Floored
Author: Bill Roberts
It was just my bad fortune
that Bert Sugar found me
punching the light bag
that lazy summer afternoon
after he’d returned from camp
with Sugar Ray or Joe Louis
himself, the other kids having
already left Police Boys’ Club
Number Ten where I was a
three-sport star at 105 pounds,
none of the sports involving
the clumsy boxing gloves Bert
begged me to put on to go a few
rounds with him, as he put it.
Poor Bert: overweight, not a gifted
athlete, and too often picked on
by bullies like Pete Chaconas who
tried to drown him in the pool
at Central Junior High one day.
We danced around a bit, me tired
from a day’s worth of play,
when suddenly Bert landed two
light left jabs, stinging me,
then whoom, he crossed with
a vicious right that landed on
my cheek, lifted me in the air,
and sent a curl of snot flying
as I fell leadenly on my back.
I didn’t mind the vengeance so
evident in Bert’s smirk, but his
incessant counting – “…thirty-one,
thirty-two, thirty-three…” -
irritated the hell out of me.
(Published in the May 2008 online issue of Chantarelle’s Notebook)
Note: This is one of my favorite memories, showing you can take things for granted (e.g., me, the gifted athlete) and then get punched silly. I think Bert counted to a hundred before bending to help me back to my wobbly feet. Bert Sugar, who is he? Well, he went on to become an All-American rugby player at Michigan for starters, earned a J.D. degree, bought and elevated the stature of Ring Magazine for many years, all the while improving the image of boxing. Regarded these days as the guru of boxing worldwide, he’s often seen and heard giving expert commentary on ESPN, sometimes also appearing in movies with pal Robert De Niro. And oh, nearly forgot – he’s written nearly 100 (count ‘em out) highly successful books on various sporting activities. We still talk by phone occasionally and he only confesses to counting up to 10 over my prone body there at the boys’ club in D.C. I get woozy thinking about it.
