Howard Davis, JR, 1976 Olympic Gold Medal Boxer, Promises To Knock Out Cancer
By Chris “Man of Few Words” Benedict
“I’m not quitting, and I’m going to beat this,” vows Howard Davis, JR., who is literally in the fight of his life. For his life, to be precise.
Hate is not a word I toss about flippantly. Having said that, seventeen years ago I watched my Mom waste away between February and May as lung, liver, and bone cancer ravaged her from the inside out, and whispered in her ear that it was ok to let go, that she had fought long enough. She died less than an hour later. With only a few weeks having elapsed, my good friend Kathy’s ovarian cancer returned and metastasized and she was gone by July. Earlier that same month, my now ex-wife was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I shaved her head on the back deck and sat with her during each chemotherapy session at her oncologist’s office. Fortunately, she was young and strong and responded well to the treatments and is still in remission. Two of her aunts were not so lucky and neither was my Uncle Felix, a one-time professional wrestler who drew heat on the independent circuit here on Long Island in the late 70s as Boris Sinkoff the Russian Cosmonaut, who lost his battle with brain cancer which is one only a very select few come out on top of and, even then, far from unscathed.
So, yeah, I hate cancer. Which made it that much harder for me to hear that Howard Davis JR., one of five gold medalists on the U.S. Olympic boxing dream team in the bicentennial year of 1976, had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. I tend to take things like that very personally. But, this isn’t about me. Imagine how he felt.
“Shock,” he summed up for me in the lobby of The Space at Westbury after the comedy fundraiser benefiting the Howard Davis, JR. Foundation where, exhausted but very appreciative and in great spirits, Davis personally thanked, and posed for photos with, every single audience and family member. “I live a very clean lifestyle, never drank, never smoked. To this day, I still don’t know what alcohol tastes like. I wasn’t around people who smoked, so it was a little bit of a shock.”
After the show had concluded (with an improv act into which Howard’s brother Sylvester, a good sport if there ever was one, was incorporated), Davis climbed onto the stage, introduced by longtime friend and former Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission Randy Gordon, and elaborated on his diagnosis.
Back in February, just before his 59th birthday, Howard explained that “I just didn’t feel right. I lost my appetite and didn’t have the same energy I usually have. So, throughout the week, I still kept feeling weak and tired. The next day I couldn’t get out of bed and the following Monday my wife said, ‘We’re going to the hospital. Something’s not right, we’re going to the hospital.’ By that time, I must have lost about 12 pounds, so I must have had the cancer for a while and didn’t know it. It hit me like a ton of bricks when three doctors came in and told me I had lung cancer that had metastasized to my liver, my right shoulder, my left back bones, and my right hip muscle. So, it spread throughout my whole body. When the doctors told me, I’m not going to lie to you, I started crying. But then the fighter in me came out and I said to my wife, I’m going to fight this and I’m going to beat it.”
Born the eldest of ten on February 14, 1956, Davis grew up on Long Island’s north shore in the Housing Authority of the town of Glen Cove, where he was honored with a homecoming parade in August 1976 and is located just 10 miles north of where Wednesday’s benefit occurred. His father Howard Sr. operated Lincoln House, a local youth center where he functioned as a social worker and trainer of amateur boxers. The emotional rewards of this vocation far outweighed the financial and Howard, JR. remembers lean times of having to skip breakfast and lunch while attending school and waiting to eat until he arrived home for dinner. A self-taught conga player at the age of twelve, Howard was made aware by his Mom of the fact that the family could not afford to celebrate Christmas but awoke nevertheless to a brand new drum kit under the tree. Howard Sr., unable to conceal a swollen eye, confessed to having boxed (and been knocked out) to earn the money with which to buy the children’s gifts.
Howard afterward formed an R+B group called The Dynamics with neighborhood friends that graduated from performing at amateur hours or battle of the bands to opening for The Unifics and The Chambers Brothers. “How the hell do you know about that?” Howard laughed when I brought up his old band, confirming what I’d heard about their having encountered two show business legends. “I did one song with James Brown, and Sammy Davis, JR. showed up one day while we were rehearsing. He just showed up and we did a song with him.” To get his son’s mind off the break-up of The Dynamics, Howard SR. took Davis to see a showing of the Muhammad Ali documentary A.K.A. Cassius Clay. Inspired and reinvigorated, a fourteen year-old Howard awoke before dawn the following morning, stars in his eyes as well as still twinkling in the sky, to go running in preparation for the commencement of his pugilistic excursion. And, though every opinion is open to debate, it would be hard to argue otherwise that an amateur boxer ever had a finer career than Howard Davis, JR.
