WEST TEXAS MIDDLEWEIGHT
The Story of LaVern Roach
(Sport in the American West Series)
by
Frank Sikes
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
Date of Publication: June 30, 2016
Number of Pages: 288
Scroll down for Giveaway!
LaVern Roach, a skinny kid from the small town of Plainview, Texas, rose from obscurity to become one of boxing’s most popular figures during the 1940s. Roach’s rise to prominence occurred during an era when boxing shared the spotlight with baseball as the nation’s top two professional sports. As a result of Roach’s death—which marked the first nationally televised fight during which a boxer died from injuries received in the ring—the sport of boxing came under closer scrutiny by the general public than ever before.
West Texas Middleweight is the story of Roach’s all too brief journey from a West Texas amateur, to enlistment in the US Marines, where he captained the nation’s most successful military boxing team, to becoming a Madison Square Garden main eventer. He received the distinction of being named The Ring Magazine’s “Rookie of the Year” for 1947 and was considered a top ten contender for the middleweight championship of the world. This book chronicles Roach’s road to his final fight—and it explains why, as noted by legendary boxing trainer Angelo Dundee, “boxing changed because of LaVern Roach.”
PURCHASE FROM TEXAS TECH PRESS:
http://www.ttupress.org/
email: ttup@ttu.edu
phone: 800.742.2982
Middleweight boxer LaVern Roach was a very successful
professional boxer from the end of World War II to early 1950 but today his
name is a relatively unknown one even among boxing fans. But despite being unfamiliar with the name
LaVern Roach, I was very familiar with several of the boxers who were his
biggest rivals at the time for the middleweight world championship, names like
Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Jake LaMotta. And now, thanks to West Texas Middleweight: The Story of LaVern Roach, the new LaVern
Roach biography from Frank Sikes, I can add Roach to my limited understanding
of that boxing era.
LaVern Roach was born in 1925 in a small farming community
just north of Plainview, Texas, in a part of the state known as the Texas
Panhandle. He discovered the sport of
boxing as a ten-year-old when their father gave LaVern and his younger brother boxing
gloves as Christmas presents. LaVern
immediately took the sport seriously, and when he wasn’t fighting his brother,
he was trying to organize matches with neighborhood kids. By the time he reached high school, LaVern
had devised a training routine of his own that rivaled those of professional
boxers of his day, and he seemed destined to join those fighters in the
profession after high school.
But something called World War II intervened, and five days
before his eighteenth birthday (and his high school graduation ceremony),
LaVern joined the United States Marines. The Marines recognized his exceptional boxing
skills and LaVern was made part of the Marine boxing team that fought other
teams as part of the effort to sell war bonds and boost overall morale. During this period, LaVern also met the man who
would be instrumental in guiding his professional boxing career at the end of
the war: Sergeant John Abood, manager of the Marine boxing team.
LaVern Roach began his professional career after World War
II ended, but before his discharge from the Marines, and he was immediately
successful, winning four of his first five fights by knockout before losing for
the first time to an immensely more experienced boxer who disguised his true
identity in order to get the match. As an
amateur, he had a record of 100 wins and 5 losses (with four of the losses
coming before he turned eighteen), so his fast start as a professional was not
a surprise to those in the sport. His
unusual good looks and his success made him one of the more popular boxers of
his day, and LaVern Roach seemed destined for great things.
Author Frank Sikes does not limit “the story of LaVern
Roach” to his exploits in the boxing ring, however. The reader learns of aspects of LaVern’s
personal life (his childhood, his parents, his school days, and the love of his
life, Evelyn Roach and their children) that give a clear picture of how fine a man
LaVern Roach was. To this day Plainview
High School chooses one of its senior boys for the LaVern Roach Award, the
highest honor that a Plainview High School senior boy can attain because it is
given to the boy who best embodies the LaVern Roach lifestyle of “clean living,
good citizenship, and sportsmanship.”
West Texas
Middleweight does LaVern Roach proud.
---------------------------------------
GIVEAWAYS! GIVEAWAYS! GIVEAWAYS!
3 WINNERS:
Each Wins a Signed Copy of the Book
plus
2 GRAND PRIZE WINNERS:
Each Wins a Signed Copy of the Book PLUS a $25 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
(US ONLY)
June 1 - June 10, 2016
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