STORIES OF HEENEY

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 May 1928, Page 3

STORIES OF HEENEY

_— —O'GRIT AND GOOD NATURE. Tom Heeney, the New Zealand champion heavyweight boxer, who will shortly meet Gene Tunney, world’s title-holder for the coveted honour, is obtaining plenty of publicity, and the subjoined three stories have been written by Henry L. Farrell, a well-known American sports writer, and have been widely published in the American press: — Under the tough, crocodile hide of the boxing racket, you may have heard it said, there beats a big, soft heart. Like the wolves of the maligned Broadway, with fangs pictured always bared for the kill, the racket is not that way, they say. There are examples where the sporting element, of Broadway has extended helping hands to those of its members in need of a lift. Many of them. But there are other stories where the hand was raised to sock or to pull down a man just getting a. break. When Charley Harvey set out to get some matches for Tom Heeney, a big, boyish-like New Zealander, who wanted only money enough to get back home, he had the well wishes of all the mob in the racket. They had been wanting to see Harvey get. a break because he needed it. He was a square fellow. They knew that but they criticised him for it. Their logic was that a guy was a sucker to be so much on the level. They sympathised with the misfortune that nearly cost him his life in a Chicago automobile wreck, an accident that made of him a cripple and almost a physical wreck. They were for him as long as he wasn’t getting along too well. HARVEY TOO CLEAN. Harvey is one of the finest personalities you would care to meet. A polished little gentleman. A squareshooter. A clean-mouthed man whose extremity of profanffy is “by jiniminy crickets.” A man whose word always is a bond and whose morals are those of an evangelist. Almost too good for the racket, as his friends told him. “You’ll never get along in that business. You’re too clean,” they told him. But Harvey limped along strengthened by the faith that his break had to come.

The boxing racket is sometimes shown in rosy pictures. Pretty soft for a manager cutting in for. a bigend of the money his man gets for fighting. But no one knows the hardships of the path from promoter to promoter Avith a fighter Avho is not established until he has tried it.

Harvey Avent the rounds, day by day, but no promoter Avould give his fighter, Heeney, a tumble. British heavyAveights had a loav rating. Harvey had suffered rating also from his longassociation with poor fighters. They were glad to see Charley but they couldn’t do anything for him. Then Harvey finally got Heeney a match with Charlie Anderson, a ham coloured fighter, and Heeney stopped him in five rounds. He didn’t crash into the first pages, but he attracted some attention in the racket. He was a “limmie” fighter Avho Avasn’t knocked out. He looked like a prospect. Heeney had enough to live on for a while after that fight, but the same old dodge came when he tried to get some more matches. Then the kind Avolves started after him.

“Get away from Harvey,” they told him. “He’s an old grandma. You got to do business to get business. Harvey don’t stand in with the Garden bunch. Got to give up a piece to get in. Charley can’t get around like he used to. Get a hustler like Johnston or Flynn who is in with the mob.” Heeney didn’t listen to them. He heard them, yes, but he laughed them away. Harvey had believed in him when these well-wishers wouldn’t give him the time of day.

Firpo listened to the raps about Jimmy De Forest and cut away from him. Heeney stuck to Harvey, and he’s in there now. In that big dough where Johnston thought he would be with 10 per cent of Sharkey, where Flynn would like to be with any fighter and where those who tried to steal Risko from Danny Dunn wanted to be. Old Charley and Old Tom got their break.

Prospects got so bad that Heeney told Harvey to get anybody from Dempsey down -and Harvey set out again. He matched him with Paolino. No one else wanted to fight Paolino, but Heeney took the match and that fight was the makings of him.

RICKARD BECOMES INTERESTED.

Tex Rickard’s office in New York was hounded so much by Charley Ha,rvey in his quest for some work for Tom Heeney that the attendants around the Garden felt the only solution was to throw Heeney in with some good fellow and get him knocked off.

Harvey finally was pinned down in the offices of the great man and was asked if he wer© sincere in his statement that Heeney would fight anyone and wouldn’t want half the building for his end.

As usual, Harvey was sincere and he produced a. pen.

There was at that time another persistent person around the Garden attended by so many managers that they were termed his “board of directors.” Paulino, just in from Europe, wanted some work also and Rickard saw in him the colour, if nothing else, of a. prospect for his elimination tournament.

They knew Paulino was tough. One of those fellows who couldn’t be stopped. Not a fancy fighter, but a tough one. Made other fellows look bad even when he lost.

Rickard wanted to rise him but he didn’t want him to make any of the fighters in the so-called “trust” look bad. Jim Maloney, Jack Sharkey and Jack Delaney were th© hot prospects for the heavyweight eliminations and Rickard didn’t want any bums mussing them up. He had two bums on his hands, he thought, in Heeney and Paulino. Why not let them fight and no harm would come of it?

