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ARKANSAS SPORTS HALL OF FAME:
Ray Rodgers Bridges Boxing’s Two Worlds

By Jim Bailey
Arkansas Democrat Gazette

LITTLE ROCK — Ray Rodgers, 2007 inductee for the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

Ray Rodgers is both a proud pillar of the national amateur boxing establishment and one of the more respected “cut men” working boxing’s pro circuit. He finds no contradiction in his situation.

“Amateur boxing can be a great part of the maturation process for any healthy kid,” Rodgers said. “It can instill discipline, confidence, self-esteem. I’ve known dozens and dozens of former amateur boxers who went on to successful careers in various professions.

“I’ve never advised any kid to box professionally. I’ve never had any ambition to manage or train a pro boxer. Only those with absolutely worldclass skills should ever think about it.”

Rodgers, 70, will be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame on Feb. 23. So, coincidentally, will world middleweight champion Jermain Taylor of Little Rock, in whose corner Rodgers has worked as a cut man since Taylor turned pro after winning a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympic Games.

“Some of our other [2000] Olympians also turned pro about the time Jermain did,” Rodgers said. “Within a year, most of the others had slipped through the cracks. Where are they now? Even at top level, most of them don’t make it.”

Rodgers, an Oklahoma native, was 11 when his family settled in Conway in 1947. He started boxing at 10 as a 75-pounder in “special weights” competition (now known as the Junior Golden Gloves). He won the state AAU open lightweight championship in 1956 and the state AAU open welterweight title in 1960.

He had started coaching boxing much earlier than that, when he was 16.

“I took three special weights kids to the Golden Gloves tournament at Fort Smith, but [tournament officials] told me they couldn’t compete because I was too young to be a coach,” he said. “They got to looking through the rule book and found age wasn’t mentioned as a coaching qualification, so it all worked out.”

For years, he has coached Ray Rodgers Boxing Club teams at the Junior Deputy Sports Complex in Little Rock. He also operates a commercial construction firm, Mid-South Drywall.

Boxing, both amateur and pro, keeps him on the move most of each year.

If it’s not some session of the Silver Gloves Association, the Golden Gloves or USA Boxing, it’s an assignment to keep swelling and bleeding under control in the corner of some pro contestant.

His cut man reputation started in the amateurs.

“I learned a lot watching some of the old-time Arkansas coaches and trainers: Bert Ramsey, Buddy Holderfield and others,” he said. “One of my idols was Whitey Bimstein, who had a reputation as the best cut man in New York when [pro] boxing hit television in the 1950s.”

When Rodgers was successful in keeping heavyweight Tommy Morrison’s eyebrows intact through a national Golden Gloves tournament, Morrison’s camp told him he’d be Morrison’s cut man when he turned pro.

“I thought it was just something nice to say, but they went through with it,” Rodgers said. “I was in Tommy’s corner for every pro fight except two.”

Cut man chores have taken him all over the United States and to Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany - even Hong Kong.

“Tommy Morrison was scheduled to fight Herbie Hide in Hong Kong back about 1994,” Rodgers said. “The sponsors couldn’t get the money together, and the match fell through after I got there. I was on expenses, so it amounted to a week’s paid vacation in Hong Kong.

“Amateur boxing is a sport. Pro boxing is a business. If you keep that in mind at all times, you shouldn’t have much trouble either place.”

This article was published Wednesday, February 14, 2007.
Sports, Pages 21, 23 on 02/14/2007
Photo: Copyright Arkansas Democrat Gazette