Gerald McClellan: In the beginning 1-3

[Toney616]

The Amateur years

Gerald had already tried a bit of boxing. Back in Freeport when Gerald was eight, his father Emmite had given him and his brother Anthony, known as Todd, a pair of boxing gloves for Christmas.Gerald and Todd loved it, Todd more so at first. Their mother, Genola, wasn't keen on her boys doing what she called 'all of that fighting stuff.' But Emmite said different. Emmite, only a little older than Stan, had been in the Army and regarded himself as a hard man. He worked at the Chrysler plant in Belvidere when he came out of service. Emmite said once of the family boxing programme, 'I started them going tough and rough. I had them cross country running when Gerald was five. They'd run three or four miles a day. I'd run with them. Still run three or four miles a day.'
He'd get Gerald and Todd up at five in the morning, stick the gloves on them, mark out a ring on the sidewalk and make them spar under the street lights. 'Todd was a little older and stronger, but it was pretty much tit for tat,' Emmite told the Freeport Journal-Standard. 'Even when Gerald was little, I don't think anybody on the block could whip him. Gerald was gifted. Gerald knew that Todd was the tough guy, 'but I was the more intelligent boxer. I tried to use my head more. He'd tried to do it with brute strength.That don't get it done all the time. If you weighed it out between skill and power, I think skill would always win out.'

Emmite Sr's brother Cornelius, would help out in the early days. Cornelius boxed professionally, won twelve times and lost once. Not against name opposition, but he was handy. The family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, when Gerald was eleven or twelve, Emmite saying they needed a change. He started up as a car mechanic there. Gerald liked Erie.
Then Gerald came home from school one day and everything was packed up on the U-haul. Everybody was leaving.' This time, the move was for Gerald.
Emmite told his local newspaper that Milwaukee, where he'd been born, was the sort of town with tough gyms, the sort of places that would harded Gerald up, make him a champion. He thought he had a better crack at it then Todd, more coordinated. But Gerald wasn't that keen. 'He forced me to do it. My father would make me run, make me do push-ups, make me fight my brother and make me be at the gym on time every day. It became a habit after a while.'
The way Emmite told, it was his determination that drove Gerald. Probably was. As he told th local paper, Gerald was his 'number one priority.'
They'd drive as far as South Carolina, sleep in the car. Emmite would close down his business and make sure his little star got all the good boxing there was. 'The other kids didn't like it much,' Emmite admitted.

After leaving the pro ranks Stan Johnson would start up his own boxing gym
Gerald was at another gym at the time. He'd lost to a hotshot there called Anthony 'Nightmare' Pearson. Emmite wanted to move, to let his kid develop. Stan says his gym was the better gym, that he had seven Winsconsin Golden Gloves champions. That mean't he was coach of the Golden Gloves team, virtually. So Gerald who was on his way up, even then, would come under his tutelage, whatever. It was a tough school. Emmite was right: Milwaukee was a good place for a champion in the making.


Aside from Stan, Gerald's other major influence was Al Moreland.

Al was as much a saver of souls as a boxing trainer.mHe'd dabbled in pro boxing like Stan, but they couldnt of been more different in their approach to pro boxing, he reckons it wrecks lives. The amatuers, if it were run properly - 'which it definately is not' - provides young boxers wih something else, says Al. If he's got twenty kids working in the gym, he says, and there's a burglary down the block, he can show the cops twenty kids that didn't do it.

There were a lot of good boxer amateurs with Moreland, amoung them Tyrone Trice, who boxed in world-class company, and Bruce Finch, who fought Sugar Ray Leonard. He also trained Dangerous Don Lee, who fought Tony Sibson. Al is in his sixties, been in boxing around Milwaukee for about half a century. One of the better products in the school for the Barely Redeemable was Gerald.

Even then, most fight people who'd seen him recognized that Gerald was special and everyone wanted him to do well. 'Gerald was a nice kid,' Moreland recalled. 'He had good punching power, kept his range, good outside puncher and devasataing body puncher. But, when he got someone in trouble in the ring, he was kinda vicious. As a person, Gerald was a nice guy. but, you know, as any amatuer starts makin' money - anybody, as far as that goes - you kinda watch your step a little more. He wasn't so much flamboyant.You wouldn't even call him ****y; he was just really sure of himself. Quiet, but real confident of himself.'

Under the varied tutelage of Al and Stan, Gerald blossomed like a tough rose. Between 1984 and 1987 he was Winsconsin Golden Gloves Champion, four in a row. That's the sort of form that gets the professionals interested. Sugar Ray Leonard, who trawled the amateurs for prospects, kept an eye on Gerald. Emmite's dream looked like it was taking shape. With Gerald, anyway. Todd won a State Golden Gloves tournament and gave up boxing. Joined a gang. Found drugs. Excitement. Then prison. Lisa said he dropped out when he was drawn against Gerald in the Golden Gloves and he didn't have the stomach to face his little brother in the ring.

According to the Freeport-Standard Jorunal, Gerald,meanwhile, stuck firm, listened to his dad. And to Al. As well as Stan. 'I was always quiet,' he said. 'Outside of going to school and the gym, I never did much. Todd was the one. I was too headstrong for all that foolishness. I think it came from my father and from me just knowing better.'
But Gerald knew which side of the tracks was labelled 'wrong'. He liked the dark side best. Stan Johnson, no angel, understood that. Things started to go wrong for Gerald at school. He'd already lost a year and dropped down to into his younger sister Lisa's class
And then he didn't bother to pick up his diploma. His mother didn't like it but she recognised that fighting was 'what he wanted to do.'

Moreland was on Genola's side. 'Instead of young boxeers going into the professional ranks,' he said, 'my thing has always been to get them a job, get them to go to school and try to get something to fall back on, because if you get caught inside the ropes it could be the last time. That's it. Goodbye, forever. I like to get a kid off the street and make a viable citizen of him. I've got a lot of them out of jail, got a lot of them out of different bad situations.'
Stan was on the other side of the track from Al- the same side as Gerald. He'd headed for the pros as soon as he could. He would tell Gerald to stay amateur only as long as it got him ready to earn big money.
So Gerald and Stan hitched up together. Gerald made the State team without fuss, and Stan was in his corner for the nationals. Things were going fine. His only rival, 'Nightmare' Pearson had been swallowed up by the streets, along with Todd. Nightmare had been ranked as a pro. And to make a long story short, says Stan, he ended up inside. In prison, with twenty-seven wins and one loss. Nightmare's out and fighting again. But that was like, the last time I spoke to Stan.

Al and Gerald lost touch. He knew he was never going to stop Gerald from turning pro. He knew Gerald was more on Stan's wavelength. When he heard about Gerald's condition, they hadn't spoken for years. He was saddened by the news but life moves on. Besides, some of the places Gerald went were not exactly Al's territory. Stan, though, will have Gerald inside his head for the rest of his life. And what you can't dispute is that Stan Johnson was there at the beginning an he was there at the end.

Next:


The Pro Years:





The King clan didnt like Gerald, they thought he was getting ****y, getting up in that ring and wanting to keep all the money to himself.

'Julian Jackson is going to take care of you soon.'
-Carl King