Golden Gloves

Three months ago, 4,400 young amateur boxers, most of them so timid, rickety, fat or ungraceful that their interest in fisticuffs suggested lack of good sense, signed entry blanks in the Golden Gloves Boxing tournament sponsored by the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. Last week, this monster tournament reached its annual climax in the Chicago Stadium. A capacity crowd watched a Chicago team win the last eight three-round bouts on the program, beat New York 11 bouts to 5 in the inter-city finals.

Invented in 1927 as a circulation stunt by the News's able columnist and onetime sports editor, Paul Gallico, Golden Gloves tournaments promptly substantiated his theory that each contestant had ten friends who would buy the News to read about him, got the News unexpected publicity when other papers recognized it as a bona fide sports event. The Tribune held its first Golden Gloves tournament in 1928. Newspapers in some 50 other cities copied the idea. That this year's bouts were more one-sided than usual was not due entirely to the fact that Chicago's team included representatives of Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton. After the New York finals, 26 winners selected for the team demanded pay for their services. Determined to keep the Golden Gloves strictly amateur, the Daily News Athletic Association promptly chose substitutes from boxers defeated earlier in the tournament.

In the last few years, professional prizefight promoters & managers as well as the public have taken a lively interest in the Golden Gloves. Light-heavyweight Champion Bob Olin, cousin of a News cameraman, got his start as a Golden Glover in 1928. So did Lightweight Champion Barney Ross, in 1929. Currently, most notable Golden Gloves alumnus is Negro Heavyweight Joe Louis of Detroit who won the Golden Gloves championship last year after knocking out 43 of his 54 amateur opponents. Since turning professional, Heavyweight Louis has had 17 fights, won 13 by knockouts, four by decision without losing a round. Last week, when he thrashed Heavyweight Natie Brown in Detroit, the U. S. Press, always eager to ballyhoo a "black menace" to the heavyweight championship, selected Joe Louis as successor to Jack Johnson, Harry Wills, Sam Langford. Twenty years old, equipped with a formidable right hand, polite, a flashy dresser, so religious he sometimes reads his Bible between rounds, Fisticuffer Louis is matched to fight one- time Heavyweight Champion Primo Carnera next June.

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