If you are a boxing fan from my neck of the woods, you know the story. It’s the one about a blue collar boxing trainer who spends his days paving and sealing driveways before heading to his gritty boxing gym located on Market Street in Youngstown, Ohio. And then one day in walks the right […]
west virginia
Interview with Keith Morehouse
On April 3rd, 2018 I will visit Marshall University for a reading from my upcoming book “12 Rounds in Lo’s Gym: Boxing and Manhood in Appalachia.” Although I was raised in the rural coal mining town of Cowen, West Virginia, returning to Huntington always feels like returning home. The town of Huntington is key to […]
Interview with Josh Stewart
He was born in Diana, West Virginia, the son of a elementary school teacher and a Baptist pastor. He was my cousin John’s best friend, both were four years older than me so I was always the tagalong. Even before he and John shipped off to West Virginia University, out into the world to become […]
Interview with William Joppy
He is a former middleweight champion of the world. He has compiled an impressive record of 40-7-2 during the course of his 18-year professional career. He has faced some of the greatest middleweights of all time, Roberto Duran, Bernard Hopkins, Felix “Tito” Trinidad, and Jermain Taylor, just to name a few. Since retiring from the […]
Interview with Jerry Thomas (WV Series)
During my first visit to the Tommy Thomas Boxing Club (located on Duff Avenue in Clarksburg, West Virginia) I found myself in the ring with professional boxer Darren “Bam Bam” Abraham, scored an interview with a local news reporter from WDTV News. You never knew what was going to happen when you walked through the […]
Interview with Jay Deas
“People don’t come any tougher than they are around here,” my father would tell his fighters down at Lo’s Gym Boxing Club. “They ought to be worried about us … we’re from a tough place,” he’d sometimes add. Cowen, West Virginia is an unlikely location for a boxing memoir. Tucked away deep within the Appalachian […]