Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams was a big John Coiley fan who, rumor had it, wanted to buy Johnny?s contract. But John?s people reportedly balked?
?Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.??Judith Lewis Herman
?It takes very little for a child?s world to be devastated. A single experience can have a profound impact on a child?s life. A man sticks his hand in his daughter?s underpants, or strokes his son?s penis once, and for that child, the world is never the same again.??Laura Hough, Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Is a Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse
?You know something, I don?t have to take that kind of shit from my father anymore.??Vinnie Curto
?If I can help anybody or one person [by sharing my story], then I am happy.??Irish Micky Ward
?It is my hope to provide inspiration to victims everywhere who would consider violence to themselves or others as means to escape the emotional pain they?d been subjected to.??Irish John Coiley
This article is not meant to put ?Irish? John Coiley up on some pedestal. Coiley, who has few illusions about himself, has been no saint; indeed, he has done things during his lifetime that he is more than sorry for?things that he wishes with all his heart he could undo, but given the circumstances, at least they can be understood, if not forgiven.
That said, I wish to thank John for allowing me to tell a story that touches upon the raw and sensitive subject of a brutally resentful and sexually abusive father and a passive, albeit physically and psychologically abused mother who failed to protect her children. John, like ex-boxers Vinnie Curto and Irish Micky Ward, is one victim of sexual child abuse who has chosen to fight back by avoiding denial?by refusing to feel self-pity and suffer silently (though he did so for many years and was consumed by painful emotions that were kept closeted and could not be articulated). Hopefully, his story will join the many others that are being told to raise awareness and to tell the kids that you don?t have to be silent any longer.
Behind Door 11
?He (my father)?had been a boxer. I was his firstborn. He said he didn?t make the champions, so I?m going to be champion of the world, so I had no choice. Basically, I had no choice.??Irish John Coiley
Irish Johnny Coiley grew up in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, a section that?s does not derive its wealth from Harvard or MIT. Coiley?s father, John T. Coiley Jr., entered the Navy at the age of 17. Coiley believes something traumatic might have happened during his father?s Navy years. How else could one explain why, after producing nine children, the senior Coiley would go on to sexually molest each of them. Like some other frustrated fathers, Coiley Jr. was a veteran boxer with a long-lost dream of becoming a champion and transitioned that dream, vicariously and with bitter resentment, to his son.
The skinny kid was always fearful before a fight, but from his very first amateur bout at age 17, he realized that what stoked his inner fires and enabled him to get it on was that his father put the gloves on him when he was 10, saying he would be ?CHAMPION OF THE WORLD LIKE I SHOULDA BEEN.? But during the night in the back bedroom of Door 11, Apartment 63 at the Roosevelt Towers Housing Projects and with a drinking problem adding to his fury and resentment, Coiley?s father would sodomize the boys and rape the girls while his mother claimed she didn?t know what was happening. The kid would later channel the deep pain and white hot anger in a way that would serve him well in the ring.
In John?s own words:
?My father, the rapist, the savage and violent abuser of children, his wife, our mother, and our dogs instilled in the skinny-minny me I was from a young age how I would have to be smarter, faster and stronger than my friends and enemies alike if I would amount to anything in life. As a boxer, I needed to set my sights to being Champion of the World. I should strive for nothing less. It would be in hindsight, of course, before I could understand how this was the one positive to his madness. At the time it ranked near the top of the list of things I hated most about him. Why? Because I was a child, a vulnerable child who didn?t like pain, who wanted to be a child that I?m not sure I, or my siblings, ever really knew how to be. And yet, though his teachings were viciously extraordinary, I did ultimately incorporate the learned resource into my daily planner. I hated running or exercising indoors (if it were raining or snowing) before school, but ultimately, as years were added to my calendar, into my street-fighting persona that then perfectly segued into a boxing career where it became an asset to my existence, to my boxing persona as it would be written about the Irish Johnny fighter I would become, how my gym workouts were ?impressive,? and how my conditioning more than made up for the punching power I lacked. Sadly though, because I had not yet learned multi-tasking, everything else, schoolwork, girlfriends, went by the proverbial wayside.?
