.

The art and science of boxing are rough and rugged and usually situated in dank and musty gyms.

On the surface, at least, they couldn’t be more diametrically opposed.

Gordon Marino, a longtime philosophy professor and current Professor Emeritus and Director of the Hong Soren Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, has a different twist on the matter and actually sees an intersection between the two. In addition to teaching philosophy, Marino trains amateur boxers.

“Many would say they are antithetical. Even me sometimes. My wife [Susan] is a neuroscientist and was on the Cleveland Clinics Fighters’ Brain Health study,” said Marino, a leading scholar on Kierkegaard, the Danish existentialist philosopher, who lived from 1813 to 1855. “I know what kind of damage those hurricane blows can deliver and I get sick when I see a boxer taking a beating in a contest that should be stopped. Yes, I am ambivalent about building minds up and then putting them in danger.”

The sweet science and philosophy do seem to make for strange bedfellows.

“Philosophy is about acquiring wisdom and developing the virtues,” Marino said. “Again, with proper instruction, boxing can be fertile ground for those two endeavors.”

Marino, an amateur boxer who came close to turning professional, played wide receiver at Bowling Green State University in Ohio before transferring to Columbia. He went on to earn graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago. In addition to St. Olaf, he has taught at Yale, where he was an assistant football coach, at Harvard, at the University of Florida, and at Virginia Military Institute where he was the head boxing coach.

Marino explained being a college professor is in some ways like stepping into the ring.

“This might strike some readers as puzzling, but I should also mention that philosophy is a rather violent game. Scholars work for months or years to construct a theory and then others strive to find something wrong with the theory and take it down with an intellectual uppercut,” he said. “I can tell you from experience, being on the end of one of these uppercuts can make you feel pretty stupid and for my part I would much prefer a punch in the nose to one that knocks out my intellectual confidence.”

Having gone through the rigors and challenges of being a professor has also enabled Marino, who has written about boxing for a number of periodicals including The Wall Street Journal, to fully appreciate what boxers endure.

“I would like to think being a teacher has helped me be a better boxing coach. It has made me more adept at offering clear explanations and helped me to understand that students of both philosophy and the sweet science want to learn something new all the time,” he noted. “On the other side of the coin, my experience as a trainer has improved my work in the classroom. It has strengthened my ability to take better reads on my students and to know when and how to push them.”

Marino said growing up in a volatile household in New Jersey, he was looking for an escape hatch.

“I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in what would then have been considered a fairly violent environment,” he acknowledged. “I was smacked around at home on a daily basis, so in addition to the desire to learn how to defend myself, I suppose I wanted to kick some butt.”

“I was originally drawn to the violence and opportunity to express my anger,” he said of boxing’s appeal. “Let’s face it, everyone wants to be a tough guy and to receive their red badge of courage for overcoming five alarm fears.”

“In my late sixties and having calmed down a mite, I am more fascinated today by the courage, technique, resilience and resolve of fighters,” he said. “I also feel that in order to be a good, caring human being, we need to be able to deal with internal obstacles such as anxiety and anger.”

Marino continued: “There are very few places today where we can do some sparring with those challenging moods and emotions. With the right supervision, boxing provides a workshop for dealing with these feelings. For instance, following in the teaching of (the late trainer) Cus D’Amato, one of the lessons I pass onto my sub-novice competitive boxers is not to panic about feeling panicked. And that in order to be successful in the gloved game you are going to need to use, but control your aggression.”

Lessons are learned every single day and Marino used the manly sport to his advantage.

“I am better at taking life’s punches for having been in boxing,” he said. “And if you will excuse my moralizing, it seems to me that if you can’t take a punch, you won’t be able to do the right thing in life.”

Marino used an example from today’s headlines. “Consider the people and the cops who passively watched George Floyd have the life choked out of him. For the cops other than (Derek) Chauvin, intervening might have meant losing their job, i.e., taking a punch,” he said.

Marino wasn’t done. “Know thyself is one of the first philosophical commandments and if you have some muscle for self-reflection, you can certainly learn a lot about yourself in the ring,” he added. “Of course, the bruising game has also stamped in the importance of preparation and cultivated a little more control over my emotions than I would have had if I had spent my time on the links.”

One thing that Marino admires about pugilists is they go about their business essentially solo. Boxers walk figuratively naked into the ring.

