{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Ep 33: Ray Rodgers - Hall of Fame Boxing Cutman","description":"GOLDEN GLOVES\/SILVER GLOVES\/CUTMAN Ray Rodgers, who was born in Oklahoma but grew up in Conway, was inducted into the Silver Gloves Hall of Fame in 2001, the Golden Gloves Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. The late Billy Bock, a 1996 Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame inductee who was a well-known amateur boxer and later was among the pioneers of high school baseball in the state, told the Arkansas Democrat in 1990: \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for Ray Rodgers, there would not be boxing left in Little Rock.\u201d Silver Gloves is for amateur fighters ages 10-15. Golden Gloves is for amateur fighters ages 16 and older. Based in part on the Golden Gloves\u2019 tie back to the Chicago Tribune, newspapers long have been among the main sponsors of amateur boxing events. The New York City Golden Gloves tournament, which has been around for 85 years, is sponsored by the Daily News. Rodgers told an interviewer in 2008: \u201cIt has a natural attraction to kids who are basically adventuresome and want to do something no one else does. That\u2019s a lot of it. The dynamics of it hooked me in the fifth grade, and I\u2019ve never been out of it one day. \u201cIn boxing, as in life and everything else, desire is half the deal. \u2026 I\u2019m a great believer in amateur boxing. I think it\u2019s one of the greatest sports ever devised. It\u2019s a cliche, but it\u2019s true. In boxing, you don\u2019t have anybody to hand off to or to lateral or pass it off to. You\u2019re on your own, brother. \u201cThe only discipline that lasts is self-discipline. You can stand a kid in a corner and whip his butt with a paddle. But once he learns self-discipline and the desire to do better in the ring, that sticks with him all his life.\u201d Jermain Taylor is the most prominent example of the hundreds of boys (now men) Rodgers has helped through the years. Born in Little Rock in 1978, Taylor and his three younger sisters were abandoned by their father when the future champion was 5. Taylor began boxing at age 13 with Ozell Nelson as his trainer. Taylor\u2019s Olympic bronze medal came in 2000 and his professional boxing debut was on Jan. 27, 2001, at Madison Square Garden against Chris Walsh. As noted in yesterday\u2019s post, Rodgers has served as the cut man in Taylor\u2019s corner throughout Taylor\u2019s professional career. Taylor once said of Rodgers: \u201cHe\u2019s the type of guy who comes in the dressing room and makes you feel comfortable. I\u2019ve never seen him mad, not one time, and I\u2019ve known him since I was 12. I\u2019ve never seen him with a mean face. He\u2019s the type of guy who always wants to see you smiling.\u201d Rodgers\u2019 father, who worked for 49 years for an oil company that eventually became part of Mobil, moved the family from Oklahoma to Conway so he could serve as a pump station engineer in Arkansas. Young Ray was already addicted to boxing at the time of the move. Ray Rodgers\u2019 office at the Golden Gloves Education Center, which is adjacent to the Junior Deputy baseball fields just off Cantrell Road in Little Rock, now serves as sort of a museum of this state\u2019s boxing history. There is, for example, a photo of Bock and Rodgers in 1959 at the state AAU boxing tournament with Miss Arkansas in between. \u201cWe were her escorts,\u201d Rodgers says. Famous names in Arkansas business, sports and politics crop up as you look at the programs and bout sheets Rodgers has collected through the years. For instance, Buddy Coleman of Little Rock was the state AAU boxing chairman one year. Rodgers delights in talking about his 14-year amateur boxing career, delivering pithy quotes such as this one: \u201cMy left jab was so good the judges thought the other guy was sucking my thumb.\u201d The Arkansas River Valley \u2014 from Fort Smith all the way down to Little Rock \u2013was a boxing hotbed in those days. Rodgers tells of going across a low-water bridge to make it to a boxing tournament at Oark (not Ozark!) in the Ozark Mountains north of Clarksville. Places like Clarksville and Coal Hill produced good amateur boxers. The Subiaco Abbey, built in 1878 and associated with the Benedictine Order, was the home of many talented boxers. Wherever amateur tournaments were held across the state, you knew the boys from Subiaco Academy would be there and compete hard. Rodgers\u2019 home ring was at the National Guard Armory in Conway, where he boxed for a coach known as \u201cSlow John\u201d Cole. Rodgers went by the nickname \u201cButterball.\u201d He continued to box competitively through graduation from Conway High School and Arkansas State Teachers College, now the University of Central Arkansas. \u201cI had deceptive speed in those days,\u201d Rodgers says. \u201cI was slower than I looked.\u201d At age 16, Rodgers also began coaching younger boxers. In 1958, he sent his first boxer to the national Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago. Rodgers graduated from college in August 1960, becoming the first member of his family to earn a degree. He got married two weeks after graduation and moved to Little Rock to take a job with Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Rodgers fought his last fight in 1961 at the Mid-Arkansas Golden Gloves Tournament, but a lifetime of being involved in boxing was just starting. He has worked with young boxers at various locations through the years, even using a gym that Gary Hogan, who loves the sport as much as Rodgers, once operated in downtown Little Rock. In 1988, Rodgers raised private funds so he could transform a metal building next to the Junior Deputy baseball complex into a gym. It has been the home of the Ray Rodgers Boxing Club ever since. In 2009, he turned the adjacent building into the Golden Gloves Education Center so his boxers would have a quiet place to study. Rodgers has brought a number of legendary boxers to Little Rock through the years to promote the sport and help him raise money. Ali visited in 1990. Joe Frazier and Floyd Patterson also have visited the state\u2019s capital city at Rodgers\u2019 invitation. Rodgers has had his share of tragedies. In 1987, his wife Sally, a constant presence with him at boxing tournaments, died of breast cancer. His current wife, Carole, whom he married in December 2005, now helps him run amateur tournaments. Rodgers\u2019 daughter Dawn battled brain cancer for 11 years before passing away in 2005. Last year, Rodgers finally shut down his business, Mid-South Drywall. \u201cI\u2019m not getting any younger,\u201d he says. On one wall of Rodgers\u2019 office is a tribute to Stan Gallup, the longtime Golden Gloves executive director who died in February 2009 while accompanying the Kentucky Wesleyan basketball team (his son was the school\u2019s athletic director) to an away game It says \u201cStan Gallup, 1922-2009, Father of Modern Golden Gloves.\u201d Rodgers calls Gallup \u201ca mentor.\u201d I happen to think Arkansas\u2019 own Ray Rodgers has just as much a right as Gallup to that title of \u201cFather of Modern Golden Gloves.\u201d ","author_name":"About Nashville Podcast with Mike Rodgers & Dan Whitehurst","author_url":"http:\/\/aboutnashville.libsyn.com\/webpage","html":"