A Tribute to Verne "Bulldog" Williams

Verne "Bulldog" Williams, a good friend of the Gavin family and a truly unique gentleman and scholar of the sport of boxing, passed away on October 14th at the age of 75.

Al Gavin Jr sent us this personal message about Bulldog....

Bulldog was a friend of my father's. You knew you were a friend when you were invited to one of Dad's barbeques, and Bulldog and his wife Sue were always there. He brought a certain persona to the table that was not like anyone else. 

When Dad passed, Bulldog was there. He remained a friend to me, calling sometimes once in six months, sometimes twice a week. He always made me laugh, and vice versa, always an animated conversation. 

Now he is gone too, much like Dad, much too soon.His love of boxing and life in general was to be admired. I know he hanging out with Dad, probably at the fights, and that Ill see the both of them again one day.  

RIP pal. Al Gavin Jr.

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Boxing Hall of Fame Misses Mark Again

Al Gavin Left Off New List of Inductees

Another year has come and and gone, but the glaring omission of Al Gavin's name on the list of inductees to the International Boxing Hall of Fame continues.

The world-renowned cutman and gym proprietor who touched thousands of lives during his half century of service to the sweet science still remains on the outside looking in.

If there is anyone who deserves enshrinement into the Hall, it's Al Gavin.

There is not one soul in the sport who will disagree. Gavin's importance goes beyond his recordable achievements and statistics. His dedication, kindness, tutelage and friendship to the scores he crossed paths with - from champions to club fighters, to trainers, managers, sportswriters etc.-  puts him in the pantheon of boxing greats.

Yet, the INHOF does not recognize him.

Al Gavin is perhaps omitted because he was a class act in sport where class is not valued. The way he lived his life and dedicated himself to his craft and his subjects is something rarely seen not only in boxing, but in any walk of life these days.

If it were not for Al, and many like him such as his partner Bob Jackson,  boxing would have been dead long ago.  He was from a generation that preserved rather than destroyed.  He built bridges, not walls.

He loved boxing and dedicated life to helping all willing participants. Unlike many in his position, he helped people. He wasn't a user.  He was Boxing's good guy.

The Hall should rewarded him years ago, before his untimely death in 2004. Now, six years later, they have failed once again to bring class into their fold.

A Message From a Former Fighter

This was sent to us from Jay Speelman, a former welterweight boxer who trained under Al Gavin..

I had the great privilege of knowing and training under Al Gavin for about seven years. As with anybody who knew Al, that time was not enough.

I first met Al when I was twenty-three years old. I previously came from an extensive martial arts and kickboxing background, but was in pursuit of a more respected sport and felt the need for a world class trainer. One summer night, my friend Walter and I drove up to Gleason's "Bull Dog" boxing gym in Garden City, N. Y where I heard Al was training fighters. Upon observing my sparring sessions, Al kindly took me under his wing.

Al was unparalleled as a trainer in two different ways. First, he had an in depth knowledge of the game unlike any other trainer I have come across. Second, he treated and directed his fighters as though he were looking through a father's lenses.

He taught me many of boxing's finer points and steered me out of harm's way when I was too foolish and prideful to realize that the sport was bigger than my ego.

We headed to Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, NY for one of my amateur fights. My family was there to support me along with many of my friends. There was confusion with the fight card and some fighters didn't show and others didn't make weight. Al was talking to some officials and coaches in the back while other event members prompted me toward the ring. Across from my 139 pound frame was a 165 pounder waiting eagerly to make minced meat out of me.

My thought was that my family and friends came to watch me fight-- I wasn't going to let them down by going down. I was hoping Al would get to my corner before the opening bell. Instead he came walking out of the back pointing at me saying, "GET OUT." He was wearing an expression as if to say, " Don't even think about talking back either." Perhaps Al didn't realize the depth of my respect for him and wouldn't question him even in the midst of that humiliating moment.

Later in the locker room, Al explained to my family and me that certain people involved with the event were trying to play dirty, "but Uncle AL stepped in." Later, Al told me that he knew I wasn't afraid and was willing to fight.

Al made a very successful career out of the sport he loved. He never found any financial security in me. Al took the time to steer me away from the dark side of boxing and eventually out of the game all together. What can I say? I just didn't have it. The thing that made Al unique is that he truly cared. He wouldn't advance his agenda if it meant hurting someone else.

