HBO has used the tag line claiming that it is “the heart and soul of boxing.”
True that the prime cable network provides the financial transfusions to keep boxing going at the highest levels but the genuine heart and soul of boxing are the people who develop the fighters, who feed the fighters and house them when they are among the poor and unknown.
They are people like my friends Don and Lorraine Chargin.
Neither of them ever sought the limelight.
They have promoted boxing in an unblemished manner for decades out of a love for the sport and the athletes and, if they made some profits along the way, it was never their goal.
Now, Lady Lorraine is sick, very sick.
Boxing Truth maven John Chavez, who has become as close as a family member could be to this joyously married couple (married in life, married in boxing) and I tried to visit her two Saturdays ago. We got as far as a Starbucks in downtown San Luis Obispo but Don informed us that Her Highness wasn’t feeling up to receiving visitors.
Making fights for fighters who really fight: Don “War A Week” Chargin and his truly better half, Lady Lorraine Chargin back in the day (John Chavez)
I was disappointed not so much as in not being able to see a sick friend but because I can always count on Lady Lorraine to give me some verbal bodyshots, to puncute my ego balloon. Her acidic tongue cuts fast and it cuts deep but her jabs are always laced with love.
She drops the pompous, the arrogant, the dispassionate like Julio Cesar Chavez ripping an opponent’s liver and kindeys to shreds.
If you respect boxing, Lorraine respects you.
I’m hoping, like many, that the Boxing Hall Of Fame quickly corrects a clerical oversight and adds Lorraine’s name next to Don’s on its list of inductees.
Without Lorraine, there is no Don and vice versa.
Let Lorraine smell these deserved roses while she is able.
Ron Borges of The Sweet Science wrote a terrific column on Lady Lorraine and I link it here.
If there are any better people in boxing than either Lorraine or Don, then I’ve never met them.
Please keep Lorraine and Don in your prayers.
It’s people like them who plant the seeds that make the boxing greats grow.
We must never lose sight of them, their work and their vision.
STATEMENT FROM WORLD BOXING COUNCIL PRESIDENT DON JOSE SULAIMAN:
“Lorraine Chargin and her husband Don have had close relations with the WBC for decades, and have been honored as the “Couple of the Year” by the WBC. I have the highest esteem for Lorraine, who has been a very good friend and a great boxing lady, always together with our dearest friend Don. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
