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

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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