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Useless Trivia The world's first passenger train made its debut in England in 1825.
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Member Biographies :
Member Biography
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| Title: |
A Boxing Legacy |
| By: |
Duke Ottinger
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| Bio: |
Grandpa Beckett, my mom's father was a Tennessee farmer and part time street corner evangelist. One cold and windy day two drunken men holding a grudge against Grandpa walked down the road to the family farmhouse. Inside there was twelve young Beckett children plus grandma and grandpa. The drunken intruders went around the farmhouse with hammers breaking every window. After the last window was shattered they stumbled onto the porch and banged with their hammers on the door. Grandpa calmly picked up a coal shovel, opened the wood stove door and filled a small shovel heaping with red-hot coals. He opened the front door and threw the fiery coals right into the faces of his antagonists. The two drunks ran back down the road screaming.
The two men sued Grandpa, the results are unknown to me, but I know that they did have to replace every broken window.
Nellie my mother, had a quick fiery temper. After marrying in Tennessee, mom and dad moved to the big sinful city of St. Louis. One day on the way to Farmers Market, down on Broadway Street, she ran into a lady who held a grudge against mom. The lady was drunk. As she came up the street she took a swing and hit mom in the head with her fist. Nellie came unglued and swarmed the drunk, knocking her down into the street. She jumped astride the woman, removed a goodly quantity of her hair, and bloodied her face. Someone in the gathered crowd called. When the police arrived mom was still astride the woman wailing away.
The police threw both women in jail where they continued to brawl. A fire hose finally put an end to it. Dad, an ordained minister, had to bail his wife out. He chuckled all the way to the police station at the thought of making bail for his wife who held several offices in the church.
Fighting was inborn, an instinct inherited from my mom's Beckett clan. One evening while cruising around the neighborhood Jame, my younger bother Jame and I noticed a doorway with a sign telling us that this was the Kutis Boys Club. The battered side door was part of a local grocery store located across the street from the Gravois Theater. Looking for adventure, we timidly entered and climbed a flight of creaky stairs.
The world of boxing spread before our eyes. A pungent smell of body order and dried sweat permeated the open gray space of the loft. Dominating the center of the gym a three rope, twenty-two foot ring waited quietly. Near the building support, post a heavy bag hung, tethered by a chain. At the far end of the room, a speed bag waited the rythem of quick fists. I never quite mastered this boxing tool. The only other equipment in the room was a couple benches and some battered metal lockers acquired from retired school equipment.
Glen Newman, a wholesale diamond salesman and former professional flyweight was head of Kutis Boys Club coaching staff. Several assistants and trainers helped Glen with his stable of some twenty or thirty fighters. During the Second World War, Coach Newman suffered a head wound. A steel plate covered a hole in his scull, cutting his promising boxing career short. Kutis Funeral home sponsored our club and I supposed paid overhead costs. Jim Parker, another of our coaches also a pro fighting in the flyweight division. Both coaches stood about 5' 2" tall. Jim Parker later became a professional boxing referee in California during the 60's and 70's. It was wonderful watching our former coach refereeing fights on national TV.
Dick Young, who refereed my fourth or fifth fight, also became a professional referee on the West Coast. With intensity and clenched fists, I watched him work many a televised fight.
One other note about our coaching staff. A big burly man, whose name lies in the recesses of my memory bank but I cannot seem to locate it, always wore a pancake cap. You know the kind that was popular with gangsters in 20's. He called Jame and I over to him while we were still sweaty from a tough workout. Standing half hidden in a dimly lit corner and he pulled out a package wrapped in newspaper from his jacket pocket. He carefully unwrapped the package and shows us a chromed 38-caliber pistol. With gleaming eyes, he flashed the weapon. After he coached a few months at the gym, we lost track of him. I have often wondered if he was really a mobster.
Our club, Kutis Boys Club was fortunate to have Kutis Funeral Home as sponsor. Mr. Kutis, owner of the funeral home, supported many neighborhood projects.
Jame and I fought in numerous Golden Gloves tourneys as well as the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) and many local club fights.
I had 18 bouts and won nine of them by knockouts. My first fight was in the 1947 Golden Gloves tournament in the St. Louis Arena, across from Forest Park. I tried to make the 118-lb. class. However, after a month of strict dieting (helped along by mom) and a demanding training program, I weighed in over the 118-lb. limit and moved up to the next weight class - 126 lbs.
My bout was with a formidable looking twenty-five year old fighter. He looked mean and sported stubble from a two-day old beard. In addition, he had enough hair on his chest to weave a doormat. At sixteen years old, I was lucky to have three pubic hairs. Fighting this old man did not bother me because I planned to do what my coaches had trained me to do.
In thirty-six seconds of the first round, I knocked him out. The following night I ran into him at the entrance to the fight Arena. Fingering a brace covering the lower part of his face he managed to mumble, "You broke my jaw!"
My second fight of the tournament was an embarrassing experience, which I have never forgotten or forgiven. Johnny Radison was the name of my second opponent. The night of the fight Chill, my older brother came to me on the Arena floor and confided that he went to college with Radison . Chill also told me that Radison was a loud mouth bully as well as an ass. With gritted teeth, Chill directed me to beat the crap out of Radison. Sitting in the audience, I could see my Aunt Willie, my Uncle Bob and my mom. They waited with high anticipation. At the time, I was a high school freshman.
