Hit Man - Brian Hughes [10]
THE DETERMINATION AND focus with which Steward approached his new boxing career was typical of his nature. His was not, however, a path without pitfalls. On one particularly difficult occasion, when his revenue streams trickled to a halt, he invested his life’s savings of $26,000 into a range of cosmetics which he began to sell into Detroit businesses. Steward’s charming patter and work ethic ensured that he enjoyed a decent return on his investment until the company that produced the products went bankrupt. Without missing a beat, he turned his attention to selling life and health insurance instead. He was determined that his wife and young children would not suffer while he chased his dreams.
In the evenings, he worked on his growing squad of boxers in his own unique way. The boys were expected to behave well, to dress neatly when representing the club and to cheer for each other at every tournament, but at the same time the competition within the gym was ferocious. Sparring could be brutal and no-one was spared, while the heating was kept turned up to more than ninety degrees to produce an airless, sweltering, survival-of-the-fittest atmosphere. The Kronk, noted Sports Illustrated writer Will Nack “became a kind of paradox: a Boy Scout troop set in a Darwinian laboratory.” Or as Steward himself said, “Those guys at Kronk, they’re not fighting just to get better. They’re fighting for their very lives.”
And fight they could. The team began to dominate the local boxing scene and soon won several amateur titles. Despite his workload, Steward took on electrical jobs during his spare time to pay for trips to tournaments outside Detroit. Impressed by his efforts, Mayor Coleman A. Young appointed a team to help find funding, while wealthy benefactors including Sam LaFata, Doctor Richard Rasmussen and his wife Patricia, along with Harvey Moore, who became Emanuel’s best friend, also came forward to offer support. In 1977, this allowed Steward to become the full-time boxing coach at the Kronk. Soon the Kronk was brimmed with an array of young talent never seen in Detroit – or perhaps any other American city – before. Anywhere between sixty and ninety young men would be under his supervision at any one time and the Kronk Boxing Team soon became the envy of other coaches and managers. But Steward was reluctant to relinquish any of his power, which he feared could be diluted by jealous rivals. He therefore did most of the coaching single-handedly and still did electrical jobs at weekends in order to pay for trips to tournaments outside of Detroit.
Around this time, Steward encountered another young man who would play an important role in his later life. He had established a friendship with Dave Jacobs, who laid claim to discovering a prodigy named Ray Leonard. Jacobs escorted his young charge to the Kronk for a few weeks’ sparring while Leonard tried to win a berth on the Olympic team. Steward soon saw that in ability he rivalled even Superbad Mays.
“Ray Leonard was one of those once-in-a-lifetime boxers,” recalled Steward. “When he trained at Kronk, he was brilliant. He had plenty of sparring partners and everyone liked him.” Indeed, Steward later called him “the most naturally gifted kid I’ve seen,” more gifted even than the wondrous Mays. He would go on to win the Olympic gold – and to haunt Steward and Thomas Hearns in the future. For all his ability, young Hearns