From 1928 to 1932, he fought first as the ?Masked Marvel? and then as the ?Red Devil? in Montreal, Toronto, Cleveland, and Buffalo?
?If the ?sweet science? has a soul, it comes in the form of individuals such as Monsignor Franklin Kelliher.??Title Town USA by Mark Allen Baker
Upstate New York can boast its share of tough boxers. There was welterweight Bucky Lawless, who was born in Auburn and fought out of Syracuse, Tony Paul, lightweight from Buffalo (and brother Tommy, a 5?4? featherweight), Babe Risko, Syracuse middleweight, and Joe Banovic, a light heavy born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, who fought out of Binghamton, as did heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey. There was Len Taglia, Allie George, Joe Matisi, Roosevelt Flagg, Rolly Johns, the DeJohn brothers (?DeJohns don?t lose; they are simply reactivated?), and Billy Backus, not to mention his uncle, Carmen Basilio, as well as Tommy Ryan and Jack Britton. So many Sweet Scientists. That doyenne of fisticuffs, Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, is from Lockport. Focusing exclusively on Buffalonians, in addition to Tony and Tommy Paul, there?s Rocky Fumerelle, Joey Giambra, Jimmy Goodrich, Steve Halaiko, Prentiss Hall, Rocky Kansas (and brothers Kid Kansas and Tony Tozzo), Lee Oma, Lou Scozza, Jimmy Slattery, Art Weigand, Dick Wipperman, and, oh yeah, Monsignor Franklin Kelliher.
Born on May 21, 1904, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Father attended Holy Cross in Worcester, where he was the school?s heavyweight champ for two years, as well as one of New England?s best amateur fighters of the 1920s.
?Priesthood and pugilism,? writes Mark Allen Baker in Title Town USA, ?who would have thought?? Kelliher, that?s who. Ordained in 1930, he was assigned to the Diocese of Buffalo. A friendship with pro wrestler Bibber McCoy resulted in a part-time and highly hush-hush career as a man in tights. From 1928 to 1932, he fought first as the ?Masked Marvel? and then (even more unexpectedly) as the ?Red Devil? in Montreal, Toronto, Cleveland, and Buffalo. A bout with Sam Cordovano resulted in Father being quite literally unmasked, and Diocesan Bishop William Turner brought Father?s mat career to an abrupt and permanent close. Though he used some of his d?class? dollars for his own and his parents? benefit, much was put aside to eventually fund the Working Boys Home on Vermont Street (relocated to Busti Avenue following a fire).
In 1936, Monsignor Edmund J. Britt asked Father, who was already an assistant pastor at St. John the Baptist Church and chaplain at both the Eerie County Jail and Morgue, to take charge of the home, a position he?d hold for the next 39 years.
Prior to Father?s directorship, the home was ?poorly disciplined,? as Baker describes it. Sportswriter Aaron Lowinger agrees, noting that ?it had come to be run by the boys themselves.?
Father wasn?t having any of it.
?His first day on the job,? writes Lowinger, ?he threw four boxing gloves down on the tables and offered any boy who resented the change of leadership an opportunity to knock him out of his position. ?If you lick me, I?ll quit,? he recalled. ?If I lick you, you will take orders and obey.? Kelliher, 36 years old at the time (he was actually 32), stood 6?1? and tipped the scales at 235 pounds. Still, he drew challengers and he managed to keep his job until his retirement in 1975.?
Father?s no-nonsense approach worked wonders, reminiscent of how Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) handled Bim (Leo Gorcey), Crab (Huntz Hall), and the other Dead End Kids in Angels with Dirty Faces. In fact, as Angels came out two years after Father?s tenure began, perhaps the film?s writers had heard all about his ?Little Way,? as St. Therese of Lisieux might put it.
Nor did he mellow with age. In 1969, Father wouldn?t allow a long-haired boxer to fight. ?This is my amateur show,? he said, ?and no boxer goes on here with long hair. None of our boxers, nor for that matter none of my boys in Boy?s Town, has long hair. It?s against my principles.?
