This is a boxing story. Not the sham of Hollywood and what seems like 32 “Rocky” films but a real one with real people with real emotions. It begins in Montana on the reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation. It is a story born in despair and laced with hope, a story of heartbreak and redemption.
And because this is a boxing story, there is the dream. In boxing, there is always the anatomy of a dream.
I first met Marvin Camel four years ago at the Days Inn in Canastota, N.Y., across street from the International Boxing Hall of Fame. I was there to be inducted, and Marvin, a two-time former cruiserweight champion, was an invited guest.
We spent some time together that week swapping boxing stories and signing autographs. Although I didn’t understand its meaning back then, there came a moment on the same night following the ceremony when Marvin reached deep inside himself with a single gesture that spoke volumes.
There were six of us in that room — Marvin and his wife, Norma; boxing commentator Bob Sheridan and his wife, Anne; my wife, Aileen, and I. After pouring myself a cup of coffee, I walked back to the table. Marvin had stopped talking. He looked at me and said, “Can I ask you for a favor?”
“Sure.”
He paused again and said, “Can I touch the ring?”
The International Boxing Hall of Fame gives its honorees a ring, a set of engraved boxing gloves on its raised center, surrounded by the Hall’s full name. On one side two bare knuckles fighters, on the other the Hall’s seal, the year and the honoree’s name.
The ring meant a lot to me, but I had no idea how much more it was respected by Marvin. I held out my hand and Marvin studied it in silence and then he looked at me and said, “Thank you. I’m never going to get one of these.” There was no frustration in his voice. I thought he was referring to the fact that he was a cruiserweight — a weight class that gets little recognition and makes even less money.
But I was wrong.
I learned this past week that what he said was a summation of respect for what a life in boxing meant to him — respect for where it took him, respect for the titles he had won with an ocean of sweat and blood.
And there was also the pain that dates back to memories of his childhood on the reservation and cut into some of the happiest times of his life when he had reached the pinnacle of his profession, the pain of a mean disrespect that too often had punctured the joy.
But sing no sad songs for Marvin Camel. He knows who he is. He knows what he had to overcome to get there. He will tell you, when you ask him to look back, that there are no regrets about what he endured.
“How could there be?” he says. “The struggles led to the triumphs that made me who I became.” The Rez
An aerial view of the Flathead Indian Nation west of the Continental Divide is deceptive. It reveals an expanse of 1,938 square miles of forested mountains and valley. From the air, it can look like a postcard. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation have done a great deal to improve services and daily life on a reservation they were forced into in the late 1800s. Today, due to treaty modifications, whites on the reservation outnumber the Flatheads by more than 2-1.
The poverty level among the confederated tribes on the reservation is about 23.5 percent. Better than most Indian reservations but still way too high and not unexpected because Native Americans still get the shortest end of a long economic stick.
The suicide rate among resident Native Americans between the ages of 14 to 25 is horrific. If, as the old bromide says, “you play the hand that’s dealt you,” somebody surely was and still is dealing to Native Americans from the bottom of the deck.
Just before World War II, a black man named Henry Camel left the reservation to enlist in the Navy. At about the same time a teenaged girl named Alice and her friend left the reservation and rode the rails — two young girls alone — to Portland, Ore., where defense plants offered money and hope that could not be found back home.
There, at a USO dance, Alice met Henry. Again, it was like a scene from a movie. Eventually married and back on the reservation, they began a shared life that produced 14 children and, later, a divorce. Today 11 of the children survive. Money was tight, opportunities were limited and life was tough.
Henry Sr., worked as a ranch hand “seven days a week, 12 hours a day,” according to Marvin Camel’s brother, Kenny. Henry Sr. built his own house. There was no running water and a wood stove. Except for one, the children were half black and half Native American. That rare slice of reservation genetics was the root cause of a lot of fights between the Camel kids and their full-blooded Indian peers.
Years later, after Marvin won his second title, the tribe honored him with an eagle-feather war bonnet that ran from his head to the floor. The first night he decided to wear it into the ring, Kenny was in the locker room. As Marvin stood before a full-length mirror, Kenny laughed and said:
“Look at you in those eagle feathers. Hey, Marvin, those are the kids we used to fight with every day.”
