"The range of a student's ability is seldom as wide as the range of encouragement that s/he receives" - Eshu BumpusDear Friends,
Kahlil Gibran wrote, "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."
While watching Monday Night Football at a sports bar, earlier this week, I received a voice mail message on my cell phone, from a dear friend, who told me that George Benton had passed earlier that day. While I could see it happening over the past few years, the moment that I knew would happen wasn't any less shocking for me.
I left the place right away and went home. After making a couple of phone calls, I posted a small comment on Facebook. Then I emailed another old and dear friend, Elmer Smith (who, btw, will be retiring from the Philadelphia Daily News after 39 yeas, on Friday.)
The next morning, Elm responded, in part: "This is tragic, Bump. I spoke of him this week with my editor. I’ve told him this is not a fight town it’s a fighters town, a place where a kid can learn to fight from a seasoned pro in a gym where he can test his skills with other well-trained Young prospects...
To be sure, Georgie Benton wasn't the only one to fit that bill. I mean, back in the Seventies and before, cats like Joe Frazier, Toothpick Brown, Al Massey, Gypsy Joe Harris, Jimmy Witherspoon, Slim Jim Robinson, Brother Wesley, and Papa Stoppa, up to the Nineties and to this very day with other Philly prizefighters like the now late Artie "Moose" McCloud and Eugene "Cyclone" Hart, to name a couple, have shared their talents with youngsters around town. All of the aforementioned were giants, and some had trained world champions.
But Georgie Benton was the "Giant among giants". That's why, when I, a top amateur boxer in New England at the time, was introduced to Joe Frazier, back in 1978, and he offered me to come down and have George Benton look at me, I was honored to think that I would be training with the person who was already considered the best in the business (as George's picture that particular month graced the cover of Ring Magazine after guiding Leon Spinks to victory over Muhammad Ali). Nevertheless, as soon as I got off of the Amtrak train and crossed the street to Joe Frazier's famed gym on Broad Street, George greeted me, told me that he had been expecting me, and then threw me right in the boxing ring to spar. I did well.
George was really excited, and so was I. Joe Frazier's assistant, the now late Lee Grant, then drove me to a fabulous apartment in the Far Northeast of Philadelphia and told me that that was my new home. A few days later, I was taken to lunch and chauffeured to Joe's lawyer's office where I signed a contract. Before long, I found myself in a whole new league, sparring with pro contenders like Jimmy Young, Tex Cobb, Marvin Stinson, Jerry "The Bull" Martin, Willie "The Worm" Monroe, and many others, the whole time under the tutelage of George Benton.
I was being carefully nurtured. Years later, that would serve well for me, as it allowed me to do the same thing for ordinary people, mostly whose interests were not to become professional boxers, but to learn how to gain the confidence to address the many confrontations, whether personal or social, that we must all encounter in this very lonesome experience called human life. George Benton taught me that with patience, imagination, and creativity, I could do just that. And those sentiments have provided me with a livelihood for the past 23 years, and going. And I owe a great deal of it to George.
My personal pro boxing career was cut short, because I was a single parent (for a young man, Black or otherwise, unheard of - in those days). Therefore, unable to train properly (time-wise), much less get fights consistently, my priorities for raising my toddler son outweighed my desire for fortune and fame as many of my close gym buddies like Mike Spinks, Dwight Braxton/Qawi, and Marvis Frazier acquired only a few years later.
Still, George and I remained in contact, periodically, long after my career had ended. Unfortunately, in the early 2000s, his 22 years of prizefighting that happened prior to his long career as a trainer, caught up with him, and he began to develop Alzheimer's disease.
During the last five years of his life, I began deliberately making visits to him as part of my schedule whenever I was in Philly. He was surrounded by his loving family. The top floor of the townhouse in North Philly where he lived (and owned) was all his. He mostly laid in his canopied bed all day, watching, on his huge television (48" screen?), Cowboy movies, his favorite genre of films. He was on meds, but was aware somewhat of his surroundings. Sometimes he spoke. Often he did more listening. His son, Andre, and his wife, Mildred, took care of his affairs completely. Moreover, unlike most prizefighters and professional athletes in general, he hardly died destitute. He was well off, because the gobs of money that he made training world class fighters had afforded him the ability to own several rental properties and have a good bank account. He lived for 78 years, did a lot, and went a lot of places. And so, through my sadness, I can confidently say to all of us who are still here, in the words of all boxing coaches, "Keep punchin'!".
G. Djata Bumpus
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