Collinwood's Professional Boxing Past: Round 2

Al Jackson at his cafe center lighting up.

 It's inevitable. No matter how long you may research a subject, as soon as you put something down to print,

your sure to find something you've missed. And that fine, the initial idea was to try and flush out anything that

may have been missed. In this case I came up with four.

 The first and earliest found was of Henry "Hank" Yompers who fought professionally from 1897 to 1900. From

newspaper articles of the day, he was described as a railroad man, and at different times either a "Collinwood

strong boy" or a "Nottingham strong boy". He was a middleweight trained by a George La Blanche, a marine who 

had a boxing school in Cleveland. I couldn't find anything else regarding him after he finished boxing.

 The second was Al Jackson. I was just fishing on google and hit on some postings on the Pinterest website by

his grandson, Rick Jackson, who lives now north of Houston Texas, of varoius pictures and newspaper clippings.

Al was another middleweight trained and managed by former boxer Bryan Downey. Noted in a paper as the "Pride

of Collinwood" he fought professionally from 1927 to 1928 and afterwards operated a tavern at 573 East 140th

Street in the 1930's. He would though pass away at the early age of 37 of pneumonia and is buried at Knollwood

cemetery.

 Now Leroy Koeth I had information on, but more regarding his time as a trainer. Leroy started out boxing early on 

with the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), the Catholic counterpart to the YMCA. The program was called Highchair

Boxing for younger children.He would then later train under former boxers Pat Yates and Tom Grant at their athletic

club out of St. Joseph Church's gym at 14422 Aspinwall Avenue for the Golden Gloves Tournament of 1945 as did his

brother Jimmy in 1946. He'd go on to fight as a welterweight professionally from 1946 to 1951 while serving in the army.

 A plumber by trade, he would continue with boxing as a trainer after work out of the Collinwood Community Center from

the late 1950's thru the early 1960's. Some of those he trained for the Golden Gloves included Leonard Trem and Al

Tremaglio, Rudy Floran, Joe Morgan, Edward and Paul McHale, Art and Ron Sneperger, and Norman Walker. He passed

away in 2012 at the age of 84 and is buried at Whitehaven Cemetery.

 The last I found was Frank Sallee, who trained with Collinwood's Mike Carriere for the 1959 Golden Gloves Tournament.

After Mike's passing later that year, Frank would continue training at the Teamsters Council 41 Athelic Club for the

following year's Golden Gloves. He would go on to fight professionally for the next three years out of New York City

winning three of his fights at Madison Square Garden.

Henry Yompers: 1897-1900 (1-1-2)

Al Jackson: 1927-1928 (2-4-0)

Eddie Bojack: 1929-1933 (16-6-0)

Louis Disantis: 1929-1934 (22-2-1)

Frankie Bauer: 1929-1936 (23-24-3)

Frankie Wallace: 1930-1941 (35-59-11)

Carmen Barth: 1932-1941 (45-15-4)

Joe Bauer: 1935-1937 (4-6-2)

Mike Gamiere: 1936-1946 (29-17-6)

Al Sivillo: 1937-1940 (1-1-0)

Midge Mangine: 1937-1947 (9-9-1)

Frank Bojack: 1938 (1-0-0)

Joey Maxim: 1941-1958 (83-29-4)

Vic "Jade" Jadrich: 1943-1947 (10-42-3)

Chuck Hunter: 1943-1953 (45-26-1)

Lou Dell: 1944 (0-3-1)

Tony Brush: 1944-1947 (10-3-0)

Leroy Koeth: 1946-1951 (8-8-1)

Mickey Mars: 1950-1955 (17-7-0)

Frank Collica: 1955-1956 (0-2-0)

Tony Hughes: 1956-1963 (26-4-0)

Larry Wagner: 1956 (4-0-0)

Frank Sallee: 1960-1962 (5-8-0)

Billy Wagner; 1968-1976 (34-9-2)

Phil Brozier: 1977 (0-2-1)

John Zele: 1982-1984 (5-0-1)

William McCulloch

Amateur local historian

Read More on Community
Volume 12, Issue 8, Posted 6:19 PM, 08.10.2020