Paulino’s board thought Heeney was a pushover because he was British and they took the match. Heeney accepted also because he had to have the dough and because Harvey told him—“By jimminy crickets, you can beat that fellow! Stop him maybe.” They fought a. 10-round fight and the judges gave Heeney an atrocious decision. hut he did not wail -about his hard luck. “1 think I Avon the fight, but the decision stands,” Heeney said. Therein he showed the genial disposition and the patient spirit that is so characteristic of him. Heeney was then matched with Jack De Mave, a, good heavyweight, from New York, and he won a 10round decision and then he was thrown in with Bud Gorman, one of Leo Flynn’s heavyweights. The word went •around that the works were in against Heeney, but the big New Zealander

paid no attention to it and Harvey passed it off with a remark —“They certainly wouldn’t do it to us.” ' But something must have been in it, because Gorman started throwing punches at Heeney’s knees at the start of the fight and finally was disqualified in the third round on a. foul. The work looked to have been in, not only to steal a decisio i from Heeney but possible to hurt hi n. Heeney took it in h s amiable way and didn’t complain a word. He had faith in himself, and was getting more and more respect for old Charley. Charley wasn’t one of the wolves. Heeney was getting good then and Rickard finally saw in him a prospect, but he wasn’t good enough for a ballyhoo yet. Fie was a big fellow, he had that, international angl? that Rickard is so keen about, but he needed some real good opponents and Richard then decided to throw him in with his pet fighters. HEENEY IN SELECT GROUP. After Tom Heeney had been robbed of a decision in his fight with Paulino, had beaten Jack De Mave, and had Avon from Bud Gorman on a deliberate foul, Tex Rickard began to consider him. He thought Heeney might do in the eliminations by which he hoped to develop a good opponent for Gene Tunney. Rickard then found Heeney was willing to fight Paulino again, and he made the match for 15 rounds. The official decision was a draw. Heeney won the fight going away, and he was made the victim of larceny again, but he didn’t yelp. Neither did Charley Harvey. Heeney then got into the select group when he knocked out Jim Maloney, one of the former favourites of the “trust,” with a punch or two in less than a round. Figuring that, they were in the big money. Harvey and Heeney Avere surprised when they began to get the dilly-dally from the Garden. Heeney had done everything asked of him, but it seemed not to be enough. Harvey then Avent away from the Garden and took a match with Johnny Risko in Detroit. Risko Avas such a tough customer that none of the other heavyAveights Avould have anything to do Avith him. He had given Tunney a hard fight, one of the hardest the champion ever had, and he was nobody’s business in the racket He beat Risko in 10 rounds on points. This fight put him back again on the desired list at the Garden, and he Avas offered the pet of the big man, Jack Sharkey. Heeney took it because the price was good and he Avas beginning to have a great hope. Sharkey accepted the match because he Avas tired of loafing.

The fight went 10 rounds to a draw, and it was a terrible thing. But the moral victory, if any, went to Heeney, and the fight showed up the real value of Sharkey. He was through. Heeney then had to take Jack Delaney to prove himself anew. Delaney had possibilities of a build up if he beat Heeney. Mind you, all these fights were, being handed to Heeney to build up his opponents, instead of grooming him for a title shot. Heeney beat Delaney, and should have been established, but he wasn’t. Rickard apparently wasn’t satisfied, and he cjragged Sharkey, twice a bust in big tests, and matched him with Risko. Risko beat Sharkey and became, with Heeney, the survivors of the elimination tournament. It was suggested that Heeney fight Sharkey again, but Harvey stopped it with the reasonable argument—“ Why pick on us some more? Even Risko admits we beat him in Detroit. We’ll have no more run-arounds. We’ve been agreeable long enough.” Then the placid Harvey worked himself into a great wrath. Rickard’s assistants were looking all over for him in New York, but he couldn’t be found. Harvey had ducked, but he ducked secretly to Florida and went into conference with Tunney. Tunney knows his inen, and ho knew Harvey. He knew he would have to say, more than a word, when Rickard picked his man. And he said it for Heeney. Rickard was desperate. He didn’t want Heeney exactly. When Tunney named Heeney he had to accept, and Heeney was announced as the opponent foi- the July fight. Harvey did that. He knew his man. He knew what kind of a man Tunney was, and knew that Tunney would understand his language. He knew he would not have to give Tunney a piece of his mind to get a fight. So the big break came. Perhaps Heeney can’t beat Tunney. But regardless of the result, Harvey and Heeney will come out of it with dough and the credit of being hard workers, willing guys, square shooters and nice fellows.

Charley Harvey won’t be broke any more. Maybe the pain will go out of that sore, crippled leg. Maybe the smile on his face will become wider, but it couldn’t cover much more ground. He’s been smiling all his life when another might have been crying.