the champion of champions:
BEFORE HE DIED ON NOVEMBER 4TH IN 1985...
BEFORE HE DIED ON NOVEMBER 4TH IN 1985...
YOU HAD TO PASS A SMALL CANDY STAND TO get to the door of the Grammercy Gym on East 14th Street. The door was heavy, with painted zinc nailed across its face and a misspelled sign saying "Gramacy Gym," and when you opened the door, you saw a badly lit stairway, climbing into the darkness. There was a another door on the landing, and a lot of tough New York kids would reach the landing and find themselves unable to open the second door. They'd go back down the stairs, try to look cool as they bought a soda at the candy stand, then hurry home. Many others opened the second door. And when they did, they entered the tough, hard, and disciplined school of a man by the name of Cus D'Amato.
Cus, who had died at the age of 77 after a long struggle with pneumonia, was one of the best teachers of prizefighters who ever lived. He was tough, intelligent, almost Victorian in his belief that work and self-denial and fierce concentration made prizefighters great. For years, he had lived alone in the office of the gym, accompanied only by a huge boxer dog named Champ. There were books on the shelves, he loved the Civil War and essays on strategy and tactics, and he almost never read novels. He had a gun somewhere and a small black and white TV set and a pay phone on the wall. After Floyd Patterson became champion in 1956, Cus took an apartment over a coffee shop on 53rd Street and Broadway and bought some elegantly tailored clothes and a homburg; but the folks who were closest to him, always thought that his idea of paradise was that room and the cot in the office of Grammercy Gym.
One of those closest to Cus was a man by the name of Kevin Rooney, a former prizefighter and the trainer of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. He was giving me a tour of the famous Grammercy Gym as a precursor to my writing an article about Cus for a small publication out in East Hampton. The first thing I want you to know about Cus, he said, is is that he is the best guy I ever met - bar none. The worst was Don King, 'cause he urged Mike Tyson to break from Cus and go to him, and Tyson's career went into the toilet after that. King is a prick. Cus was an angel. Cus used to say that you can't want too many things, but the things you do want, you have to know what you're doing in order to get them. I guess that's why he never got married, Rooney said, Cus used to say that if he wanted a woman, he'd have to want the things she wants, and that he never wanted to have a big TV, or a new couch...
All who knew Cus had similar stories to tell, old prizefighters and new neighbors and those who knew him slightly: Of how he wanted his fighters to be champions, to have money and glory; that he truly didn't seem to want much for himself. A neighbor of his told of how a bum had made his way from the White Rose bar across the street; Cus gave him a dollar; the next day 5 bums showed up, and the day after that, almost 40. Cus dispensed singles and then said, That's it, that's all! You want to come back here, bring trunks! He was a sucker for old fighters. Once when Cus had little money left due to having filed bankruptcy in 1971, Ezzard Charles came around to see him; the great light-heavyweight and former heavyweight champion was a broken man, confined to a wheelchair; he needed a thousand, and Cus borrowed the money, gave it to the old champion, and never heard from Charles again.
He cherished great fighters - Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Sandy Saddler, Willie Pepe, Tommy Loughran - but sometimes, late at night, sitting over coffee, he'd talk about the fighter that didn't exist: the perfect fighter, the masterpiece. The one who had everything: heart, skill, movement, intelligence, creativity. Toward the end, he he thought perhaps he had the perfect heavyweight at last in young Michael Tyson. He's strong, he's brave, he's in condition, Cus said. I have no doubt he'll be a champion...
...And when Tyson deserted him and went with Don King, Kevin Rooney said to him, He was a champion because you are, Cus. Rooney said that Cus asked him, What do you mean? And Rooney replied, True Champions have heart, Cus. Mike doesn't.
Cus, who had died at the age of 77 after a long struggle with pneumonia, was one of the best teachers of prizefighters who ever lived. He was tough, intelligent, almost Victorian in his belief that work and self-denial and fierce concentration made prizefighters great. For years, he had lived alone in the office of the gym, accompanied only by a huge boxer dog named Champ. There were books on the shelves, he loved the Civil War and essays on strategy and tactics, and he almost never read novels. He had a gun somewhere and a small black and white TV set and a pay phone on the wall. After Floyd Patterson became champion in 1956, Cus took an apartment over a coffee shop on 53rd Street and Broadway and bought some elegantly tailored clothes and a homburg; but the folks who were closest to him, always thought that his idea of paradise was that room and the cot in the office of Grammercy Gym.
One of those closest to Cus was a man by the name of Kevin Rooney, a former prizefighter and the trainer of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. He was giving me a tour of the famous Grammercy Gym as a precursor to my writing an article about Cus for a small publication out in East Hampton. The first thing I want you to know about Cus, he said, is is that he is the best guy I ever met - bar none. The worst was Don King, 'cause he urged Mike Tyson to break from Cus and go to him, and Tyson's career went into the toilet after that. King is a prick. Cus was an angel. Cus used to say that you can't want too many things, but the things you do want, you have to know what you're doing in order to get them. I guess that's why he never got married, Rooney said, Cus used to say that if he wanted a woman, he'd have to want the things she wants, and that he never wanted to have a big TV, or a new couch...
All who knew Cus had similar stories to tell, old prizefighters and new neighbors and those who knew him slightly: Of how he wanted his fighters to be champions, to have money and glory; that he truly didn't seem to want much for himself. A neighbor of his told of how a bum had made his way from the White Rose bar across the street; Cus gave him a dollar; the next day 5 bums showed up, and the day after that, almost 40. Cus dispensed singles and then said, That's it, that's all! You want to come back here, bring trunks! He was a sucker for old fighters. Once when Cus had little money left due to having filed bankruptcy in 1971, Ezzard Charles came around to see him; the great light-heavyweight and former heavyweight champion was a broken man, confined to a wheelchair; he needed a thousand, and Cus borrowed the money, gave it to the old champion, and never heard from Charles again.
He cherished great fighters - Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Sandy Saddler, Willie Pepe, Tommy Loughran - but sometimes, late at night, sitting over coffee, he'd talk about the fighter that didn't exist: the perfect fighter, the masterpiece. The one who had everything: heart, skill, movement, intelligence, creativity. Toward the end, he he thought perhaps he had the perfect heavyweight at last in young Michael Tyson. He's strong, he's brave, he's in condition, Cus said. I have no doubt he'll be a champion...
...And when Tyson deserted him and went with Don King, Kevin Rooney said to him, He was a champion because you are, Cus. Rooney said that Cus asked him, What do you mean? And Rooney replied, True Champions have heart, Cus. Mike doesn't.
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