Ultimately sporting an astonishing amateur record of 125-5, Howard would become the first fighter to win four consecutive New York Golden Gloves championships from 1973 through ‘76. With only eight previous fights to his credit, Davis would upset defending champion Leroy Veasley of Detroit, MI to capture the 125-pound title at the AAU Nationals in 1973. After winning the 1973 North American Championship and his second National AAU medal, Davis would participate in the inaugural World Amateur Boxing Championships held in Havana, Cuba in 1974. Cruising through the competition’s first three bouts, Howard would outpoint both Cuban Mariano Alvarez and 1972 Olympic gold medalist Boris Kuznetsov of the Soviet Union by slim 3-2 margins to emerge victorious in the talent-laden featherweight division.
It goes without saying that 1976 is the year for which Howard Davis, JR. will always be best remembered. The road to Montreal, however, was fraught with obstacles in the form of future Hall of Famers, not to mention a near-death experience, and gold medal glory achieved by way of stunning wins would carry the cost of a heartbreaking loss. Competing now as a 132-pound lightweight, Davis would earn a third National AAU Championship but only after tough back-to-back wins over Hilmer Kenty and Thomas Hearns. Taking full advantage of an invitation to the Olympic Trials, Howard defeated yet another world champion-to-be in Aaron Pryor and yet was called upon to do so again at the Box-Offs held in Burlington, Vermont. Davis almost died in the process. Not in the ring, but in a river. Before his Olympic eliminator against Pryor, Davis joined teammate Charles Mooney (who would win Silver in Montreal at bantamweight) for an afternoon dip while neglecting to alert anyone to the fact that he did not know how to swim. Plunging in off of a rock, he quickly sunk and his frantic attempts to reach the surface were mistaken by Mooney as Davis simply goofing around. Charles playfully splashed water at Howard before realizing the severity of the situation and hauling his extremely grateful friend in to safety, thereby cheating death and permitting Davis to once more clip the wings of Aaron “The Hawk” Pryor and fly to Montreal with the Olympic squad himself instead. Tragedy, however, would rear its ugly head at the worst possible time (not that there ever is an opportune moment) to sully and yet inspire the consummation of Howard’s adolescent dream.
His mother Catherine (after whom Howard’s youngest sister-who was seated at my table with her husband and brother Sylvester-is named) died of a sudden heart attack the day before the opening ceremonies, understandably causing an anguished Davis to question his presence in Montreal when he should be home with his grieving family. The team’s coach, Tom “Sarge” Johnson, asked Howard to reflect, before deciding one way or the other, on his Mom’s parting words. “You better bring home that gold.” His mind was made up.
After outpointing Japan’s Yukio Segawa (having earned a first-round bye) and winning by RSC (Referee Stopped Contest, amateur boxing’s equivalent of a TKO) over Leonidas Asprilla of Columbia and Tzvetan Tzvetkov of Bulgaria, Davis’ semi-final opponent, left-handed Ace Rusevski out of Yugoslavia, concerned him. Howard admits to always having experienced trouble against southpaws but had his mind set at ease following a chance encounter with a fistic legend. Archie Moore sat on a bench in the Olympic Village reading a newspaper when he was approached by the youngster from Long Island for advice. “Keep your left foot outside of his right foot,” was what Howard took away from his summit with “The Old Mongoose” and, with Win The Gold Medal written in black marker on his left shoe, Davis deftly shut out Rusevski and then Romania’s Simion Cutov in the Gold Medal final, joining Michael and Leon Spinks, Leo Randolph and (not yet Sugar) Ray Leonard at the top tier of the podium at the presentation ceremonies. Howard would also be awarded the Val Barker Trophy for Outstanding Boxer of the entire Montreal games and shared the National Boxing Writers Association of America prize for 1976 Fighter of the Year with his Gold Medal-winning compatriots. The always soft-spoken Davis, when asked to share his feelings during the post-decoration press conference, simply took the medal from around his neck, held it above his head and declared, “I dedicate this to my mother. This gold medal belongs to her.” The medal itself would later take its own peculiar journey.
Stolen from his Dix Hills home in a 1982 burglary, along with jewelry estimated at $15,000 but carrying far less sentimental value than Howard’s Olympic treasure, the medal had evidently been tossed out of the thief’s car window while making his getaway on the Long Island Expressway. It was later recovered during a restoration project on an overgrown portion of the highway’s shoulder by a landscaper named Jake Fiesel who unknowingly brought it home to use as a paperweight. When a visitor identified the object as Davis’ missing gold medal, Fiesel gladly returned it to its rightful owner who has not lost sight of it since.
Signed to an unprecedented 12-fight, $1.6 million contract with CBS upon turning professional, Davis would suffer under the (mis)management of Dennis Rappaport and Mike Jones, Long Island real estate brokers with a flair for the histrionic known as “The Wacko Twins”, who butted heads with Howard SR. over how best to steer the course of Davis’ career and many suggest were too preoccupied with their heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney (who was present at Wednesday evening’s event) to bother battling his father on most matters. Howard competed in three world title fights spread out over a span of twelve years, all of them being Olympic years coincidentally enough.
