31. “Girl Boxers Are Banned.” Palm Beach Post, September 13, 1950, p. 11. [Google News]
32. Bill Moor. “In ’50s, She Landed Blow for Women.” South Bend Tribune, January 29, 1994, n.p. [NL.newsbank.com]
33. “JoAnn Hagen Fails to Last . . .” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, November 23, 1949, n.p. [Ancestry.com]
34. “‘Keep Chin Down, Guard Up’ ex-Boxer Advises Daughters.” Free Lance-Star, March 21, 1972, p. 11. [Google News]
35. Women Boxing Archive Network’s Sue TL Fox had a correspondence in 2010 with one of Emerick’s daughters, who reiterated that the fight took place in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and that due to a fire all of Emerick’s boxing memorabilia was destroyed except for the trophy.
36. “Girl Gladiators Settle Nothing.” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, December 1, 1949, p. 17. [Ancestry.com]
37. “Girlboxers to Appear on Bill.” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, December 28, 1949, n.p. [Ancestry.com]
38. “Women Athletes Make Southwest Iowa Headlines.” Council Bluffs Nonpareil, December 25, 1949, n.p. [Ancestry.com]
39. Jeanne Hoffman. “West Coast Gal Seeks Featherweight Boxing Title.” Pittsburgh Press, September 2, 1951, p. 39.
40. “Mat Matches Here Tuesday.” Miami Daily News-Record, November 22, 1953, p. 5. [Newspapers.com]
41. “Mix Tag Match!” Sheboygan Press, February 1, 1954, p. 21. [Ancestry.com]
42. “Mixed Team Bout on Playdium Card Wrestling Match.” Sheboygan Press, February 1, 1954, n.p. [Ancestry.com]
43. “Australian Tag Match.” Sheboygan Press, February 1, 1954, p. 3. [Ancestry.com]
44. “British Bantam—Lass with Good Left Looking for Fights.” Corpus Christi Caller, May 29, 1955, p. 5B. [Ancestry.com]
45. “Pretty Puglilists.” Bismarck Tribune, July 3, 1954, n.p. [Ancestry.com]
46. “Briton Wins.” Billings Gazette, July 12, 1954, p. 8. [Ancestry.com]
47. “Battling Barbara Is the Winner.” Dickinson Press, July 10, 1954, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
48. The Prize Fighter. Calgary, Canada. September 1954, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
49. “Calgary’s Great Fight Attraction.” Calgary Herald, September 10, 1954, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
50. “British Bantam—Lass with Good Left Looking for Fights.” Corpus Christi Caller, May 29, 1955, p. 5B. [Ancestry.com]
51. Cary O’Dell. June Cleaver, p. 136.
52. Jim Meenan. “At 69, a Boxer at Heart.” South Bend Tribune, October 14, 2005. [NL.newsbank.com]
53. Jim Meenan. “Way Ahead of Her Time.” South Bend Tribune, September 19, 2005. [NL.Newsbank.com]
54. “Niles Girl Wins Title.” New-Palladium (Benton Harbor, MI), December 15, 1956, sec 2, p. 2. [Newspapers.com]
55. Jim Meenan. “Way Ahead of Her Time.” South Bend Tribune, September 19, 2005. [NL.Newsbank.com]
56. Jim Meenan. “At 69, a Boxer at Heart.” South Bend Tribune, October 14, 2005. [NL.Newsbank.com]
57. “So These Gals Took Up Boxing.” Miami Herald, August 15, 1957, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
58. “So These Gals Took Up Boxing.” Miami Herald, August 15, 1957, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
59. Letter, Glenn “Shep” Sheppard to Johnny Nate. [Women Boxing Archive Network]
60. Advertisement Handbill: Kugler vs. Buttrick. October 8, 1957. [Malissa Smith Collection]
61. “English Girl Boxer in Classy Ring Drill.” San Antonio Express, October 7, 1957, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
62. San Antonio Light, October 9, 1957, p. 39. [Ancestry.com]
63. “Barbara a Lady, but What a Right!” Milwaukee Journal, October 9, 1957, p. E17. [Google News]; and “Female Fury in Texas Boxing Ring.” Milwaukee Journal, October 17, 1957, p. B3. [Google News]
64. “British Girl Wins World Boxing Title.” San Antonio Express, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]
65. “State Nixes Gal Boxers’ Fistic Tour.” San Antonio Light, October 10, 1957, p. 22. [Ancestry.com]
66. Robert Philip. “Robert Philip on Monday: Memoirs of a Happy Left-Hook.” Daily Telegraph, March 1993, sport 7. [Malissa Smith Collection]
Chapter 6
Burning Bras, Taking on the “Sheriff,” and Winning the Right to Fight
[I’m] not in this for publicity, I’m not going to be merely a figurehead. I’m going to be the promoter.