For both, it was laughter tinged with painful memory. The brothers were not graduates of “the good old days.” Additionally, tough love for them was not a phrase out of a psychology book.
“You want to know what made me who I became?” Marvin said. “The belt. I was raised by my daddy’s belt. I don’t resent those whippings today. He got my ass off the couch. It taught me discipline and lessons I never forgot. All 11 kids who lived made it through high school. That’s a record there. It took me 14 years to do the 12, because I had no time for homework.
“He had us chopping down trees and cutting up the trunks. We must have cleared half the property that began as 80 acres. In high school, I set school records in track. I was all-conference in football and basketball. I played baseball. And I can’t begin to tell you how hard school was for me.”
At age 15, his fists began to take him where his wallet couldn’t. He was a local AAU and Golden Gloves champ. He made the national finals of both a combined 15 times. He says he cannot recall a day on the reservation when he didn’t run. As a teenager, he often ran from a reservation landmark called Evaro Hill to Missoula — a little over 16 miles — “just because I could.”
“There was a dirt trail up the side of a mountain. I ran it with football cleats. I ran and I ran and that’s what made me a champion. I was always in better shape than the guy in the other corner. I could circle and pop that jab and hurt you. I didn’t need knockouts unless they came. That’s why I won a lot of decisions because I was always the guy stronger at the end.
“They had Saturday night dances on the reservation. I wasn’t much for dancing and, as a mixed blood, there were guys who would not exactly welcome me. So, I hardly ever went. But some guys went there just to look for fights. I never did that. They wanted to prove they were the toughest guy in the room. I never needed that. I pretty much always was.”
Carrying his destiny in his two fists, he was a two-time world champion. But there was no world of popcorn and roses for a mixed-blood champion on the reservation. Home with two titles, he never expected what followed. The mountain he would have to climb ushered in the loneliest time of his life.
The invisible champion
Marvin Camel turned pro on June 25, 1973, matched against a light heavyweight named Joe Williamson in Butte, Mont. Camel knocked him out in the first round. Before his career ended, he would fight 62 times, winning 45, losing 13, with four draws. Despite his spectacular winning record. He had to take whatever pay day was available and fight at the venue the other guy wanted. That was life as a cruiserweight.
When Mate Parlov agreed to fight him, Camel had to go into Parlov’s hometown in Yugoslavia. On Aug. 12, 1979, he boxed well. Parlov did not. So, they gagged Marvin with home cookin’. They held their noses and called it a draw.
When he came home, Kenny was working out in the gym. He said, “You got screwed.” Marvin said, “Tell me something I don’t know.” A rematch was set for Las Vegas. Over his career, Marvin fought 21 times there and won 21 times. Parlov was easy for him. Easier than getting a hero’s welcome.
What happened in the wake of that first title was the result of mutual confusion. Marvin decided to drive instead of flying home. Marvin never mentioned it. The tribe planned to greet him at the airport. The Tribe never mentioned it. Those who were proud of his achievement headed for the airport. Marvin drove home alone. The reception committee went to the airport alone and according to Kenny the only reason they finally got together was that the state police were alerted to flag him down. That was the first title.
To win the second one, he had to go into Halifax, Nova Scotia, and fight another hometown boy, Roddy MacDonald.
In the fifth round, Camel banged him hard in the solar plexus and MacDonald crashed down on his knees. The referee, who apparently had the vision of an old bat, called it a low blow. The bout supervisor called it a clean blow. And the Canadian crowd called Camel everything but a son of God. They rained beer bottles down on him, Camel deliberately raised both hands in triumph. He was no stranger to standing his ground.
But nothing prepared him for what happened next.
The world came crushing down on Marvin Camel, two-time cruiserweight champion. It began with a telephone call.
“Your belts are gone — both of them. So is the eagle feathered headdress.”
“What happened?”
“We don’t know. Somebody stole them.”
All they knew was that there was no forced entry. Thus, began a 30-year mystery.
“The tribe never contacted me,” Marvin told me. What happened next took 10 years to surface. According to Kenny, a woodchopper working on the reservation spotted strange colors half in the ground. It was the war bonnet. Somebody had deliberately buried it. No material and just a few feathers remained.