Decked out in pink trunks with his initials on one leg and the number 14 on the other (signifying his sum total of fights, this one included), Davis came out on the short end of a close unanimous decision to WBC Lightweight Champion Jim Watt before 15,000 hostile Scotsmen at Glasgow’s Ibrox Park on June 7, 1980. Dropped by the new WBC Lightweight titleholder Edwin Rosario in the second round of their June 23, 1984 fight at Roberto Clemente Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Howard dusted himself off and dictated the pace of the middle and later rounds, looking to be well on his way to winning the championship. Until, that is, Rosario floored Davis again with a left hook as the two engaged in shoulder-to-shoulder combat against the ropes in the final seconds of the twelfth and last round, swaying the score of ringside judge Sid Nathan in the defending champion’s direction, leaving only Jose Juan Guerra deciding in Howard’s favor. On July 31, 1988, Davis would challenge James “Buddy” McGirt for his IBF World Super-Lightweight (or Junior-Welterweight, if you prefer) title at New York’s Felt Forum in what would be the final 15-round boxing match held in the United States. It wouldn’t quite last even one. Looking out for McGirt’s left hook, Howard was blindsided by a blistering right instead and counted out, at 2:45 of the opening stanza, for the first of only two times in his 36-6-1 pro career. The other being his 1996 swan song against Dana Rosenblatt in Boston, a second-round knockout.
Davis has been inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in his former home states of New York and New Jersey as well as Florida where he now resides and runs Fight Time Promotions with his loving, supportive, and equally indomitable wife Karla, staging MMA cards throughout the Sunshine State. In a case of things coming full circle as they sometimes do, he has even negotiated a television deal for his fighters to appear on his old network CBS. It was while performing his customary duty of loading the company truck with equipment prior to a show in February that he first felt cancer’s maliciously ill effects.
Confronted for cold, hard facts by his wife Karla, Howard’s original doctor had given him a year to live on the 10-cocktail chemotherapy he underwent twice before re-evaluating his situation. “I said, man, something’s not right. I feel like I’m dying and I said to my wife, I can’t do the chemo anymore, I’m not going to survive the next one. I’m not going to make it.” Karla located Dr. Marc Rosenberg in Boca Raton, who specializes in natural, non-traditional treatments. “The thing I didn’t know, that your hemoglobin, when you take chemotherapy, should be anywhere between 8 and 9. For a healthy man, it’s 13,” said Davis. In addition to a live biopsy, Dr. Rosenberg ran a hemoglobin test that revealed Howard’s level to be 6.5, which was no match for the copious doses of drugs his already compromised system was being poisoned by. “They found two that worked and the two that I’m taking now has shrunk the tumor in my lungs, so I’m very happy about that. I’m still not out of the woods, though,” Davis cautioned. “I’m still very sick. And most of what I’m taking is not covered by insurance at all. So, this is why we’re here tonight, to raise funds. Out of my pockets, it’s costing me about $3,000 a week and I go 5 times a week. It’s very expensive, it’s working. But, I’m taking chemo through traditional methods but also doing vitamin therapy. I need to raise money for myself, but also my wife and I always like to give back to the community. We raised $15,000 two years ago for the Children’s Diagnostic Center and we raised $7,000 a year ago for Autism Speaks. So, we’re constantly giving back to the community. Now I need help. Also, we’re raising money for other people who want to do alternative treatments.”
Howard has happily regained almost 10 pounds, “eating like a pig” he playfully remarked to me, and is highly optimistic about his relationship with Dr. Rosenberg, of whom he said, “I’m with the right person. This doctor is very passionate about what he’s doing and he’s not getting much help. He has a lot of things on the horizon that will help a lot of people and hopefully he’ll get the money that he needs for his treatments.” The Howard Davis JR. Foundation aims to assist in doing just that to ensure that Howard and many others will go from being cancer fighters to cancer survivors. “I never in a million years would ever wish it on my worst enemy. And it’s really taken a lot out of me,” Howard concluded. “But, like I said before, I’m never giving up. Hopefully, by six months from now, I will eradicate this.”
Howard, who never once sat on his stool between rounds as a professional, is no stranger to picking himself off the canvas to finish a fight on his feet, having done so twice in the same bout during his career against not only Edwin Rosario but Norman Goins and Joe Manley as well. Now that the stakes have never been higher, Davis is more determined than ever to come out of the corner swinging and defeat his most critical rival yet.
If you are a boxing fan, an admirer of Mr. Davis, and an advocate for alternative medicine, particularly if battling cancer is a cause that has impacted you in a personal and profound way, please consider making a donation today and standing in Howard’s corner as he fights the good fight at: http://www.howarddavisjrfoundation.org/
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