I wrote this story about a customer of mine. He was a regular at a breakfast restaurant that I worked at. This story was written for a sports journalism class taught by Dr. Tony Silvia.
The Milwaukee native is under six-feet tall, and is by no means a large man. You can see his toned arms under his usual polo shirt. His legs are muscular. Dick has a full head of hair and a mustache that is graying. He doesn’t look like he’s over 70, but he’s 72.
After his coffee, he might head out for a game of golf. He usually has a game planned for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Golf is his second love.
Dick’s first love is boxing. He doesn’t look like a boxer. He’s doesn’t emit that intensity you feel from other champions. Dick was a championship-winning boxer for most of the 50’s. He boxed amateur and pro, state and national.
Dick’s sure that he could throw a total knock out now if he had to.
“These are lethal weapons,” he said, clenching his fists.
Dick’s house is just inside the Tara Preserve. He lives on the number seven green. His house is immaculate for a bachelor; barely a thing is out of place. The white walls are nicely decorated with pictures of his family. His sliding glass doors look out to the green.
Dick likes to give tours of his house; the first stop is the kitchen. The living room has a glass door leading out to the green. The next stop is the master bedroom and bathroom. Then he walks into the guest bedroom.
“You want to look at this?” Dick asked.
He pulls out an old grey three-ring binder. In it are pages full of yellowing pictures and articles. This is Dick’s boxing scrapbook.
“I got so much stuff,” Dick said. “I don’t know what to show you.”
He picks up a pamphlet from the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. He points out his name and says “they’ve got me in there some place.”
You can see his face light up as we begin to look through the binder. There is Dick as a young kid in boxing regalia, his head and hand held high in the air. On the next page there is another picture, and then a clipping.
Thumbing through the binder, Dick points out photos and stories along the way. One bold headline boasts “Bartman defeats Harvey Lanker before 9400 people.” One caption hailed him as “one of the greatest boxers in Wisconsin ring history.”
Dick has the scorecard from his first hole-in-one. He has a picture of his son’s football team. Near the end of the binder is a picture of Dick and a childhood friend.
“As a kid I got shot in the head. I kept the picture. This guy shot me,” He said pointing to the other boy. “We were horsing around with a gun.”
It was written up in the local paper.
Dick watched his brother learn how to box from their uncle. That’s when he got interested in the sport. He longed to learn how to box. He began to train when he was 14 years old.
“I was an avid trainer,” he said. “I don’t care if I was out with a girl till 10 o’clock at night, I’d put my combat boots on and I’d go out running at night. “
“That’s ‘Baby Joe’ Gans,” he said pointing to a picture. Dick trained with Gans at the Milwaukee Urban League, an all black gym, before he went to college.
Dick loved the sport. He fought in college as a featherweight and a lightweight at University of Wisconsin. Back then most colleges gave scholarships for boxing.
After winning his first national title, Dick dropped out of school, losing his four-year scholarship. Dick fought pro as a welterweight at 147.
He went to the 1956 Olympic trials in San Francisco. Dick was the Golden Glove Champion. At the trials, Dick participated in a box-off. He lost on a split decision.
“I was young, they put me up in a beautiful house, “ Dick said of his trainers. “I went and got a job at the post office, but they made me quit. They said they didn’t bring me out here to work, they brought me to train and fight.”
He also says his downfall was a beautiful woman. Mostly, Dick got lonely. He said that the trainers put him up and footed the bill. But at night he had nowhere to go, no transportation, and no spending money.
He said it was hard because “you keep getting letters and phone calls from your girlfriend.” Dick wanted to go home and fight pro in Milwaukee.
His boxing career ended in 1959 but his love of the sport didn’t. He went on and became a referee. To this day, he is still a referee in Florida and Wisconsin. He says that boxing is a dying sport. Dick holds boxing promoter Don King responsible, saying that forming so many different leagues wasn’t good for the sport.
Dick has been to numerous fights. He saw Muhammad Ali fight in Milwaukee. He saw Jake LaMotta and Rocky Graziano fight.
Besides being a referee, Dicks is also a trainer. Recently, heavyweight China Smith asked him to be his trainer. According to Dick, Smith is rated in the top 10 in the world for heavyweight. They met at the local Lifestyle Family Fitness.
“Evidently, he thought I knew what I was doing,” said Dick.
Smith approached him about being a trainer after he watched Dick take on the punching bag at the gym. Dick would also tell Smith what he was doing wrong in the ring.
Eventually Dick moves into real life. He says to hold off on having kids, and live life in the now. Dick said that marriage and a family put his boxing career on hold.
After boxing, Dick worked for a lending company. For 30 years, He was vice president for a mortgage company that got bought out by Fleet National Bank. He continued to ref on the side.
Dick is curious to read about his life on paper. He comes into Peach’s and you can see that he’s been anxiously waiting for the story. Dick loves Peach’s coffee. In fact, by being the subject of an interview he would probably say that he’s earned the next cup.
