For the uninitiated it is hard to fathom just how popular boxing was in the 1970s. The 1976 Olympic team won a then-unprecedented five gold medals and Sugar Ray Leonard emerged as a genuine crossover athletic icon.
The film ?Rocky? won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Long Island?s Gerry Cooney, who turned pro in 1977, would enjoy a meteoric rise through the heavyweight ranks.
When the hard-punching and charismatic Cooney squared off against Larry Holmes for the heavyweight championship of the world in June 1982, the fight was billed as the richest ever with each fighter reportedly being guaranteed $10 million.
A major component of the Don King promotion was presenting Cooney as a Great White Hope, a moniker he detested then and still takes umbrage with now.
Despite being stopped in the 13th round, Cooney proved that he was a world-class heavyweight. However, over the next eight years, while battling a host of personal problems, Cooney fought just five more times.
He retired with a record of 28-3 (24 KOs), which included early victories over Eddie ?Animal? Lopez, John ?Dino? Denis, S.T. Gordon, who held a cruiserweight title, Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, and Ken Norton.
His only losses were to Holmes, Michael Spinks, and George Foreman.
What was not known then, but is widely known now, is that Cooney was battling scores of demons that originated in his childhood home. His alcoholic father, Arthur, an ironworker who everyone called Tony, ruled the household with an iron fist and an irrational view on life. Cooney and his five siblings lived in a state of perpetual fear, anxiety, and survival mode.
In a just published book called ?Gentleman Gerry: A Contender in the Ring, a Champion in Recovery,? co-written with John Grady, a mental health and addiction counselor, Cooney says that he ?instinctively survived? childhood ?with a warrior?s heart.?
He graphically describes his father?s physical, mental, and emotional brutality, unpredictability, and demand for familial secrecy. Despite battling constant feelings of unworthiness, Cooney utilized boxing to give him a much-needed positive identity.
He became an amateur standout, beating a highly touted Russian at Madison Square Garden and successfully competed in tournaments around the world. He was considered a viable prospect for the 1976 Olympic team but opted out of the Trials when his father passed away after a long, grueling battle with cancer. John Tate became the Olympic representative that year.
Shortly before his father?s death, Cooney was about to drive him to the hospital for chemotherapy. Although he was a shell of his physical self, Tony railed against his son over the length of his hair. He told him he would rather crawl to the hospital on his hands and knees than have his shaggy-haired son drive him.
Battling a myriad of conflicting emotions, Cooney exchanged a glance with his mother and left the house, ?leaving his father?s rage and shame tactics behind.? It would be the last time he would see his father alive.
Cooney turned pro shortly thereafter and fought seven times in 1977, eight times in 1978, and seven times in 1979.
Besides choreographing one knockout after another, he had a warm, engaging personality and a gargantuan smile that endeared him to mainstream audiences. What that smile hid was a wounded psyche that would not allow Cooney to revel in his success.
He handled that immense hurt by drinking and, in the hours after his awe-inspiring 54-second blowout of Ken Norton in May 1981, he discovered cocaine for the first time. From that point forward, as naturally talented as Cooney was, his success was marred as much by crippling self-doubt as his dependency on drugs and alcohol.
Even while preparing for Holmes, his father?s negative assurances that he would never amount to anything echoed in his mind.
Despite the loss to Holmes, Cooney acquitted himself well and showed that he was a world-class fighter. Still, he felt as if he had let his fans down and spiraled into a depression that was hard to shake.
It would be 26 months before he returned to the ring, stopping previously undefeated Philipp Brown in four rounds in Alaska. Three months later he TKO?d the durable George Chaplin in two rounds in Phoenix, and the once-beaten Eddie Gregg in the first round in San Francisco.
In June 1987 he lost to Spinks in five rounds, and in January 1990 he would make his final ring appearance against Foreman.
Despite being stopped by Foreman in the second round, Cooney was finally at peace with himself. On April 22, 1988, he had gotten sober and has not had a drink or used drugs ever since. He likes being the man he was always meant to be.
Since becoming sober, Cooney has embarked on a mission to help others and gotten to know and appreciate his true self. There is no shortage of people in the recovery community, as well as outside of it, who also appreciate his immense desire to give back.
Besides working with scores of people in recovery over the years, Cooney established an organization called the Fighters Initiative for Support and Training (FIST) in 1998 to help other fighters with retirement challenges.
He also acquired several minor league baseball teams, promoted fighters such as Foreman, Roberto Duran, and Sugar Ray Leonard in the latter stages of their careers, and was involved in thoroughbred racehorses.
He and former New York State Athletic Commissioner Randy Gordon are currently the co-hosts of ?At the Fights? on Sirius XM Radio. Cooney can also be found at the boxing academy that bears his name in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Life beyond boxing has been good to the onetime top heavyweight contender. He and his lovely wife Jennifer have two wonderful children, and Cooney is also blessed with a son from a previous relationship. They live in suburban New Jersey, where life is a whirlwind of activities, many of them philanthropic in nature.
Cooney has embraced sobriety and he is living a fulfilling and rewarding life that is chronicled so well in his compelling biography.
Over a decade ago Cooney visited a childhood friend who was serving time at an upstate New York prison. While there, he hosted an Alcoholics Anonymous and a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
After speaking about his abusive childhood and feelings of unworthiness as a young athlete at the NA meeting, a middle-aged black inmate raised his hand to share in the discourse.
The man stated that Cooney?s speech was very profound to him because he recalled watching him on television and assumed, by virtue of his being white and from suburban New York, they would have nothing in common and Cooney would be unable to understand the travails of an inner-city black person.
Cooney listened intently. As the man grew more emotional, he thanked Cooney for delivering such a profound message and was doing his best to stifle his tears.
?Hey, man?pain is universal,? Cooney said as he balled a fist to contain his own emotions. ?We all feel it, no matter who we are and where we come from.?
?Ain?t that right,? replied the inmate as the group erupted in applause.
?Gentleman Gerry? can be purchased in bookstores and on Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