—Pat Boardman, age eighteen, Tampa, Florida[1]
With the first stirrings of the women’s movement in the late 1960s on through the 1970s, girls and women began finding their way into the boxing gym (and the ring) in greater and greater numbers. The era of the perfect wife and the perfect mother was being rapidly replaced by a consciousness-raising that extended to women’s control over their own bodies—including their right to play sports wherever and whenever they wanted. The period also saw the parents of young girls finding it acceptable for their daughters to box alongside their male peers.
Beginning in the 1970s there was a huge push by American women to legalize their participation in professional boxing. Boxers such as Jackie “The Female Ali” Tonawanda and Marian “Lady Tyger” Trimiar, who led the way for legalization of women’s boxing in New York State, were willing to go to court to press their legal claims.
Women also sued to be able to officiate at boxing contests as judges, referees, managers, and even trainers in the 1970s. Carol Polis and Eva Shain’s efforts won them the right to judge professional fights in Madison Square Garden. These legal contests resulted in a growing coterie of female fighters, officials, referees, judges, and managers who were engaged in all aspects of the professional fight game. This coincided with the historic enactment of Title IX, which regulated fairness and gender equality in education, including athletic programs, by Congress on June 23, 1972. It went into effect three years later on June 21, 1975.
From Pearls to Love Beads: Women Embracing
the Ring
With a dateline of January 1, 1960, the Los Angeles Times ran an Associated Press story with the headline “Teen-age Miss Set to Stage Florida Fights.” The story featured an eighteen-year-old named Pat Boardman with an eye to begin promoting fights at the Tampa Armory. Boardman grew up with boxing as the daughter of a boxing manager and promoter named Sam Boardman and the sister of a respectable lightweight boxer, Larry Boardman. When the promoter resigned his post at the Tampa Armory, Pat Boardman was there to jump in.
Boardman brimmed with confidence. As she stepped into a new decade, she seemed to portend the enormity of the changes the decade of the 1960s would bring. Telling a reporter, “I’m not going to be merely a figurehead, I’m going to be the promoter,” she felt she would “lean heavily on” her father for her first foray, but “after six months or a year,” she’d be very much on her own.
She’d decided to enter the promoting game some months after she and her family had moved to the Tampa area from Connecticut where Sam Boardman had been successful in the fight game. Immediately after local Tampa promoter Jimmy Tolisano announced that he was leaving his job with the arena, Pat Boardman leapt up to take his place.
“There was no stopping her,” her father said, though he was still “inclined to think she’s too green,” even though she’d grown up in the sport.[2]
True to her word, but perhaps a little later than anticipated, she staged her first fight card in May 1961, bringing in a crowd of six hundred—a good night for the Armory—to see five fights, including a ten-round main event between two middleweights that ended in a draw.
Women had successfully promoted fights since the 1920s, and with the advent of World War II more and more women entered the game. Through the 1950s, figures such as Aileen Eaton emerged as true powerhouses in the world of the business of boxing.
Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Eaton moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, and had even attended two years of law school. She eventually married an osteopath named Martin LaBell and they had three children. In 1941 Eaton’s husband died suddenly after an accid
ent he sustained swimming, leaving her as the sole supporter of her family. Never one to succumb to her troubles, she went to work as a private secretary for Frank A. Garbutt—then the president of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Among the assets of the club was boxing’s mecca in Los Angeles, the Olympic Theater, which was seemingly in dire financial straits. Aware of her background in law, Garbutt tasked Eaton to find out why the Olympic was bleeding money. She quickly ascertained there were probable shenanigans with the books. She urged Garbutt to hire Cal Eaton, a well-respected boxing commission inspector. By then Aileen Eaton was hooked on boxing. Partnering with Cal to get the Olympic back in the black, their personal lives intertwined and the two married several years later.
Taking over professional boxing and wrestling promotion at Los Angeles’s Olympic Theater, Eaton molded a reputation as a tough and able promoter whose business acumen built the Olympic into a premier venue for top-notch fighters. Strong willed, with a reputation for being straight as an arrow and uncompromising, Eaton promoted a nationally broadcast fight in 1958 between Carmen Basillo and Art Aragon that was widely reported as the “biggest petticoat promotion in ring history”—and never mind the “petticoat,” it was the largest payday for a fight to date in history, period.[3] The contest, in fact, set a new record for gross receipts in the state of California: $236,521.10.
By the 1960s Eaton was a boxing icon, who, when her husband Cal died in 1966, took over the business outright and ran it until 1980. She went on to fill a position with the California Athletic Commission as a commissioner in 1982 and served for a total of three years. In all, she was said to have promoted over “10,000 professional fights” in her career and “staged more than 100 world championship matches.” Of her years as a promoter, the Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote: “Red-haired, blue-eyed, pound for pound she was as tough as any welterweight who ever came down the aisle.”[4]
Eaton was given many honors over her lifetime and posthumously. Acknowledging the role of women in the sport of boxing, the Boxing Writers Association chose Aileen Eaton and Washington, D.C., promoter Helen Ahearn as honorees at the 1967 Barney Ross Memorial Dinner—the association’s first-ever coed event.
Female managers were also making headlines, including Bonnie Coccaro. Coccaro began managing fighters after working alongside her husband, ex-featherweight boxer Tony Coccaro, at the Millville Athletic Club—a gym he had started to train amateur fighters. Much like the Martells in California, the New Jersey–based pair promoted amateur fights in nearby towns including Vineland and Atlantic City. When it came time for heavyweight Morris “Mo-Man” Williams to turn pro, it was Bonnie who stepped up to manage his career.
As she told famed New York City–based columnist Sidney Fields, there were disadvantages to being a woman in the fight game. For one, she generally wasn’t allowed to be with her fighter in the men’s locker room before a bout. She also couldn’t stand in his corner between rounds. So “when I want to tell my fighter something I don’t want anyone to hear, I pass it on to my trainer,” she said.
During the day, she managed the Millville bus terminal, including the luncheonette—a seven-day-a-week job. At night she spent her hours in the gym, “eyeing the amateurs and her own fighters,” keeping them on the straight and narrow. “I can be a rough bully when I have to,” she said, but then her soft side would come out: cooking for her fighters on the day of their match, or giving them free meals at the bus terminal.[5]
The 1960s also brought women into the ring as announcers. Following in the footsteps of Belle Martell, whose stints as a ring announcer were seemingly forgotten, one young woman named Rhonda Kay decided to give it a go. A fight fan, Kay, twenty-two, worked at a local radio station. One day she approached a boxing promoter who’d come to the station to talk about an upcoming card and told him “if he wanted to get a big crowd at his fights, why not have a woman do the announcing.”[6] He apparently mulled it over and gave her the job as the first female ring announcer at the Akron Armory’s fight shows in Akron, Ohio.
Appearing in a long multicolored, wide-legged, sleeveless one-piece outfit, Kay, who had tuned up at a local club show, admitted to being a little frightened at first. “Scared to death to tell you the truth,” she said, “but when I saw the fans were enjoying it, I began to enjoy myself too.” She also hoped it was the beginning of a “long association with the sport.”[7]
Model Lorna Anderson, her hair in an “updo” and sporting a block-patterned sleeveless minidress, was the ring announcer at a ten-round boxing match in Toronto, Canada, between heavyweights Bob “Pretty Boy” Felstein and Archie McBride held on June 27, 1967. Marion Bassett, a female boxing promoter, had promoted the fight.
