How we die matters less than how we live. Accomplishment is all well and good. It?s how the world, not known for its discernment, determines our relative worth. But if we self-mythologize, insult others to bolster our meager accomplishments, instead of striving for enlightenment, that matters more than which disease finally snatches us from existence.
Former welterweight, middleweight, and junior middleweight champion Emile Griffith, a gracious man of many accomplishments, passed away today after a long illness. He was 75.
Born on February 3, 1938 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Griffith never dreamed of being a boxer. ?I was a baseball player,? Griffith told me in an interview. ?I was a catcher. When I was in the Virgin Islands, I would fight when I had to fight. When they pick on me, you know, I had enough of it. But I never wanted to be a fighter, to tell you the truth.?
He moved with his grandmother to Harlem when he was a teenager. It was while was working as a delivery boy at a small hat factory in midtown Manhattan that his boss, Howie Albert, recognizing what a physical specimen Griffith was, asked if he had ever boxed.
?I told him no, I never boxed,? but that was about to change, and change in a big way.
Albert took Griffith was to a gym where an unknown trainer named Gil Clancy was plying his trade.
I asked Griffith what it was like when he first entered Clancy?s gym.
?When I started boxing and training, oh man, it was rough,? recalled Griffith. ?They all wanted to fight me and everything else. But that thing was okay after that.?
Griffith turned pro on June 2, 1958, at the age of 20. It was a different world then. He had six fights in ?58, nine in ?59, and nine in 1960, including a big win over Luis Rodriguez at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
On April 1, 1961, Griffith KO?d Benny (Kid) Paret in Miami to win the welterweight title. ?I got lucky,? Griffith said. After one defense of the crown against Gaspar Ortega and a stay busy fight against Yama Bahama, Griffith fought Paret a second time five months later and lost the split decision and his title.
Most people, including Griffith, thought he was robbed.
Griffith met Paret for the third time six months later at the Garden. It was a night that changed both fighter?s lives. In the 12th round Griffith caught Paret in the corner and landed 18 unanswered punches. When the referee Ruby Goldstein stepped in to stop the action, it was too late. Paret never regained consciousness.
?I would have quit,? Griffith said about the death of Paret, ?but I didn?t know how to do anything but fight.?
So fight he did. But Griffith, a sensitive soul with the heart of a lion, changed the essence of his game. He never wanted to kill anybody ever again. ?I didn?t have to knock no one out to win a fight. I could go the 15 rounds or 10 rounds or how many rounds it was. I could do it just by boxing.?
Griffith fought for many more years. He had six fights in 1963, including bouts with Holly Mims and Rubin ?Hurricane? Carter, six fights in ?64, and seven fights in ?65. On April 25, 1966, Emile Griffith decisioned Dick Tiger to win the middleweight title.
And naturally he kept fighting. Griffith fought Joey Archer, Nino Benvenuti, Jose Napoles, Carlos Monzon, Benny Briscoe, and Vito Antuofermo.
He had his last fight on July 30, 1977, against Alan Minter in Monte Carlo, and retired with a record of 85-24-2 (23 KOs).
Champion, gentleman, sexual pioneer, even the subject of an opera, Emile Griffith embodied class in a sport where classlessness sometimes seems the norm.
