Going Down With A Hard Left On The Way

When my father was at Haskell Indian School he was what was called a "Gym Rat". Those were the students that hung out at the gym and played sports. At the age of 14, when Haskell fought the Kansas Athletic Club, he fought his first fight. It was against a man of 31 years old. Over the next 16 years he fought more than 250 fights winning many bouts and Titles, sometimes under the name of The Kansas Express and Flash Gordon. I saw him fight his last fight when I was 3 in Panama, where he won the Pacific Command Light Weight Championship, representing the US Navy. Boxing was his way of fighting back against what had happened to Native American's. About 10 years before he passed to the " Other side Camp" he told me that, if he had it to do over again, he would never participate in a sport whose purpose was physically damage your opponent as much as possible. His words deeply influenced how I thought about life, ever since !