In the ring, women were continuing to appear in fights, although those seemed to be less numerous and, when fought, were reported as if each was the first time women had ever appeared in the ring. A fight held in June 1959 that was called “Canada’s first women’s boxing match” was hardly the first ever held. And whereas the bout between Buttrick and Hagen had been positively viewed, the bout between grandmother June Lounder, thirty-seven, and Myrna McConvey, twenty, who earned her living as a stenographer, won the moniker of “mama stay home.”
Viewed in the press as nothing more than a joke, the match, held in front of 672 fight fans, had been Lounder’s idea to help pep up the regularly held Monday night fights programs. It had the desired effect, but unfortunately neither woman was particularly skilled, so the outcome of the fight was decidedly negative. Even though Lounder was given the win, the bout didn’t advance the idea of women fighting seriously in the ring—and neither woman took up the gloves in a match again.[8]
The roster of fighters for women’s boxing matches had seemingly slimmed down and fights were harder to come by. Boxing bouts between women did continue to be scheduled; however, many of the fights in the Midwest were now associated with wrestling. The cards were proving popular with the fans, although the boxing matches were clearly less disciplined displays of the sweet science.
Two well-respected wrestlers who began making noise as boxers were Betty Niccoli and Jean Antone. They had often been paired as one-on-one or tag-team opponents in the wrestling ring, but began facing each other in boxing bouts as well. They appeared on the same marquee as wrestling—trading in break falls and body slams for boxing gloves. Their typical boxing bouts were five- or six-rounders. They fought together essentially as a boxing act from the mid-1960s on through the mid-1970s, adding Rhonda Jean, another wrestler who took up the gloves, to their wrestling cards.
Jean Antone also boxed in a series of fights against wrestler Kay Noble—where more often than not the fights were advertised “gloves to be thrown in.” A match that drew a lot of attention between the two women was held on October 5, 1965, in Abilene, Texas, at the Fair Park Auditorium. Noble “floored” her opponent at 1:45 into the third round.[9] The two women held a “rematch” three days later where Noble again knocked Antone out with a “round house right to the chin at 1:03 in the fourth round.”[10] The two women continued to oppose each other on the circuit, but generally fought wrestling matches, although they would sometimes mix in boxing. In one match, held in June 1966, the women boxed for two rounds before switching to wrestling, in which Antone won the bout.[11] Theatrical to the last, many of the boxing matches held between female wrestlers seemed to end in KOs.
What was also obvious in these events was that the main purpose for the fighting was to give the crowd what they wanted. Whereas female boxers such as Barbara Buttrick and Jo Ann Hagen had taken to the wrestling mat in order to have any sort of career in the ring, the wrestlers who fought boxing matches did so at the behest of the promoters to entice fans to their shows. Not to be lost, though, was the enduring popularity of women’s boxing even if the contenders were not wholly trained in the sweet science. The authorities also paid much more critical attention to “pure” women’s boxing matches with the wrestler’s boxing bouts pretty mu
ch left alone.
Boxing matches by trained female professional pugilists were harder to come by than their wrestling-boxing cousins. Even when they were offered, some shows were never actually realized. In one, a purported title fight was scheduled for July 9, 1966, at the Garden Auditorium in Vancouver, Canada, as a co-feature of the main event. Promoted by Windsor Olson, the fight was a matchup between a twenty-three-year-old ex-marine named Toni Bratton from Washington, D.C., and Billie Howell, a twenty-two-year-old “farm girl” from Omaha, Nebraska.
Olson had previous gained notoriety when he “barred women” from attending a fight card at the Garden Auditorium the previous April “on the grounds that boxing was the last stronghold of the male sex.” His stance, however, did not sit well with the boxing community, who banded together to act as ushers. On fight night, they showed female fight fans to their seats—thus overturning the ban—in what was reported to be a peaceful defiance of Olson’s stated position.[12]
A History of Women's Boxing Page 20