#Emanuel steward death professional#

'I can hear his voice in sparring while doing things, whispering in my ear. 'His spirit is always here,' Klitschko said. Klitschko had to trained recently without Steward for his fight against Mariusz Wach next month in Germany He worked closely with Lewis during his title run, and with current heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko as recently as July when the boxer led 22,000 fans in singing 'Happy Birthday,' to the beloved trainer. Steward was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1966. In recent years, his melting pot of boxers included a Ukrainian heavyweight, an Irish middleweight and scores of young men from Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. In the early years at Kronk, most of his fighters were black. 'We are grateful for Emanuel Steward's many contributions to our city and his impact on generations of young people.' 'Emanuel Steward embodied our city's toughness, our competitive spirit, and our determination to always answer the bell. 'With the loss of Emanuel Steward, we have lost a true Detroit icon,' Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said. It was allowed to remain open, but it put Steward in a difficult financial situation and he later rented space at a gym in Dearborn so his young fighters could train. The city closed the original Kronk Recreation Center - a hot, sweaty basement gym - after vandals stole its copper piping in 2006. He loved boxing - and boxers - but like the Motor City, the gym he adored fell on hard times. 'A lot of these kids would be in the streets,' Steward once said. The gym for years was seen as a way to keep kids out of trouble in southwestern Detroit. 'He saw the respect when they saw the colours.' 'Lennox used to say when fighting as an amateur that everyone was afraid of the Kronk guys,' Steward once said. Steward trained, helped train or managed some of the greatest fighters - and some kids who just needed to get off the streets - of the past 40 years out of Kronk and in other facilities across the globe, putting fighters from many countries in red and gold trunks.īefore he fell ill, Steward also trained super-middleweight Adonis Stevenson, shaping the brawler from Longueuil, Que., into a more well-rounded boxer and helping him become a top contender in his weight class. 'He brought the very, very best out of me,' Hearns once said of Steward. Hearns was knocked out in the 14th round by Sugar Ray Leonard in 1981 - Steward said that was the most painful experience of his life - and Hearns was on the short end of a three-round fight with Marvin Hagler in 1985 that is considered one of the best bouts in boxing history. The boxer known as Hitman was the first man to win titles in four divisions - he won five overall - and topped his 155-8 amateur record by going 61-5-1 with 48 knockouts as a pro.Įven though Steward had a lot of success with Hearns, some of his setbacks from his corner were among the most memorable in the sport.

#Emanuel steward death professional#

The Kronk's first professional champion was Hilmer Kenty, a lightweight from Columbus, Ohio, who started training there in 1978 and won the WBA title two years later.īut It was Hearns who really put Kronk - and the trainer known as Manny - on the map. and in 1971 accepted a part-time position as head coach - for $35 per week - of the boxing program at the Kronk Recreation Center. Instead of trying to make it as a professional boxer, he went to work for the Detroit Edison Co. Steward, at the age of 18, won the national Golden Gloves tournament as a bantamweight. He moved to the Motor City just before becoming a teenager and trained as an amateur boxer at Brewster Recreation Center, which once was the home gym of Joe Louis. He got boxing gloves as a Christmas present at the age of 8, the start of what would become a long career in the sweet science. Steward, whose father was a coal miner and mother was a seamstress, was born in West Virginia. The long talks about boxing, the world, and life itself.

'It is not often that a person in any line of work gets a chance to work with a legend, well I was privileged enough to work with one for almost a decade,' Klitschko said Thursday. His executive assistant, Victoria Kirton, said Steward died Thursday at a Chicago hospital. Steward, owner of the Kronk Gym in Detroit and an International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer, died Thursday.

With a twinkle in his eyes, a smile on his face and a soothing voice, Steward developed unique bonds in and out of the ring with a long line of champions that included Thomas Hearns, Canadian Lennox Lewis, Oscar De La Hoya and Wladimir Klitschko. Emanuel Steward, earnest yet easygoing, proved rough and tough wasn't the only way to win in boxing.