Since Al's passing, I have stepped out of boxing completely. I have a wife and daughter now and have not followed boxing the way I use to. I recently learned that Al Gavin is not in the Boxing Hall of Fame. This disturbs me. Al is known in the sport as the "world's greatest cutman" and "boxing's good guy."

Boxing has had it's run in with many corrupt people making money from the blood of others. Al was NOT one of them. He was a light in what is sometimes a dark sport. Al was a true professional who took in a guy like me and kept him safe.

We miss you Al. God bless

Former Gloves Champ Seamus McDonagh on Al Gavin

We recently received this dispatch from Seamus McDonagh, the 1985 NY Golden Gloves Heavyweight champion.  Seamus would go on to turn pro and fight the likes of Evander Holyfield (that's Seamus, pictured, delivering a hard right hand to Holyfield's chin in a 1990 bout...)

"I loved Al Gavin. When I came to New York as a teenager, my introduction to the profession was at the Gramercy Boxing Gym on 14th street. Al was always so kind to me. 

I was shocked to see Mustafa Hamsho there and to be introduced to the likes of Paddy Flood. I was suspicious of the managers who sat at a table to the side of the ring, smoking cigars which enraged me. 

But Al would always come up with something funny and break the ice. He worked the corner in a lot of my fights in the "Gloves" and in the pros. 

When I'd see him in the dressing the night of a fight, I'd immediately relax. His expertise with cuts kept my unbeaten run going for a long time.
 
When I recall the "Gloves", an image of Al pops into my head, also Neil Ferara and "The Thin Man" Nick, Bobby Barbero, Vinny Cerola and Joe Baffi, and my dad Jim McDonagh. They were the days of innocence in boxing for me and 

Al was a part of that. So he isn't gone because he lives on in me and everyone's lives he touched, literally. Thank you dear Al."
Seamus McDonagh
NY Golden Gloves Heavyweight Champion 1985

"Now that's a good wrap...."

I remember when my Dad got a call from Oscar De La Hoya's camp to come out to California to work with Oscar for his upcoming bout with Arturo Gatti.

He looked forward to going out there and working with them, but he never let on to his feelings about it, as they constantly changed personnel.

He told me they picked him up from the airport in a limousine, and drove him to the training facility in Big Bear.  Top notch, all the way.

After meeting with the crew, he sat with Oscar, talked for awhile, and got on the subject of hand wraps, as Oscar had sustained a hand injury at some time and was particular as to how his hands were done.

Well, Dad wrapped his hands, and Oscar, banging one fist into the palm of the other said "Now thats a good wrap". Soon after, De La Hoya went on to stop Gatti in 4 rounds.

Did Dad wrap his hands? I dont know. But the look in his eyes when he told me that story, well, said it all.

Al Gavin Jr.

Orlando Fernandez on Al Gavin

I met Al Gavin in 1990 when I was in upstate new york for a fight with Kevin Kelley and Regilio Tuur. I was Phil Borgia's assistant and he introduced me to the cutman Al Gavin in the lobby of the hotel. Al said to me hey kid, call me Uncle Al, so I did.

I sat there for about an hour talking baseball with him waiting for the weigh-ins to start. We ended up talking more baseball after the weigh-ins over dinner and then the next morning at breakfast. I enjoyed our conversation very much and our friendship continued from there. We went on many trips with Kevin, Reggie, Phil and even Paul Vizzio over the next couple of years. Holland, Vegas, Montreal, Atlantic City, etc.

I loved going on these trips because not only did we work the fights but we also got to see the sites. Al and I would share a room on these trips. We would get up and go to breakfast, then a walk, he would stop at a store to get some gifts and a postcard to send home. We would talk boxing and I would pick his brain about all the greats of the past and his most memorable fights as a trainer or a cutman.

I remember one trip to Chester, West Virginia where Kevin Kelley was fighting his 1st fight after losing the title. It was at a racetrack so after breakfast we went for a walk by the track. He asked a woman there how far the closest store was and she said "down the road a bit, not to far". So off we went to get a post card since this trip was a 2 fight trip. 1 in West Virginia and then on to Atlantic City for Paul Vizzio's fight. We walked about 3 miles and Al looked at me and said " this is more then just a bit ". I laughed and laughed with him walking. We ended up getting picked up by a local who drove us to the store and back to the hotel. We saw the woman the next morning and said hey some bit of a walk. She said "oh I am sorry I thought you had a car.

The trips with Al were great. When I wasn't doing anything on a weekend he would call me up, have me meet him at Army's Restaraunt in Corona, right by my house and would grab a bite to eat and then off to A.C. for a fight we would go. That was fun. I moved to Florida in 1996 and continued my friendship even though I was not in NY.