Fighters sat next to one another on folding chairs while waiting to enter the ring. Newman, my coach whispered in my ear that Radison was a boxer and would jab a lot. I developed an instant dislike for Radison as watched him strutting about and spreading his thighs while adjusting his crouch cup.
The bell rang and Radison came across the ring like a buzz saw, swinging wildly. He pummeled me all through the round and I gave him little response, I was looking for a boxer not street fighter. My coach Newman "Threw in the towel" half way through the second round. The fight, from my prospective, was a disaster. It humiliated me beyond words. My family watched me, their pride and joy, take a thorough thrashing.
Radison did not win the championship that year but went on to become a Golden Gloves fight referee. He and his brother owned "Radison's", a seedy night club in Illinois across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Under age, high school kids could always get a drink at Radison. The Radison saga came to an abrupt end when his small plane crashed boxing on the way to a boxing match, killing him instantly.
Of the nine KO's I had the most memorable was the Porky Milford fight. Porky was a neighborhood kid who fought for South Broadway Athletic Club. South Broadway was the best known and respected fight club in St. Louis.
South Broadway staged annual tournaments. All the Kutis Boys Club fighters entered the tournament and at the preliminary drawing, I drew, of all people, Porky. As I recall, we were fighting in the 146-lbs. class.
We both went to McKinley High school. Between classes. I ran into Porky. He wanted to discuss our upcoming fight and he proposed that we just trade jabs during our fight. I did not respond.
I must interject something else before continuing. Porky lived up the street from us. One hot sultry evening Jame and I met a bunch of neighborhood kids. With nothing better, to do we wondered down the street and gathered under a corner street light with a fire alarm box near by. I had pasted the fire alarm a thousand times each time wondering how that it worked. While others watched I let impuse and curiosity drive me to break the glass, open the little door that unlocked the big door. Reaching inside the box, I pulled down a lever. A strange zip and crackling noise came out of the box. Two minutes later we heard a siren began its lazy wail. The local fire station was only two city blocks away and we knew that trouble was on its way. With pounding hearts, we scattered like chaff into the safety of the night.
A week later I lay on floor of our second story living room listening to an old radio show, "I Love A Mystery". I heard a knock on our downstairs door. Mom went down to answer it. A few minutes later she called up me in an unfamiliar sweet tone. "Melbourne", she always called by my middle name "...A man wants to see you". I bounded three steps at a time down the stairs but pulled up abruptly when I saw an uniformed policeman waiting for me.
A neighbor, down the street, had recognized Porky Milford the night of the false alarm and told the investigating officer. When confronted Porky squealed. "It wasn't me, it was Duke Ottinger".
Jame and I was given six months probation. Each Saturday we had to report to the police station across from Lemp Park. Here we checked out a soccer ball from a bin of sports equipment then spent a half-day playing across the street at the park. That was our probation. It was a lesson well learned.
Now back to Porky.
We were evening's fifth or sixth fight. At the bell we met in the center of the ring, I threw a hard right to the stomach then hooked him with a left to the head. Porkey went down. His body, stiff as a tree trunk. On the way to the , his head and neck hit the second and third ropes. He was out twenty minuets in the ring. Then several trainers carried Porky, on a stretcher to a second floor dressing room. He was out some additional fourty-five minutes. A trainer pulled his eyelids open and saw his eyes swimming in circles. Porky recovered and later at school told me between classes that my right to the stomach made him sick. That was the time that I saw Porky.
I won Golden Gloves Light Heavyweight Championship of Kansas City in 1952. I was a second year phys/ed major at Warrensburg Teachers College (now a university) bent on becoming a high school football coach and teaching industrial arts. One of my courses was an elective one-unit boxing class. During a week end several members of our boxing class fought in a Golden Gloves Tournament in Kansas City, fifth miles from school. All of them won their fights and wanted me to join them the following night. I did and I weighed in at 175 lbs.
The fights were held in the Kansas City Convention Hall that housed the 1952 Golden Gloves.
I knocked out my first opponent, a military man, during the first round. After the fight, I went to the dressing room to rest, which in reality was the convention hall stage. The curtain Was drawn and the stage became a spacious dressing room. After winning my first fight, I rested on a table next ot the stage curtain. Peeking through the curtains, I had an oppertunity to analyze my next opponent. He had unusual defensive style crouching down, nearly to the canvas. I called it a turtle style. He protected his head with his gloves and rib cage with his elbows. Suddenly he erupted from this tight turtle stance and charged his opponent throwing windmill punches from every direction.
Later that evening I stepped into the ring with the turtle and waited the opening bell. When the bell rang, I met my opponent in the center of the ring. Sure enough, he went into his low turtle stance. I measured him up then threw with all my might the hardest right hand I had ever thrown. My target was not his head but his left kidney, which I pulverized. He was so shocked he stood straight up with his arms dangling. I in turn was so surprised I did not take advantage of the situation.
He recovered and began his bonsai charges. As he came in I slid to the side and threw a hard left hook to the head as he rushed past. All through the fight he continued charging and I continued firing hard left hooks until his face was a mask of blood and torn flesh. My opponent failed to score a single punch the entire fight. After three rounds the referee rasied my right glove in victory then awared me a tropyh engraved "Kansas City Golden Gloves Light Heavywiehgt Champion".
The ten-ounce boxing gloves and leather boxing shoes I wore the night I won the championship have hung in my art studio for fifty-five years. They are part of my soul and how I am. Each Time I glance up at them remembering one glorious evening so many years ago.
Christmas of 2006 I presented to my son Steve, who has also fought in the ring this small part of my soul and my youth.
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