Remembering Youngstown
Last week, on the 25th anniversary of the death of Korean boxer Deuk-Koo Kim, ESPN aired a documentary on the life and boxing career of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, the fighter whose blows in the ring led to Kim’s death four days later. Mancini’s career never was the same after that tragedy.
Mancini grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. On Detroit Avenue. On the same block as all the kids of Ron and Dee Stoops. Boom Boom Mancini was a 1979 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School, one year behind Bob Stoops, one year ahead of Mike Stoops.
The mention of Mancini on Tuesday released a flood of memories for Bob Stoops. They played Pop Warner football together. High school baseball. They roamed the streets of Youngstown. All the boys around the neighborhood would congregate in someone’s basement, and they would rope off a ring and have bouts. “I didn’t box him, though; no one fought Ray,” Stoops said. “You kiddin’ me?”
The more Stoops talked about Mancini, the more he talked about Youngstown. The DeBartolo family, which would go on to own the San Francisco 49ers, and Carmen Policy, who would run the 49ers during their Joe Montana heyday. Patriarch Edward DeBartolo Sr. flew the Stoops family to the Rose Bowl when Bob and Mike were Iowa defensive backs in the early 1980s. Jerry Angelo, the Chicago Bulls general manager. Bernie Kosar, the Cleveland Browns and Miami U. quarterback who is a couple of years younger than Mike Stoops. The Pelini family, including Bo, the LSU defensive coordinator and 2004 co-defensive coordinator for OU.
The Stoopses had six kids, the Pelinis seven. “All of us graduated together,” Bob Stoops said, meaning both families had kids about the same age. Vince Pelini was a co-captain with Stoops on the Cardinal Mooney High School basketball team.
Tuesday, a few minutes after Stoops left his press conference, he called my cell phone because he remembered yet another boyhood pal from Youngstown who went on to the sporting spotlight. Jackie Loew, a football teammate of Stoops at Cardinal Mooney, is the trainer for the new middleweight champion of the world, Kelly Pavlik, who beat Jermain Taylor on Sept. 30. Loew remains a close friend of Stoops; Loew was in Norman on Nov. 3 to attend the OU-A&M game as Stoops’ guest.
Stoops smiled as he talked about those Youngstown days. In the basement, a kid would hit a pole, “ding!”, to signify the bell, “and there you’d go. You didn’t want to fall down on the cement floor. One of your buddies would be your corner man.”
Stoops recalled Mancini. They played Pop Warner football on the Little Redmen team. “People don’t realize what a really good athlete he was,” Stoops said. “He was a scatback in football. In basketball, the point guard. In baseball, he played infield or pitched.”
Ron Stoops Sr. was a long-time football coach but baseball had been his best sport, and he was the Cardinal Mooney baseball coach. When Mancini got into high school, his boxing career took off. The Golden Gloves was big in Ohio; “back home, that arena would be full,” Stoops said. Mancini let the other sports go. But Ron Stoops told Mancini he could come out for the baseball team and miss whenever he needed to, for boxing. So Mancini would play a game or two for Mooney, “then he’d be gone for the next two weeks,” Bob Stoops said.
Mancini and Stoops remain friends. They talked a half hour or so a couple of weeks ago, Stoops said. Mancini hasn’t been to an OU home game yet, but he was at the USC Orange Bowl. Mancini lives in southern California and was scheduled to come visit the Sooners during their Rose Bowl trip, but his mother died that day. “His mom used to drive us around to all the basketball game,” Stoops said, remembering Youngstown days.
The loss to Texas Tech was only three days removed, and the Bedlam showdown only four days away, but for a few moments, it wasn’t 2007. Stoops took us all back to the 1970s, and Youngstown, Ohio.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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