He pointed me in the direction of a gym in St. Pete Florida and my days as a trainer continued. We met up a few times in Tampa for some fights and had laughs after laughs. I joined the Navy in 1999 and told Al I was going and he said train some fighters on the ship while you are there. I thought that was crazy but I ended up working with 2 amateur fighters on the ship while we were out to sea. I called Al and told him and he laughed and said I told you so.

The worst day of my life in the Navy was when we were out to sea but got a chance to catch the fights on HBO that night. I was by my rack when I heard them toll the bell for the late great Al Gavin. My heart dropped to the floor. I lost my best friend, my mentor, I lost Uncle Al. It was the hardest thing to swallow while out to sea. Could not call anybody since we were so far out to sea and had to wait 4 months until I could call the family to say I was sorry.

Now its going on 6 years since he has passed and he still has not been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. That is a shame. The man did so much for this sport and he deserves to be in the Hall. New Jersey inducted him in 2006 and I am doing what I can to get him into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame. I am going to continue to do whatever I can to help him get into the Hall of Fame. He deserves it NOW! Not 5 years from now, not 10 years, but NOW!

I still work with fighters today here in Tampa and if I get into a pinch with a fighter and he gets cut I just ask Uncle Al to guide my hand. It works. Not only is this man missed by many people today, his memory lives on with me where his initial will always be on my cornerman jacket right on my left sleeve closest to my heart. I miss you Uncle Al and will see you again some day.

R.I.P.

Harold Lederman On Al Gavin

I must have known Al Gavin for thirty years, maybe more. He didn't only like me cause he thought I knew a little about the game, he liked me because, like him, I was a good eater.

Funny thing about boxing judges and cutmen...they both wind up in a lot of God forsaken places with tons of time on their hands and no place to spend it waiting for the first bell to ring.

I remember one time Al and I wound up, in of all places, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not a heck of a lot to do in Tulsa. Al was working some corner, and I think I was working for HBO, probably when Tommy Morrison was fighting Michael Bentt. Al and I found a little place to eat breakfast and lunch, owned by a nice lady named, "Jeannie". Of course the name of the restaurant was "Jeannie's".

Every morning and every afternoon Al and I would hop in my rental car and go to Jeannie's for breakfast and lunch because the food was good and Jeannie didn't charge L'Cirque prices. Well, as fate would have it, every time we went there there was a cowboy looking person wearing blue jeans sitting at a corner table having his meal. I kept telling Al, "I know this guy". I just couldn't place the face. Al thought I was a total whack job. "How could you know a guy sitting in a greasy spoon in Tulsa, Oklahoma?", asked the world's greatest cutman.

Well, finally I could not take it no more, so I went over to Jeannie, who by this time had become a friend of ours, and said "who is the cowboy who's always sitting in the corner?"

After that, Al had a little more respect for yours truly. He couldn't believe it when the cowboy turned out to be the recently retired kicker for the New York Giants, Don Chandler. Now kickers aren't the biggest guys on the football field, so when I told Al that Chandler kicked twelve years for the Giants, he had a hard time believing that a guy the size of Chandler could be on the same field as Roosevelt Grier.

Problem was that they don't take off their helmets enough, so although I had seen him kick, I couldn't remember who he was over his breakfast of creamed chip beef on toast.

Ain't too many guys left to hang out with now that Al's gone. Al had a special appeal that just made you want to be with him. A die hard fight guy, he knew the business inside and out, and made it fun to be at the fights.

I miss you Al. I'm sure we'll meet up some day, even if it's not at Jeannies.

Harold Lederman is a longtime in-fight commentator for HBO Sports

The Man In My Corner

by Michael Fetherston

Al Gavin's professional life reads like a who's who of the fight game for the last fifty years. His abilities as a cut man became so legendary that the countless champions, trainers and managers the world over who sought his services referred to him simply as "Big Al". If that name was said out loud in almost any fight club from Brooklyn to Las Vegas, people knew who he was and they knew his presence in a fighters corner could mean the difference between a title belt being won or lost.

Al spent a lot of time on t.v. and in the spotlight and now that he's gone there's a crowd of great men who have a lot of great stories to tell about him, and I'm sure they're all true. I myself was never a champion, and I never basked in the spotlight with Al, but in the moments that I did spend with him I learned that this great man was at his best when it mattered most in life, and that's when no one was looking.

