RULES OF THE GAME
I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up . . . I was, in truth, the alien, the black sheep of the family, an outsider in the midst. I chaffed at toeing any line. Too much. If I didn't have a daily fistfight with one of my brothers, I had one going to school or coming home from school.
In the Summer of 1958, to improve my fighting skills, I began taking boxing lessons at the Falcon Club, a Polish-American hangout where I not only could box, but could smoke and sneak some beer. By Fall, I was pronounced good enough to enter a qualifying match for the Golden Gloves. That was a banner year for the Golden Gloves, when Kentucky’s seventeen-year-old Cassius Clay and Missouri’s fifteen-year-old Tom Gunn took the first stepping stone to professional ranks, and (for me) perhaps a ticket to something more interesting than the family business. Clay began winning Golden Gloves championships, turned pro, changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and entered the ranks of boxing greats. I learned a couple of life changing lessons.
I invited my friends to the fight---a handful of teenagers with attitude, each wearing a white T-shirt with a cigarette pack rolled up in the sleeve. The fight was scheduled as two rounds, two minutes a round. Going in, I suspected that I might be in trouble when my opponent showed up with a silk robe, his name embroidered on the back.
I knew I was in trouble when the referee said, “Show me your cups.” No one could box in a Golden Gloves match without an athletic cup to protect the privates, as if a knee to the groin was a standard move.
I wasn't wearing a cup.
The ref was about to declare the match for my opponent, by default, when I remembered, “I have a cup! It's in my gym bag, downstairs.” It was a soccer cup, but is not a cup, a cup? With the ref’s grudging approval, I jumped down from the ring, ran through the crowd, down to the basement dressing room, grabbed the cup---and realized that I didn't have a jock strap to keep it in place. Nonetheless, I stuffed it in my trunks, ran all the way back upstairs holding my crotch, and, gasping for breath, presented myself “Ready!”
The bell rang, we started. I took the first punch. The cup fell out on the floor. The spectators burst out laughing, my friends the loudest among them. We paused, while I stuffed the cup back in my trunks. It happened again, several times, many times---I can't remember how many—as the two rounds became an eternity of humiliation.
Well, I was a tough kid and absorbed the shame of the loss-- but took away two vital lessons that you will find repeated, often, in the pages that follow:
1. Always know the rules of the game before you decide to play, and,
2. Be prepared.
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