By David Weinberg
The routine is always the same.
Each weekday afternoon around 4 p.m. – and sometimes on Saturdays – veteran boxing trainer Bill Johnson dons a t-shirt with his late son Leavander’s likeness on the front, pulls on a faded baseball cap, slings a gym bag over his boney shoulder, and walks about three blocks from his home on Kentucky Avenue to the Atlantic City PAL.
“It’s not as easy as it used to be,” the 83-year-old said with a smile. “Some days, I say, ‘C’mon legs. We’re almost there.’”
Once inside, Johnson, who is known as “B.J.,” grabs a handrail and climbs the steps to the third-floor boxing gym, where a dozen fighters at various stages of their careers are skipping rope, shadow boxing, hitting a heavy bag or sparring.
He watches the action while seated at a table beneath a wall lined with fight pictures and posters from Atlantic City’s glory days in the 1980s. After a few minutes, he ducks through the ropes, turns his baseball cap backward, pulls on a pair of sweat-stained elastic braces over his elbows, slides his hands into a pair of hand pads and gets ready to work with some boxers.
He’s been doing it for 50 years, ever since a summer day in 1974 when older sons Craig and Cade approached him and asked them to train them in boxing.
“We went up to him and told him we wanted to become boxers, but only if he would work with us because we wanted someone we could trust,” Craig said. “He paused and said, ‘If you commit yourself, then I’ll commit myself.’
Ironically, Bill was more into other sports as a kid.
His brother Joe, three years his senior, taught him and his friends how to play baseball and basketball. Bill excelled in the local Little League and later threw the first no-hitter in the area’s Babe Ruth League.
Basketball was his favorite sport. As a teenager, he played point guard in the Pennsylvania Avenue City Summer League program, leading his team to the title in 1958 at age 17.
Bill and his friends would occasionally go to the Bobby Jones Training Gym on Maryland Avenue and hit the heavy bags, then head over to the Waltz Dream Arena on North Ohio Avenue to watch the fights.
He’d also listen to some of the big fights at his boyhood home on Maryland Avenue.
“We weren’t old enough to get into the places that had fights, so we would try to watch through the windows,” Bill said with a laugh. “And my family didn’t have a TV, so we listened to fights on the radio.”
It was Bill’s infatuation with boxing that rubbed off on Craig, Cade and younger son, Leavander.
Bill initially trained Craig and Cade at the old PAL on Melrose and Rhode Island Avenues. Little Leavander would tag along and shadow box while trying to mimic his older brothers’ moves.
“I was real with them right from the start,” Bill said. “I told them, ‘You can’t play boxing like you can play baseball or basketball. You have to be all in.’
“I said to them, ‘If or when you get to the point where you want to do something else with your life, it’s time to stop. You won’t hurt my feelings. This is not a sport that you can do halfway.’”
Craig and Cade enjoyed outstanding success in the amateur ranks and had a few fights as professionals before deciding to pursue culinary careers.
Craig is now the executive chef at the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City, where he opened Leavander’s 22 Southern Cuisine restaurant.
Cade is executive chef at Prairie Meadows Casino, Racetrack and Hotel in Altoona, Iowa.
“Boxing has the tools of life and Pops has been teaching them for 50 years,” Craig said. “He told us 50 years ago that it’s not about the awards, accolades or money. It’s about the journey and it’s been an amazing ride.”
The high point of the journey came in Milan, Italy on June 17, 2005, when Leavander posted a seventh-round TKO over Sefano Zoff to win the IBF lightweight title, thus becoming Atlantic City’s second world champion, along with former WBA heavyweight champ Bruce Seldon.
Three months later, Leavander made his first title defense against Jesus Chavez in Las Vegas. Leavander collapsed in his dressing room after losing via 11th-round TKO, was rushed to the hospital, but was unable to recover and passed away five days later, on September 22.
Devastated and distraught, Bill stayed away from the PAL for a few months afterward and contemplated retirement.
But he eventually returned.
“That’s what Leavander would have wanted,” he said.
The journey has continued for another 20 years, during which he’s worked with virtually every local fighter in various capacities, from John Brown, to Patrick Majewski to Bruce Seldon’s son, Isiah.
Last Saturday, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small presented him with a plaque while declaring it “Bill Johnson Day” in Atlantic City before a large crowd of family members at the Claridge in town for a Burch/Johnson reunion.
“The Johnson family and I go back a long time,” Small said. “I grew up in the same neighborhood with Leavander and kept a relationship with Mr. Bill.
“I used to run the Elwood Robbins Midnight Basketball League at the PAL and the only person other than myself that never missed a day was Mr. Bill. He’d be in the stands, watching all the madness and the arguments after games, then I’d see him trekking home.
“I’d always ask him, ‘Do you want a ride?’ And he’s always answer, ‘Nah, I’m good.’ He’s a special man.”
He still makes that trek, for there are fighters to be trained, lives to be helped, journeys to be enjoyed.
It’s what Leavander would have wanted.
David is a nationally recognized sports columnist who has covered Philadelphia and local sports for over 40 years. After 35 years with The Press, he has served as a columnist for 973ESPN.com and created his own Facebook page, Dave Weinberg Extra Points.
Send comments to weinbergd419@comcast.net.
One Response
Beautiful story, Dave. Well done, as always.