?Kelliher, like many, felt that discipline could be acquired through participation in sports, especially boxing,? writes Baker. ?Beginning in 1938, the fifty-boy home would enter a team of boxers in the local Golden Gloves tournament. Boxing shows were also conducted regularly and promoted to generate additional funds.?
Despite, or perhaps because of, Father?s curmudgeonliness (?You wouldn?t want to hear what I think of Elvis Presley,? as William Graebner quotes him in Coming of Age in Buffalo), he got things done, and most people approved of his approach. As David Condon writes in the February 27, 1962, edition of the Chicago Tribune, Monsignor Kelliher ?is a regular guy who becomes a friend on the first handclasp,? adding, ?Too bad he isn?t a Chicagoan; he?s our kind of people.? Noting that referring to Father as ?The Bill Veeck of Golden Gloves boxing? was an inadequate tribute, Condon writes, ?He?s spent as many as 15 hours, in one stretch, making a telephone sales pitch on Golden Gloves tickets. During a single day long marathon he took in $3,500 in ticket revenue thru his personalized salesmanship.? Condon includes an amusing and telling anecdote: ?On the first night of Buffalo?s Golden Gloves tourney, police ticketed some autos around the Auditorium. From the ring, Monsignor Kelliher announced that he?d be in the lobby after the fights to give the motorists $5 each to pay their fines. That evening he gave out 15 five dollar bills. Alas, he later found police had written only 11 tickets.?
When the Buffalo Courier-Express stopped sponsoring the Golden Gloves in 1960, Father took the sponsorship on himself until poor health forced him to give it up.
In recognition of his efforts and successes, he was inducted into the Golden Gloves Hall of Fame in 1972. Father was also inducted into the Buffalo Boxing Hall of Fame in 2006. Other inductees that year include Big Boy Brackey, an entertaining heavyweight from the 1930s-1940s, promising but undisciplined 1960s welterweight Ted Whitfield, and Danny DiLiberto, aka Dan Toriani, who later became a pro pool player, a lightweight who fought from 1957 to 1959. Said trainer Angelo Dundee, ?Danny was a heck of a fighter and whoever I put in front of him he knocked out. If it weren?t for his brittle hands he would have been a champion.?
Lowinger once visited Roy and Jim?s Lackawanna Community Boxing, a gym that?s ?long, dank, punctuated by reds and blues, and lined with old fight posters. Cigarette smoke perfumed the air. Young men and boys were scattered throughout the room working at different stations: pounding speed bags, jumping rope, shadow-boxing, doing situps.?
Roy Brasch and Jim Giambelluca remember Monsignor Kelliher well, having fought on many of his cards. ?He was a tough, tough man,? said Brasch. ?He didn?t take no shit. If you got out of hand, he?d pick you up and throw you against the wall.?
Brasch?s reminiscence reminds me of a passage from Christian Jennings? memoir of his time in the French Foreign Legion, Mouthful of Rocks, where he writes, ?This was the padre assigned to our unit. He wore full combat kit and a large silver crucifix on a chain, which matched his parachute wings? A Spanish recruit I had been playing poker against suddenly started making faces and gesturing behind the Padre?s back, when suddenly, without taking his eyes off the Frenchman to whom he had been talking, the priest jerked his elbow backwards into the Spaniard?s face, slamming him against an oven.? As Catholic historian H.W. Crocker III observes, ?Charming, n?est-ce pas? And a reminder that for most people, the faith is best taught by action and example rather than by words.?
As is boxing.
Speaking of setting a good example, did Father and his boys head over to Buffalo?s Broadway Auditorium on January 11, 1937, to see Joe Louis put the kibosh on Steve Ketchel (a replacement for Lou Poster) by second-round KO? It was a Monday, a school night, but dollars to donuts they did.
Boxing?s answer to Father Flanagan died on February 24, 1985, age 80, and is buried at St. Jerome Cemetery in Holyoke.