The Amateurs
Later, when he was 17 years old, the abuse came to an end and the cocky street fighter with a giant chip on his shoulder went to ?the fights? with a buddy and said he would be doing ?this? the following week at the Boston Arena Annex. True to his word, the lanky kid won his first 24 amateur bouts before losing to Mike O?Keefe in the finals of the 1968 Golden Gloves. Coiley won the 1968 New England Diamond Belt Title in the 147-pound class and then competed in the finals of both the Golden Gloves and the Amateur Athletic Union. He lost both fights in the finals in highly controversial and questionable decisions, finishing his amateur career with a 27-4 mark that easily could have been 29-2.
He was a poster boy for the ?98-pound weakling.? But now the kid who had been picked on by bullies when he was much younger was a man ready to move on to a higher level under the tutelage of fatherly and easy going trainer and manager Al Clemente. The equally notable (and wilier) Sam Silverman would be his promoter during his early pro career.
The Professionals
?I knew Johnny?s quality from the onset?People would say ?How can you tell?? I?d say ?Watch how he moves, stays away from the punch.? He had just one tremendous mind as far as boxing and he knew every inch of that ring. It was amazing how smart he was?he was one of the classiest boxers I?ve ever seen. He was one of the greatest. He was the most natural boxer I?ve ever seen. He had all the moves?He could backpedal?He knew where to stop, six inches from the ropes. The proudest thing in my life, I nominated him for the [Ring 4] Hall of Fame.??Mickey Finn
Ring 4 member and notable Boston area boxer Richard Torsney (who fought Marvin Hagler twice in the amateurs and finished with a 51-4 record) had this to say:
?There was a crew of characters who?d come in and out. Sam Silverman, Rip Valenti, cops, hustlers, mafia and celebrity fight fans like Miles Davis. And there were a host of classy/tough boxers like Tony Valenti, Dick Hall, Bobby Covino, Paul Raymond, Roosevelt Moulden Brown, the Kivlan brothers, Ron Stander, Jack O?Halloran and many others. However at that time two guys that stood out as particularly classy were Hasson and Coiley. Their sparing sessions were something to be appreciated. They were hard, sharp and a bit dangerous. My recollection was it was an event of sorts when they went at it. One thing I know from personal experience was that John Coiley didn?t take it easy on anyone. It wasn?t that he was a gym fighter taking advantage of guys less skilled. When he stepped in the ring he went to work and though he was a craftsman, his job was manual labor. John was a gentleman outside of the ring and a hard man inside the ropes. His jab was like a rapier. It was fast, ripping and stinging. He moved well too. I also worked with John at Connolly?s Gym in Southie around 1974 but by then his time had passed.
?My memories of John are all positive. I liked him as a guy, respected him in the gym for his work ethic and admired his skill and courage in the ring. It was a pleasure watching his career.?
John turned professional in 1969 with his first fight coming against New Jersey?s Dave Horn who had 29 pro fights under his belt. He then went undefeated in his next 23. Included in this streak were a draw and a win against ?Iron Mike? Pusateri and a quick stoppage of tough Skip Yeaton out of Portland, Maine. While many of his opponents had losing records perhaps belying the quality of his unblemished mark, Johnny was never really in an easy fight. Whatever the case, Irish was matched with rugged and undefeated New Orleans middleweight Tony ?Machine Gun? Licata in October 1971 in what would be a faceoff between two undefeated fighters with the same 23-0-1 record. John was 21 at the time while Licata was two years younger.
All handlers, especially those who manage fighters at the highest levels, make calculated decisions as to which match-up is most beneficial to them and Licata?s people were savvy enough to know that this bout was one of them. The fact was, Johnny was not ready for the likes of Licata?maybe a year or two later but not in 1971.
Many said Johnny was moved too quickly, but the ?Splendid Splinter,? Ted Williams wasn?t one of them. He was a big Coiley fan who, rumor had it, wanted to buy Johnny?s contract. But John?s people reportedly balked.
