School me on Gil Clancy...

He was a terrific trainer.

Best known for training Foreman? Uhhh no. He will forever be known as the guy who took Emile Griffith straight through from an amateur to retirement. Not many teams like that in boxing with that much success. He did a heck of a job with the guys he was a hired gun for as well until he admirably fell on his sword to help save Oscar's rep against Tito and Oscar gladly threw him under the bus in turn when everyone knew damn well it was Oscar's choice to run and that he wasnt simply following orders.

 

I think I heard him say once that he was a school teacher in his youth. Great trainer and awesome boxing personality. Used to love hearing him talk.

 

One of the best colour commentators you'd hear.

He was scholarly yet always enthusiastic about the fights he called and he never resorted to know-it-all-isms or displaying his ego when calling fights. He knew the fighters were the stars and he knew his job was to offer his expert insight into what was transpiring in the ring as well as provide a bit of background on what the fighters had done previously.

He was intelligent, gentlemanly measured and a joy to listen to.

He was also a damn good trainer.

 

I'd forgotten that. One tough SOB...in any era.

 

Too bad he didnt write an autobiography, the list of fighters he worked with was amazing. Has the distinction of working with each of the Big 3 , Ali, Frazier, and Foreman.

Most closely associated with Emile Griffith whom he trained from his first amateur fight through his amazing and turbulent 112 fight career which 2 titles at different weights and of course the death of Benny Paret. Throughout the early part of his career he worked as a New York school teacher full-time.

He always stuck as being a class act who cared and looked out for his fighters. In light of that I find interesting that he insisted that he would have sent Joe Frazier out for the 14th round in Manila.

 

Almost forgot, he also handled Harold Weston, another class fighter. Man, everything Clancy touched went world-class.

 

Clancy was a bitter type. He also ruined George Foreman by trying to make him more of a boxer type in the 1970's.

 

Mendoza, I disagree with that part about Foreman. When Clancy took him over it was to add another facet and improve his stamina. Clancy stated in a long diatribe about his time with Foreman that "Foreman had the punch and was never going to lose it. It was there and I had to break him of bad habits that exhausted him after a few rounds." He said that he (Clancy) never thought much of the speed-bag but had Foreman on it continuously just to get him away from the heavy bag. He had Foreman on a winning streak, but before the Young fight, Foreman, who didn't like this type of training, brought in his own sub-trainer right in front of Clancy. Clancy said he could do nothing but watch as his sub-trainer had him do nothing but hit the heavy bag every day. Clancy said his muscles got bigger and bigger, which Foreman liked and he went into the Young fight no better than when he went into the Ali fight. The same result when he met a fighter that didn't crumble. Totally exhausted and getting beat. So, no, this loss cannot be attributed to Clancy who was steering him in another direction.

 

As was mentioned above, he ruined Oscar when he told him to run the last three rounds vs Trinidad. Oscar could have ignored his trainers advice, but he unfortunately listened to Clancy and the rest is history.

The other thing I recall about Clancy was his statement on TV that "Mexican babies are born throwing left hooks".

 

I laughed at his statement, "All southpaws should be drowned at birth!"

 

As Seamus said, Clancy could be terribly biased as a fight commentator...especially against anyone who whipped one of his fighters.

 

Foreman, blessed with hindsight, wanted Clancy to resume training him when he made his big comeback.

 

Where Gil totally messed up with George was in moving his feet/stance closer together with the idea it would shorten his hooks, what it did was take away his natural gate and ability to put his weight into his punches. The first thing my brother and I noticed was George's right uppercut was being thrown sideways unlike in Frazier 1 when it was text book perfect, and it was because his feet were far to close together. In every fight with Gil George was off balance everytime he tried to put his weight into things as under Sadler, the most notable being against Young when the one time he almost took Jimmy out it looked like big George was almost bent sideways stumbling over the close together feet. Gil was totally wrong for Foreman.

 

I think that's where it's at for me. I honestly can put on a fight and drift off happily listening to his ****ysis. Not to imply he was boring, but that his voice seemed suited to the mic.
By far my favourite ****yst of all time, including Al Bernstein, who is probably my 2nd favourite.
I'm less familiar with him as a trainer, but I loved to listen to Gil's ****ysis.
I miss that man...