The Marvelous Marvin connection
Sitting in a dim area poolside in Provincetown, inhaling chlorine, watching a great athlete transform
Marvelous Marvin Hagler, dead at 66, one of the greatest boxers who ever fought, is a Brockton icon alongside Rocky Marciano, as a ceremony there for him yesterday showed yet again. But he had his Cape Cod moments, and I had my small share.
Early in his career, Marvin decided to get out of Brockton for some serious training and isolation. Where did he go? Provincetown.
This would have been the late 1970s, when most people said that Hagler was the greatest middleweight in the world but not yet champion. To believe heavyweight Joe Frazier, Hagler’s path was blocked by three things: He was Black (“white hopes” were always getting shots), he was a southpaw (many fighters hated getting in the ring with lefties because they hadn’t trained against that approach), and he was too good (promoters didn’t want to humiliate their fighters). When he finally became undisputed champ in 1980, he held the title for seven years, one of the longest reigns in boxing history – and still trained in Ptown, for example before heading to Las Vegas to beat Tommy Hearns in what some think was the best three-round fight in history.
I never saw him partying, anything like that. Once in a while you might catch a glimpse of him jogging, maroon hood over his bald head, shadowboxing like fighters do when they run, his friend and trainer Goody Petronelli in a car nearby. Even that was rare, because mainly he spent his “road” time off-road, in the dunes, powering through soft sand to build leg strength and stamina.
But there were opportunities to check him out. His team set up a makeshift gym at the Provincetown Inn, way at the west end of town by the breakwater. The inn was and is a long, low-slung hotel of classic 1930s vintage, full of character but far from fancy. It had an indoor pool area at that time where Hagler worked out in the evenings, a floor laid down so he could practice footwork and combinations. They let people sit and watch him train, and the place smelled of chlorine, muggy, low-lit.
When he arrived I would marvel at his shape – not that he was in great shape, which he was, but the way his body was put together. He looked clumsy walking past, like someone had taken parts of various bodies and combined them Frankenstein style. His legs were too long for his short torso, his arms and back top-heavy for a chiseled compact waist, his gait clunky. Even the broad features of his shaved head seemed out of synch, his nose too broad and flat, his eyes too small.
Then Goody would turn on a boombox, and Marvin Hagler would warm up. Everything about that body then made sense. His legs would begin to skip and shuffle, gliding and gobbling up space. His torso synthesized into a launching pad for smooth pistons, jabs and hooks. He wasn’t really a southpaw, he was ambidextrous, jab and hook from either side at any time. And you soon realized that even his face was right, nothing sharp, nothing a hit would chisel.
We weren’t allowed to see him spar, only work up a sweat and run his routines. But that was enough for me to say that of all the great athletic moments I’ve experienced, and there have been many, sitting in that dim pool area, inhaling chlorine, was among the most amazing.
In those days the Cape Cod Coliseum on White’s Path in South Yarmouth would sell tickets to simulcast bouts. So did the Boston Garden. One I remember, I think the opponent was a guy named “Caveman” Lee, we got there, grabbed a beer, settled into our seats – and Marvin knocked him out about a minute into the fight. I didn’t feel cheated, just finished by beer and headed home.
Then there was the day I had tickets to the Coliseum but my stomach was bothering me bad enough to go to the doctor: Appendicitis, inflamed, in danger of bursting, I really needed to get to a Boston hospital where the trusted surgeon who’d operated on my father was located. But hell, Marvin was fighting!
A friend understood my predicament, laid out the back of his stationwagon to become a makeshift ambulance, and I stretched out as we headed from Orleans toward South Yarmouth.
“It’s on the way,” Tommy reasoned, “right off Route 6.”
“Hell, Marvin will take this guy out in no time anyway,” I figured.
He helped me into the stadium, to a seat. The fighter, I think his name was Tony Sibson, lasted about six rounds before Hagler sent him home. I got back in bed in the stationwagon – and eventually left my appendix in Boston. Since then, I’ve also lost my sense of invulnerability.
It’s these moments, more than heroics at play, that make sports so enmeshed in the lives of people who allow that to happen. Marvelous Marvin Hagler did that for me. I suppose part of it was that I knew we were the same age. And now he’s gone.
NEXT: ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND, RESURRECTING DETAILS AT THE 45TH ANNIVERSARY OF A WAMPANOAG “REBURIAL.”
Love this little slice of history!!