Tony Licata
Both men had fought and taken the measure of tough Mike Pusateri. However, a perusal of their respective records indicated that Licata had fought much tougher and seasoned opponents like Johnny Brooks, Gilbert de los Santos, Tom Hannah, Gene Wells, Danny McAloon, and Larry Carney. There was no questioning the quality of Tony Licata?s record.
As a full measure of the late Tony?s skill level, he would finish with a great 60-7-4 record that included wins over Mike Nixon, Vinnie Curto, Mike Rossman, Willie Warren, Denny Moyer (91-28-4 at the time), Jose Roberto Chirino, Emile Griffith for the NABF middleweight title in 1974, Cubby Jackson for the USBA title also in 1974, and Jose Luis Duran for the U.S. middleweight title in 1976.
Tony?s first defeat was a controversial majority decision in 1975 against Ramon Mendez in Milan, Italy. He avenged that loss exactly one month later in New Orleans with a dominant UD Then, two months later, he lost via a tenth round TKO to the great Carlos Monzon (83-3-9) with the WBA middleweight title at stake. The fight was scheduled for 15 rounds and was held before a packed house at Madison Square Garden.
The Two Fights
Johnny lost the first one to Tony by a decision over ten fast and furious rounds in New Orleans. Two months later, Licata stopped Coiley in the ninth round?this time on Johnny?s home turf at the Hynes Auditorium in Boston. Licata lived up to his nickname ?Machine Gun? as he banged away at an outgunned Coiley.
Johnny regrouped with a TKO over Danny Perez, but the brutal Licata beatings caught up with him. After the Perez success, he lost to Carlos Alberto Salinas, drew with Juan Botta, and lost again to Paul Osborne. By now, the writing was boldly on the wall.
During this period, the kid from Cambridge was managing a home delivery agency for the Boston Herald in Wellesley, Mass., but after a layoff he yearned to get back in the ring and asked Sam Silverman to promote him in a comeback. Sam?s response was direct and cut to the bone: ?You made too many comebacks. No one will come to see you.?
Coiley and his wife, Linda Susan McCarthy of Medford (whom John refers to as Linda I), were divorced after a four-year marriage and before his move to Seattle where he would make his last comeback.
Seattle
Upon moving to Seattle by the luck of the draw, the Cambridge native hastily married Linda II and she soon became pregnant. He also fought and lost his last two bouts in 1975 in a dangerously short period of 42 days. On June 2, he was stopped by Seattle?s Mike Lankester in the seventh round but gave him all he could handle until the stoppage. John puts it this way, ?I beat him for seven rounds. In the eighth round?I dropped my left hand?BANG, he hit me. I got back up, he banged me around again. I got up and the referee just said, ?You don?t want to do it,? and that was it. The heavy-handed Lankester had prior early round KO wins over Dave Hilton and Mike Pusitari and also had beaten legendary Luis Manuel Rodriguez (107-11) in 1972. Coiley?s performance, though a losing one, deluded him into thinking he could still be a main event fighter.
John?s July 14 outing, a 10-round fight at the Seattle Center Arena against limited Ohioan Nick Peoples (6-19), was supposed to be a confidence builder; instead, it ended up being Coiley?s final go as he was stopped in the fourth round.
Apparently, the World Boxing Association?s rule that ?any boxer who has suffered an actual knockout shall be suspended for at least sixty days? and ?cannot be reinstated until he has submitted to a medical examination? was somehow overlooked.
John finished out his career with a 24-7-2 record. All told, he fought 64 times (amateur and pro) with a combined record of 51-11-2, enough to earn him a spot in Ring 4 of the Veteran Boxers Hall of Fame in 2008.
