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I am very sorry Ice RIP DukeOriginally posted by ICEMAN JOHN SCULLY -
JOHNNY DUKE STORY FROM MY BOOK.. I THINK YOU WILL LIKE THIS ONE.....
My professional boxing debut was set for September 16, 1988 at the Hartford Civic Center and I was very excited about it as you can imagine. It was like a whole new world I was entering, joining the ranks of all the guys I watched on TV for so many years. Now I had something in common with the guys I looked up to: I was a professional boxer just like they were. If I had any apprehension at all it was about the fact that the game I was entering into was much different from the amateur boxing that I was now so accustomed to. See, amateur boxing is also a very dangerous sport and people can get knocked out and cut and punch drunk just like they can in the pros. The major difference between the two levels, though, was made very clear to me many times by Hartford's legendary old trainer, Johnny Duke. Duke is the type of guy that is, let's say, a no-nonsense individual. Very direct and to the point. Duke makes Mickey from the "ROCKY" movies look like Mister Rogers by comparison. A member of the National Golden Gloves Hall of Fame, Duke ran the Bellevue Square Boys Club in the Bellevue Square housing projects in Hartford for something like forty years. He has always been a real straight shooting type of old school Italian guy, the kind of guy that could use the "N" word in the cities toughest project without anyone even batting an eye. The type of guy that could swear more in one hour than most sailors could in a month. The type of guy who could have walked through the city during the race riots of the late 1960's and get from one end to the other without anyone even so much as raising their voice to him. The type of guy that would pull his truck over on a busy street and stop traffic so he could get out and pick up a discarded winter coat off the street and bring it back to "the square" and give it to someone that didn't have one.
So if there was anyone that would tell it to me straight (not that I even wanted to know) in regard to the reality of professional boxing it was Johnny Duke. When I was an amateur he used to tell me "You know what's going to happen when you turn pro? Now, as an amateur, when you get a little nick under your eye, the referee and your Mommy and your F****** coach come running and want to know if your OK. They say 'Is he OK? We better stop it so he doesn't get hurt. Let's get him a F*****' bandage.' But when your a pro and you get a big F****** gash under your eye you know what your opponents trainer tells him to do? He tells him to go out and bust your other F***** eye open for you, that's what!"
Needless to say, I always thought of that when I was about to fight. Dukes words used to come back to keep me on the straight and narrow from time to time. You had to get your mind ready at all times to look for help from nobody. There may or may not be no crying in baseball but there's DEFINITELY no crying in professional boxing.Comment
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RIP Duke
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Another Great Duke Story
My first time representing New England at the National Golden Gloves was out in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in ay of 1996 and Duke,as usual, was the New England team coach. We were roommates that year and one thing thast really stands out to me was that he couldn't sleep without the TV being on so every night when it was time to go to bed I had to wait until he fell asleep before I could turn the TV off. Anyway, we spent a lot of time together that week, especially when it was time to eat because he didn't want me to eat a lot of junk food and come in over weight. So one day we are in a local restaurant and after a while he starts his usual routine of talking to the waitresses, flirting with them, telling them funny stories. So at the end of the meal he tells the girl how "My name is Johnny Duke from Hartford, Connecticut and in a few weeks I am going to be on TV in the corner of Marlon Starling and I want you to watch that fight because before the fight when I come to the center of the ring with Marlon I'm gonna' start rubbing my belly like this, see, (Duke starts rubbing his belly in a circular motion) and when I do that, because of your great service here today, it is going to be me saying "Hello" to you."
And the girl was so excited as she wrote down the date of the fight and everything and I thought how cool that was that he would do that for the lady. Well, as it turns out, by the time Marlon fought a couple weeks later and Duke made his way to the center of the ring on national TV Duke had just about every single person in the entire city of Cedar Rapids watching him and thinking he was saying "hello" just to them.Comment
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