Kronked Out

I'm not a big boxing fan (the more I mature, the less appeal watching folks beat up each other has), but we got some sad news out of Detroit, where veteran trainer Emanuel Steward passed on yesterday at 69. His Kronk Gym turned out a string of top boxers, most notably Thomas Hearns, who had some classic fights with Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler in the 80s. Steward was a street kid who got off the streets via boxing and he's mentored a couple of generations of boys to do likewise.

If you took the back-to-basics gym of Apollo Creed's LA from Rocky 3 and plunked it in the Great Lakes, you're poetic striking distance from Kronk, although running along the Detroit River wouldn't be as cinematic as the shot of them running on the Pacific sands.

MMA has got more press than boxing has gotten as of late; Steward client Wladimir Klitschko could get confused for a backup center for the Pistons. However, Steward was a living archetype of the father figure running the inner city gym.