Lamar as Past Master of Boxing Is Well Qualified to Coach Ring Science

Virginia's gift to Harvard pugilism is big Henry Lamar, present mentor of all boxing activities, and junior varsity football coach. Under his careful supervision, boxing here has risen from almost complete insignificance, to be one of the most popular of minor sports. Even after the sport suffered a knockout blow last spring when further intercollegiate matches were banned, it has continued to draw a surprising amount of men.

No one is better qualified to be coach of the fistic art than Lamar. His whole career to date is almost exclusively tied up with boxing. Born in Washington, D. C. in 1907, he has lived mostly in Mississippi and Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia, class of 1928, and it was there that he achieved most prominence as an amateur.

Lamar played Freshman basketball, swam the 50, 100, and 220 free-style in what he says were pretty slow times, played four years of first-string football as tackle and back, and was undefeated in four years of college boxing bouts.

In addition to his college fist-flinging, he ventured into bigger circles, for in 1925 he was National Junior Champion in the 175-pound class, and in the same year was National Champion in the 175-pound class. Also in '25, he won the title of Pan American Champion. In 1926, he was again National Champion.

Ruefully, Lamar explains that he planned to return to Virginia to take graduate courses in engineering, but pugilism claimed him first, and he turned professional as soon as he graduated, competing in around 40 bouts in his pro career. As a prize-fighter, he lost only one fight, and that was to Jim Maloney, of South Boston. He admits with some hesitation that instead of being called "Kid Lamar" or the "Southern Slugger," he was billed as "The Washington Schoolboy."

In 1930, he quit the professional ring to come to Harvard as coach, a chance he welcomed. "It was a wonderful break for me to work with Dick Harlow," he says enthusiastically. The one lesson he's learned from the prize-ring he is quite sincere about, for he declares that, ". . . . professional boxing is not a game I'd recommend for any boy, no matter who he is!" Politics and avaricious managers corrupt boxing, he says, and in spite of all beliefs to the contrary, it is rare that a fight is actually "fixed."

Lamar, for all his fistic career, has never been cut; never has suffered a cauliflower car. He attributes his success in this line to the fact that "I just didn't get hit enough." He is a strong advocate of scientific boxing, and dislikes the slugger type of fighter, because, "if you have a man who can win by slugging, and can teach him the art of boxing; then he'll end up practically unbeatable."

He is very proud of the fact that his old intercollegiate teams averaged only one loss per year while he was coaching, during which time such boxing strongholds as Virginia, Penn State, and Army were subdued by Crimson fighters.