The International Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2007 won’t be announced until January or inducted until June, but, hey, it never hurts to start banging the drums early for a worthy candidate.
So I’m going to make like Ringo Starr and come out riffing, as I have for the past several years, in support of one of those deserving but overlooked pioneers of the sport who has fallen into the cracks of ring history.
The late, great trainer Whitey Esneault deserves to be enshrined with other legendary cornermen whose plaques already are hung in Canastota, N.Y.
Whitey who, you say?
For nearly a half-century, Ernest Esneault oversaw the French Quarter fight factory that was St. Mary’s Italian Gym in New Orleans, in which he helped develop future world champions Ralph Dupas and Willie Pastrano before turning them over to Angelo Dundee. “Mr. Whitey,” as he was affectionately known to a couple of generations of fighters who passed through the sweaty little bandbox, also trained the superb Bernard Docusen, who gave invincible welterweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson fits in 1948, as well as Docusen’s very capable older brother, Maxie, and middleweight contender Tony Licata.
“As outstanding a teacher as he was, Whitey never sought fame for himself, which is why he never really found it,” said Peter Finney, who has written sports columns for the New Orleans Times-Picayune nearly as long as Esneault showed his boys the proper way to stick and move. “Guys would come in off the street and Whitey would train them. They all weren’t going to become champions, but Whitey just loved boxing and working with kids.
“But when he did get good prospects, they all blossomed under his tutelage. Angelo Dundee always said he was about as good at teaching boxing fundamentals as anyone.
“If Whitey had been at Stillman’s Gym or Gleason’s Gym in New York, turning out fighters like the Docusens, Dupas and Pastrano, he’d already be in (the Hall of Fame). There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Dundee, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (one of seven halls to have so honored him) in 1994, lists himself as one of Esneault’s most ardent admirers.
“I wholeheartedly believe that Whitey Esneault deserves to be in the Hall of Fame,” Dundee said. “Whitey trained a lot of kids, and some of those kids he eventually sent to me. They typically were, like, 16 or 17, but they all were very well grounded in boxing.
“I remember going to New Orleans once with two of my fighters. One of them fought Ralph, I think, and the other fought Willie. Anyway, Whitey and I just hit it off. I mean, why wouldn’t we? He was a fight trainer and I was a fight trainer.
“Whitey said, `Ange, I’ve been sending some of my kids to California. Do you mind if I sent them to you at The Beach (Miami Beach)? It’s closer. I said, `Send ’em over.’ If Whitey sent you somebody, it was somebody worth working with.”
The question that some might ask is why Esneault, a World War I Navy veteran who lost his left leg in 1954, would turn any of his fighters – especially those as promising as Dupas and Pastrano – over to anyone, even so dear a friend as Dundee. But Esneault’s determination to remain in New Orleans, and the Jim Crow laws then in place in Louisiana, made him almost the proprietor of a way stop for homegrown fighters on their way to wider recognition.
New Orleans was once hailed as the cradle of boxing – James J. Corbett wrested the heavyweight championship from John L. Sullivan there at the old Olympic Club on Royal Street on Sept. 7, 1892, and it was the city where such capable fighters as Harry Wills, Pete Herman, Tony Canzoneri, Pat Moran, Joe Mandot, Johnny Fisse, Happy Littleton, Eddie Coulon, Arthur Simons, Jimmy Perrin and Ervin Berlier who either were born or developed their skills.
Herman, the former shoe-shine boy who captured the bantamweight title from Kid Williams in a grueling 20-round bout on Jan. 9, 1917, operated a downtown saloon after he went blind, but his sense of hearing became so acute as to be astounding.
“I might not have been in New Orleans in months, but I’d walk in Pete’s place and right away he knew it was me by the sound of my footsteps,” Dundee said. “He’d say, `Angelo! How are you?’ Sent chills up my spine.”
Esneault preferred to stick close to St. Mary’s Italian rather than to go to camp with his better pro prospects, which is part of the reason why he trundled some of them off to other managers and trainers.