I met Al when I was twelve years old, the day I climbed the stairs to the old Gramercy Gym on 14th St. Walking into that gym for the first time was a hard thing for any kid to do, but as soon as I saw the big man sitting in the beat up old easy chair in the middle of the room it felt easy. Al had his trade mark poker face on when he first looked me over, tight lipped and stern eyes, but that look didn't fool me one bit.

He was one of the good guys, and anyone who ever looked Al Gavin in the eyes knew it. He had only two questions for me- where did I live and was I in school (it occurred to me that he must of been used to dealing with a rough bunch of kids if they were dropping out of school at the age of twelve) and he told me to come back the next day with fifteen bucks and a pair of hand wraps.

Over the next few months, Al taught me to box. Like I said, I never became a champion or even made it past a disastrous amateur career. The fact was, I didn't have "it", that special ability that only a few among us are ever blessed with. I simply didn't have the talent to be a real fighter, and the expert eyes of Al Gavin must have seen that early on. He had to have known that I was never going to make him a dime (not counting the fifteen bucks, of course), I was never going to put him under the spot light and I was never going to add to his legend.

But for some reason, Al Gavin still took the time out to teach me to box.

I'd walk into the gym everyday after school, prime-time for the pros and the champs. Al would be working with a contender here, an up and comer there, and still he'd take the time out to work with me, a scrawny kid off the streets who didn't exactly have 'title shot' written all over him. He was patient and thorough, never accepting a sloppily thrown jab or lazy right, and always gave me an attaboy when I did it right.

He taught me to not sulk when things didn't go my way in a sparring session and not to gloat when they did. He kept track of when my school issued report cards and let me know passing grades were a requirement for gym membership (yeah, I kept my grades up, and yeah, he checked). I was a sullen, slouching kind of kid, but Al didn't accept that either. If I wanted to leave the gym each day without a lecture, I had to do so with my head held high.

Later that year, the Gramercy closed for good. I bounced around to other gyms for a while, but I never trained with Al again. I would stop into Gleason's as often as I could to say hi to him, and he always wanted a full report of my goings-on's.

Over the years, I begrudgingly accepted that my dreams of championship were never to be, but hanging up the gloves was never the end of my friendship with Al. He was always there to support me in whatever endeavors I had in life, and when many years later I became a New York City Police Officer he made sure I met all the right people he knew in that world as well.

Al knew way before I did that I was never going to find what I was looking for in the ring, but he never told me so. He knew that there's no way to explain that to a kid, he has to find that out for himself, and when I did he still continued to work my corner. In the game of life, just like the fight game, everybody needs a good corner man, and some of us are lucky enough to have a great one.

Even now, when the going gets tough and I find myself slouching, I can still see Al's stern face and kind eyes and hear his voice, "Keep 'em up kid, keep 'em up".

A Message From Verne "Bulldog" Williams

Al Gavin is in my heart.

To those of us who liked to fight, the big guy was the prime example of who world champions wanted in their corner in the tradition of Arcel and Bimstein.

As a understudy to these masters of the art, able to stop the flow, and carry the distinction of the true gentlemen who he emulated through his entire life. Al Gavin was prized by all of us who have been lucky enough to be considered in friendship.

When you shook his hand you knew or you didn't. "The old school". He knew what 15 rounds took, what champ meant in 8 weight classes. Stillman's gym, and who, along with Bobby Jackson and Pat Robertson inherited the Empire State Sporting Club housed at the Gramacy gym from Cus D'Amato.

Trainers of champions, all of them . Contributors to American Boxing History that began in 1939. In the tradition of American fighters, who have ruled the game.

I was there in 2000 at the 75th Annual Boxing Writers Dinner that Al invited me to attend at the Crown Plaza in N.Y. Boy, I got slicked up for that one... Blue suit, impeccable white shirt, black featherweights you could see your face in, haircut, fresh shave.

I walked through the door, and a guy with a dented nose pointed me to the stairwell to the mezzanine, and halfway up, I was grabbed by two huge guys bigger than Al himself in suits, Asking me if I was Bulldog Williams.

Ahh, am I under arrest ? Aww no way Bulldog, you have been invited to Al's suite, and we are taking you there. "You must be a good guy sir, because he likes you, and he doesn't like anyone! I can't tell you how honored I felt. He did the Jimmy Walker Award proud along with Bob Jackson that evening, being honored by the best writers of boxing, and the best fighters on the planet.

Like I said, "Al Gavin is in my heart".

Verne "Bulldog" Williams