June 27, 2009 12:15 am
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Ralph Friend served as chairman of the Heartland Regional Boxing Tournament, which was held in Joplin for several years. Friend became a familiar figure around Memorial Hall during that time.
The Associated Press
STILLWATER, Okla. — It was yesterday to Ralph Friend. The pre-fight jitters, the big stage and the Light Heavyweight World Championship fight that was stopped too soon.
The date was actually Dec. 16, 1971. Friend walked 34-year-old Brian Kelly to the ring for the championship fight against Bob Foster. Kelly had more than 30 victories in a row, and Foster was one of the best light heavyweight champions in boxing history.
The referee stopped the fight after five rounds.
Nearly four decades later Friend still argues that Kelly — always a late charger — was about to rally. With every punch Kelly threw and every punishing blow he took, his longtime coach was fighting from a few feet away.
“You are fighting harder in the corner than the guy in the ring is,” Friend said. “You see things that maybe they don’t see and you are trying to get them to do it.”
It’s been 38 years since Friend guided Kelly to a world championship fight and six decades since Friend started his professional career.
Friend, who recently turned 80, has been an amateur boxing coach for almost sixty years and mentored a handful of professionals.
He started the Stillwater Boxing Club, which has won four Kansas-Oklahoma Golden Glove Tournaments.
In almost 60 years of boxing, Friend has forgotten more about the sport than some will ever know.
Now, a heavy bag wrapped in duct tape swings from the middle of the sheet metal building behind Friend’s house.
A sticky heat permeates through Friend’s boxing lair during summer days. It’s a heat that sticks in your mouth and feels more like a sun-baked car than a gym. Years have taken color out of pictures posted on the walls and caused the corners to curl. The pictures are of fighters who Friend has ushered through his gym, as well as a few of himself years ago.
In a corner, carpet squares line the floor of a makeshift ring and two rubbers cords stretch from turnbuckle to turnbuckle, forming a square.
“There are a number of Gold Glove champions that have come out of that gym,” Friend said.
His brother got him started boxing by simply throwing gloves on in the backyard as teenage boys in Oregon.
Boxing throughout high school, Friend made his professional debut right after graduation — when he also became the high school coach and had a successful career before he left for the Korean War in 1951.
Five years later, he left the service for a second stint. He competed off and on until 1969. Two years after that, Friend walked into the ring with Kelly with the world championship on the line.
Even through his career as a professional boxer, Friend had a passion for coaching.
Ricky Alexander was just a 16-year-old, 103-pound kid out of Ripley the first time he met Friend.
He grew up poor and never imagined he would play sports because it cost too much. One day he followed a high school buddy into Friend’s gym. Alexander was skeptical. A puny kid from the country was walking into a boxing facility for the first time. He stayed, and is now in his fifth year as a professional boxer.
“It’s all a dream,” Alexander said.
Friend has been there every step of the way, guiding Alexander to regional Golden Gloves Championships in five weight classes and an invitation to fight at Madison Square Garden.
“He’s turned into probably, overall, the best I’ve had of all time,” Friend said. “As far as speed and power and everything.”
Now weighing 126 pounds, Alexander still trains with Friend in the backyard gym.
Above the handmade ring is a board that Alexander holds dear to his heart. The Stillwater Boxing Club Honor Roll displays 13 names of an elite class of Golden Glove champions Friend has trained. Alexander’s name is on the list.
The day he saw his name etched in red marker, Alexander couldn’t believe it.
“All those fighters up there are some of his greatest fighters,” Alexander said. “All the fighters that have been through here have been his close friends, even me. He’s like my dad.”
That seems to be another growing trend among the boxers who learn the craft from a man who still puts on the pads and takes punches.
“You come in every day and it’s the same people,” Alexander said. “It makes it like a family.”
Because of the lessons he teaches all the boys who come to his ring receive a self-esteem boost that keeps them coming back.
“People that think they’d never be interested in it maybe never would until they go watch these kids box,” Friend said. “When they do, they see something completely different from sports. They can beat the tar out of each other out there and when the last bell rings, they put their arms around each other and walk away. They are friends for life from there on.”
Alexander is just one of the boys who have become men under Friend’s watchful eyes.
There was Jimmy Fairbanks, a 15-year-old farm boy from Coyle, who barely told Friend his name when they met. It didn’t take long for Fairbanks to build up the courage to throw a left counter straight enough to balance a ruler.
Don Christiano stood two heads shorter than most of his competitors, but there were times when Friend had to tell him not to hurt anyone, just to humble them.
A left hook is one of the hardest punches to throw, but Johnny Blaiser — who came back to the gym at age 34 to fight — could throw two in succession with a little training.
David Heath weighed 305 pounds when he came to Friend as a 19-year-old. He dropped 30 pounds and, in one fight, knocked a Fort Riley soldier out in 46 seconds.
Friend pulled Fred Causley Sr. out of the office and to the ring as an assistant coach. Causley got back into shape and credits Friend with saving his life after he nearly suffered a heart attack.
“When you hear about these other people, that is Ralph,” Causley said.
Friend has never turned someone away from his gym as long as they are willing to work. No matter the age or size, anyone is welcome in the summer sauna or winter icebox behind Friend’s house.
“Boxing is a sport for all sizes of kids,” Friend said. “You can be a little-bitty guy, 17-years-old and you can still box. You can’t play basketball or football or anything else because if you play football you have to weigh 300 pounds and to play basketball you have to be 7-feet tall. There’s no such requirement in boxing.”
He never planned to change as many lives as he did when he started coaching the sport.
“I honestly believe that Ralph saved my life,” Causley said. “I really believe that if I had stayed in the office and done the routine I was doing, I would have had a major heart attack and if I would have survived, that I would have been impaired.”
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