Bernard Docusen, a Filipino-American and arguably New Orleans’ finest fighter ever, first began working with Mr. Whitey when he was only 9 years old. But Esneault sold the Docusen brothers’ contracts to Otis Guichet and Benny Geigerman, and it was under his new handlers that “Big Dook” extended Robinson to the 15-round limit in their June 28, 1948, welterweight title fight in Chicago.
“I’m not at all regretful,” Esneault said of having passed on the Docusens to someone else. “They improved and got bigger purses under the new managers.”
Dupas, who won the WBA/WBC junior middleweight title on a split decision over Denny Moyer on April 29, 1963, was olive-skinned and some questioned his racial identity during a time when black athletes were not allowed to compete against their white counterparts in Louisiana. And when that restriction was lifted, for years more seating was often segregated before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally outpointed Jim Crow.
Pastrano, who won the WBC/WBA light heavyweight championship on a split decision over Harold Johnson on June 1, 1963, said he came to regard Esneault almost like a father.
“Mr. Whitey’s a wonderful man,” Pastrano, who was 61 when he died in 1997, said some 50-plus years ago. “He’ll do anything in the world for you. He gives as much time and consideration to the little kids as he does to his professionals. After his amateurs fight he always takes them out and feeds them – out of his own pocket. Everybody likes him except the guys who are jealous of him.”
Now, 38½ years after death ended his long run of teaching New Orleans kids how to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee – Muhammad Ali has said he patterned his style after Pastrano’s – all that remains of Esneault is the faded memory of a few old-timers who believe his legacy deserves something more lasting.
Sports halls of fame essentially exist for two purposes. The one to which most people subscribe is that they’re there to honor individuals who have achieved at such a high level that those achievements, and the persons who authored them, deserve immortalization to whatever small degree human beings can confer upon one another.
It also might be argued that halls of fame – and the central issue of who gets in, and who doesn’t – spark the sort of passionate debate that make partisan politics seem pale by comparison. Should the prevaricating gambler and hit king, Pete Rose, be allowed into or continue to be barred from baseball’s hallowed Hall of Fame? Will the dark cloud of likely steroid usage that hovers above the heads of sluggers Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro place them in a similar limbo when their names eventually appear on the ballot?
The annual controversy flared anew on back-to-back weekends when the baseball and pro football Halls of Fame inducted their most recent classes.
Baseball’s hall rectified a longstanding wrong when it inducted 17 former Negro Leagues greats, along with trailblazing reliever Bruce Sutter, who popularized the split-fingered fastball, but the list of honorees — many of whom are deceased — did not include 94-year-old Buck O’Neil. One Kansas City columnist railed against O’Neil’s continued exclusion, and wondered how much less his possible future induction would mean if it happens after the man himself is no longer here to participate in the big moment.
Pro football’s hall is graced by comparatively few offensive linemen, possibly because they can’t provide quantifiable numbers that so easily make the case for quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends. Warren Moon passed for more than 49,000 yards during his NFL career, which eloquently speak to his worthiness. But former Dallas Cowboys tackle Rayfield Wright had no comparable statistics to impress voters. Nobody can say exactly how many pancake blocks Wright threw or how many times he saved his quarterback from being sacked, so he had to wait 22 long years to receive the call that probably should have come far earlier.
Hall of Fame trainers like Ray Arcel, Whitey Bimstein, Jack Blackburn, Freddie Brown, Charley Goldman, Cus D’Amato, Eddie Futch, Gil Clancy, Emanuel Steward and Dundee are recognized as much for who they worked with as for what they knew. Do you think Dundee would be as celebrated today if he hadn’t worked the corners of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard? Rightly or wrongly, trainers are the pilot fish and great fighters are the sharks who command our attention.
Dundee would gladly make the case for Esneault’s induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, if only he could find a contrarian with a long enough memory. He’d also back the candidacies of one of boxing’s finest craftsmen, Bernard Docusen, who had the misfortune to come along at a time when Sugar Ray Robinson was at his sweetest, and of 76-year-old Philadelphia trainer Bouie Fisher, who also spent decades teaching in dingy gyms until his masterwork, Bernard Hopkins, happened along.
Fame, like paint on a weathered fence, has a tendency to crack and fade over the years unless it partners with history and legend. It’s time – past time – for Whitey Esneault to get a fresh coat of recognition.