It was 50 years ago when the Cougar Boxing Club was born in a basement. Rick Cooper was there then. He’s still there now.
It’s an occasion for a celebration but … maybe in the fall.
“I grew up in the McCauley neighborhood and was from a very poor family,” said Cooper. “I remember that first day that Bill Kuipers saw a few of us playing in the neighbourhood and asked if any of us wanted to learn how to box.
“We were given the downstairs room at the Boys & Girls Club where we became the Cougar Boxing Club. It’s the same place it exists today.”
Cooper fought 110 amateur bouts in his career, winning gold at the 1975 Rocky Mountain zone Golden Gloves in Montana. Today, he’s the head coach of the Cougar club where a lot of history, some of it his, is celebrated on the walls.
“My first fight was actually over at the South Side Legion Boxing Club. I was 11 years old and weighed 85 pounds,” Cooper remembers of the trip across town. “I didn’t really know how to box at the time but I was a whirlwind. I stopped my opponent in the first round.
“I remember we would do demonstrations at shopping malls to try and get people interested and support the club. We’d do bottle drives so we could travel to boxing events. As I grew in boxing, I went up the ladder and was chosen to go to Europe with an Alberta team to box in Ireland, Norway and Holland.”
Cooper is only a small slice of the story of the Cougar Boxing Club, having been an original member since Day 1 of operations in 1970.
If there was anybody who put his name on the club, though, it was Brad Hortie.
His father, Paul, had boxed in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II and returned to coach dozens of champions and was chosen as a member of three Olympic teams. Brad was the youngest of the family and in 1969, at age nine, travelled to Fort McMurray, tipping the Toledos at 55 pounds for the weigh in and went on to capture his first title as Northern Alberta champion.
In 1970, Paul took his son and a couple of other boxers to the Edmonton Boys & Girls Club on 95th Street as members where, under Kuipers, they became the Cougar Boxing Club gym.
It was where Brad spent his entire 16-year fight career, amassing a staggering total of 314 fights and winning all but 42.
Upon retiring from the ring, Brad became a coach under his dad and the equally legendary more modern day head Larry Fleming. Brad would go on to become a highly certified coach who has been recognized with numerous citations and awards and a member of the Canadian team for world championships, Pan-Am Games and several multi-nation tournaments. He would go on, after pursuing a degree in social work, to form the St. Alberta Boxing Academy.
But being there on Day 1 and there today to celebrate 50 years has been one individual: Cooper.
“I believe it has helped me become a better person. It taught me discipline, hard work and commitment,” he said. “Mentors like Paul Hortie and Larry Fleming helped me grow into a coach in boxing helped my develop other skills I would use later in life.
“I enjoy helping people improve and become more confident in themselves. Sometimes it makes you feel great when you help the person with the least amount of skills and they become a little better than by helping the skilled boxers who already have so many skills.”
The sweet science isn’t what it was back in the day but that hasn’t changed what the Cougar Boxing Club is all about to Cooper and the others involved.
“Boxing doesn’t have the same status these days but both kids and adults still want to improve themselves and become more confident. I truly believe that boxing can help. You can become better if you lose a fight and become better if you win a fight if you use the experience of winning or losing to be positive rather than negative.”
It was Larry Fleming who ran the club for 20 years until his death in 2005. For the past five years, his son, Ward, has been president of the club that has had members of the family involved since 1985.
“Mr. Hortie, my dad, Larry, and their successors might all say, ‘Wow, 50 years.’” said Ward, the current club president. “To the amazing spectrum of children who have been part of the Cougars’ winning traditions, the pleasure has been all ours. The goal was to produce better young people, to give them a happy past, get them ready for the future and have some fun along the way.
“To the thousands that have worked so hard and given so much to our little inner-city basement gym, thank you for making a difference to producing all those ‘tough as nails’ Cougar Boxing Club fighters.
“And here’s to 50 more years.”
E-mail: tjones@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @ByTerryJones
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