The Struggle
?It?s an ongoing thing. You can?t just say, ?O yeah, I know it now.? No, no, it?s I?m learning it now. I think that?s it. That?s life. It?s a friggin? classroom, nonstop. Sometimes you skip class and sometimes you pay good attention and you do your homework.??John Coiley
?Few would guess Coiley, this artistic soul capturing words on a page, used to be a boxer, taking on the best of the best and ?knockin? ?em out? left and right. His self-designation, ?fighter turned writer,? encapsulates it all.??Krystina Lucido (PressBoxOnlin.com ? ?From Fights to Fiction? 2009)
The back-to-back losses to Licata took the wind totally out of Johnny?s sails?and he and Linda II, his pregnant wife of four years were divorced in Seattle. By age twenty-eight, he was twice-divorced.
Back to Boston
John fell into a deep depression after his last pro loss, but with the aid of therapy he gradually began to work his way out of it. Training young fighters while working for the Somerville Youth Program and also at the dingy (and nourish) Somerville Boxing Club which he started up with Bobby Covino, another well known Boston boxer, also helped in Coiley?s struggle. At the gym, you?d hear the faint pitter-patter of the speed bags and then the rumble of voices and the smell of rosin and lineament when you walked in. You would also smell the familiar cigar and cigarette smoke from hangers on, observers and even the trainers.
John?s positive and knowledgeable influence and gentlemanly demeanor was soon felt by a number of students who began to see him as a role model. Said Chris Calnan, a writer in Austin, Texas, ??He (Coiley) taught me that discipline and that?s something that I?ve carried over into everything?into my work, into how I treat people, everything.?
Baltimore
?His quiet and happy demeanor is contagious to the people around him. No matter what comes his way, Coiley embraces it with a newfound zeal for life.??Krystina Lucido
??they will always be my ?homes?; Cambridge, Massachusetts, my birthplace where I endured painful childhood lessons and learned to dream, and Baltimore, Maryland where new dreams were polished and realized. How can I not be grateful???Coiley
A more grounded John then moved to Baltimore and perhaps for the first time good things started happening in his life. One of the highlights was when he received a call from his second wife telling him that he could now have custody of his four-year-old daughter, beloved Jade (now age 32), and he became a proud single parent. And then he met his ?soulmate? Mary Pat Osborne. They were married on July 3, 1993 in Baltimore. These were marvelous moments in a life that had far too few.
Thirteen years later Mary Pat passed away at the age of 51. John has difficulty talking about this and tears begin to well up but he puts it in words that strike to the soul: ?I am, we are as one, even in death we do not part.?
During his happier time in Baltimore, Irish Johnny worked for 14 years as Service Desk Ambassador at the famous Brick Bodies Padonia Fitness Club in Cockeysville where he met and made more friends than he could count on and was deeply loved by all. And it was here that he began to find the artistic soulfulness that was fast rising to the surface?it was here that ?fighter turned writer? became his self-designation. As Mike Kimball, general manager of Brick Bodies puts it, ?John is one of those people who you could hear speak for hours and still walk away feeling like you want to know so much more,?
Florida
After Mary Pat died, John needed to relocate and recharge. His mother lived in Homosassa, Florida, so the two agreed that he would stay with her until he could find a job and place of his own, but she died before he arrived.
These days, the 63-year-old Coiley has incorporated?except during periods of depression that sometime border on the dangerous?the need to be all that he can be into most areas of his life. He writes and markets his writings, which include short stories, movie scripts, and song lyrics. He also is working on a book about his life?a nightmarish life that has included unimaginable adversity and emotional pain. But he has persevered and hopes that one day his considerable writing talent will be discovered and that one of his scripts will be picked up by a director.
Like he says, ?You just gotta keep on working and working and working and when it?s your time, maybe you?ll get lucky, maybe you won?t.?
?What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.??Ralph Waldo Emerson
Coda: Two of John?s short stories, ?Beyond Closed Walls? and ?The Dynamic Duo,? appeared in my 2011 book ?Shattered: A Collection of True Crime and Noir Essays.? When the publisher?s proofreader completed his task, he told me that two articles stood out from the rest and thinking that I was their author, he complimented me. Of course, they were written by John.