“It is a truism to say that in boxing you are out there all alone. Boxers certainly reveal something about their will,” he explained. “When the leather starts flying you will be forced to ask yourself in public, just how far you are or aren’t willing to go to win.”

“For example, it could be that in learning to box and perhaps in sparring, you recognize you are too afraid to stay in the pocket. However, having grasped that, you push yourself and develop the courage to get inside and let your hands go.”

The second step is to remain in control of yourself despite what’s happening that may scare you.

In addition to cultivating control over emotions, said Marino, “(sports like boxing) nurture affiliations – strong and intimate bonds between people.”

On the other hand, there are negatives. “Just the same, make no mistake about it, sports can also poison character, especially when your guides to boxing or whatever are blind or indifferent to the issue of character,” Marino said.

It’s been said a wise man knows his limits and seeks out others as a way to enrich oneself. For Marino, that man was legendary trainer Angelo Dundee.

“About 15 years ago, I was assigned to write an online story on Ang for Men’s Health. I went to Florida to meet with him at the South Florida Boxing Gym, where he was still training fighters. He must have been in his late seventies, but he was a ball of positive energy.”

Marino could sense the experience was going to elicit a wealth of information from a man who trained 16 world champions.

“Like Muhammad Ali, Ang had a heavyweight love for people, as well as a sparkling sense of humor. Maya Angelou once remarked, ‘that you might not remember what a person says, but you’ll surely remember how they made you feel.’ Ang made so many of us, his friends, feel special. I loved the man,” he said.

It’s something that Dundee said that still resonates with Marino. “Of course, as a coach, I pumped him for his knowledge of strategy and technique,” he recalled. “Now and again, he would give me a piece of advice to which I would have to protest. ‘Ang, I can’t use that with amateurs.’ A [Sigmund] Freud of sorts, he taught me that when you have a boxer who won’t listen, as Ali often wouldn’t, praise him for doing what you want him to do, even though he or she might not be doing it.”

Having covered boxing for 15 years for The Wall Street Journal, Marino said the stint helped him immensely as a coach.

“Every time I met an elite fighter, I would ask him or her to teach me one of their signature moves,” he said. “Sometimes they were a little guarded about this – for example, Oscar De La Hoya just told me – ‘exhale on your big punches.’ But most of them came right back with something I could bring home.”

Manny Pacquiao was extremely helpful. “Tell them to always throw six punch combos on the bag or shadow boxing, because they will turn into two punches in the ring,” explained the eight-division world champion.

Roy Jones Jr. was equally insightful, according to Marino, who asked Roy about throwing a right hand.

“Lean right, lean left, lean back right, but this time as you are leaning right, throw your right,” he said.

The late Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward rendered this advice to Marino: “Don’t put too much weight on the front foot and when you throw your hook, turn your arm into a steel bar,” he said.

Mike Tyson, the youngest-ever heavyweight champion, gave Marino this tidbit: “Dip down a few times and jab to the solar plexus. The counter is, of course, a right hand,” he said. “Now, dip, load up your legs, feint the jab and fire your right. If you are lucky, the other guy will be coming in with his right and blam, good night.”

Sugar Ray Leonard forked over this gem just before Leonard’s wife kicked Marino out of the house: “When you are fighting a southpaw, feint the left hook and fire a wide right to the head,” he said.

Pacquiao, a left-hander, should have remembered this lesson before he faced Juan Manuel Marquez on December 8, 2012, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, when he was knocked out by a thunderous overhand right in the sixth round, Marino suggested.

For Gordon Marino, the path to knowledge and wisdom can be found almost anywhere, whether they’re in books, lecture halls or the squared circle.

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Rick Assad

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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-First-Boxing-Writers-Assoc-of-America-Dinner-was-Quite-the-Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

2 days ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

Gabriela-Fundora-KOs-Marilyn-Badillo-and-Perez-Upsets-Conwell-in-Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.

Will it be her last flyweight defense?

Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.

Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.

The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.

Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.

Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.

In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.

Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.

Perez Beats Conwell.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.

It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.

Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.

Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.

Other Bouts

Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.

It was very close.

Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.

Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.

One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.

Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.

Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.

Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

3 days ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Krusher-Kovalev-Exits-on-a-Winning-Note-TKOs-Artur-Mann-in-his-Farewell-Fight

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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