OPINION

REX NELSON: The cut man

The temperature will top out at 100 on this Sunday afternoon. The streets appear empty in downtown North Little Rock. The parking lot outside the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame at Verizon Arena is crowded, however. Inside, the small theater adjacent to the Hall of Fame's museum is packed with people attending a screening of a documentary that the Arkansas Educational Television Network has done on the life of Ray Rodgers.

They want to see the documentary, of course. More than anything, though, they're here to pay tribute to Rodgers. If there's anyone in Arkansas who has had a positive effect on the lives of more young men, I would be surprised. Rodgers has helped literally thousands of boys through the decades, most of whom have come from neighborhoods known for high poverty and crime rates. He's in his 80s now but is working as hard as ever.

Rodgers was the first person to head both the Silver Gloves and Golden Gloves amateur boxing organizations at the same time, and he's a member of the hall of fame for both groups. Golden Gloves has a storied history. In 1923, the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, Arch Ward, came up with the idea of an amateur boxing tournament to be sponsored by the newspaper. Each champion was awarded a miniature golden glove, which gave the tournament its name. The list of past Golden Gloves medal winners is a who's who of the sweet science. Joe Louis was a Golden Gloves champion in 1934. There was Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) in 1960, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler in 1973, Michael Spinks in 1974, Thomas Hearns in 1977, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield in 1984, Oscar De La Hoya in 1989 and Little Rock's Jermain Taylor in 1998 and 1999.

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: "It if weren't for Ray Rodgers, there would not be boxing left in Little Rock."

Silver Gloves is for amateur fighters ages 10-15. Golden Gloves is for amateur fighters ages 16 and older.

"It has a natural attraction for kids who are basically adventuresome and want to do something no one else does," Rodgers once told an interviewer. "The dynamics of it hooked me in the fifth grade, and I've never been out of it one day. In boxing, as in life, desire is half the deal. ... I'm a great believer in amateur boxing. I think it's one of the greatest sports ever devised. In boxing, you don't have anybody to hand off to or to lateral or pass it off to. You're on your own, brother. The 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."

Rodgers is quick to tell you that he doesn't want the amateurs he trains to become professional fighters. That's ironic since he's among the best cut men in the business for the pros. Among boxers, the cut man is a revered figure. In a boxer's corner, a cut man uses everything in his power to take care of cuts, nosebleeds and swelling. Don't confuse a cut man with the fight doctor, who's neutral. The cut man will do whatever it takes to give his fighter the edge.

Though athletic commissions in many states require cut men to be licensed, there's no formal training. The good cut men learn through years of trial and error. The tools of their trade include petroleum jelly, ice packs, cotton swabs and gauze pads. There's also the enswell, the small piece of metal with a handle that's kept on ice and used to cool the area around a bruise or cut.

Cut men create their own medications and consider their recipes to be trade secrets. Ingredients can include Avitene (used to stop bleeding), adrenaline hydrochloride (used to decrease blood flow) and other medications used for coagulation. Clint Eastwood played both a trainer and a cut man in the 2004 Academy Award-winning film Million Dollar Baby. In the 1976 film Rocky, Rocky Balboa's cut man was played by Al Silvani, a former trainer.

"I learned a lot watching some of the old-time Arkansas coaches and trainers: Bert Ramsey, Buddy Holderfield and others," Rodgers told this newspaper's Jim Bailey on the eve of his induction into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. "One of my idols was Whitey Bimstein, who had a reputation as the best cut man in New York when boxing hit television in the 1950s."

In the AETN documentary, Rodgers uses his trademark line: "I've got stuff that will hold two drops of water together."

When Taylor was headbutted by Bernard Hopkins in the first of their two fights, Rodgers stopped the bleeding and kept the fight going at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Taylor won the middleweight title in a split decision that night in July 2005. After the fight, Taylor had 16 stitches in the top of his head. Rodgers has never had a fighter lose because of cuts.

"Being a cut man is just something I do," Rodgers said. "I'll fly out a couple of days ahead of a fight. That gives me a chance to rest. On the day of the bout, I go into war mode. I start thinking about a fight just like a fighter does. I'm focused, as the kids say. ... And I go right back to work on Monday, just like a walk in the park. I want to die at ringside, but no time soon."

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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 07/21/2018

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