Stories, Events, Information, and Presentations Linking Boxing with the Value of Literacy
To arrange a class presentation, speaking engagement, or any educational project involving the value of literacy and the discipline of boxing, contact Mark Connor at :
In keeping with the value of the second portion of our mission statement, to "promote literacy within the boxing community," the Literacy and Education page is offered. To help another person achieve a greater degree of literacy, contact the National Center for Family Literacy at www.famlit.org. They are physically located in Louisville, Kentucky (the childhood home of Muhammad Ali). They can be reached via phone at 1-877-famlit-1, and they will supply information for literacy education assistance throughout the U.S.
 Minnesota Literacy Council and National Literacy Council contact information is at www.themlc.org/volunteer.
Overall Integrity and Encouraging Tone make Foreman's "God in my Corner" a great read
Mark Connor
© Copyright 2010, Mark Connor
I recently finished reading “God In My Corner: A Spiritual Memoir” by George Foreman. “Big” George Foreman, as he’s known in boxing, is of course the two-time Heavyweight Champion of the World, having defeated Joe Frazer for the World Boxing Association (WBA) and World Boxing Council (WBC) titles on
January 22, 1973, and Michael Moorer for the WBA and International Boxing Federation (IBF) titles on
November 5, 1994. He was just a couple of months shy of his 46th birthday when he became champion the second time, far older than the previous record holder, Jersey Joe Walcott, who became champion at age 37. The book was worth while not just because it recounted the shift in attitude Foreman experienced after Christian conversion and his initial retirement from boxing, but also because of its overall inspirational message.
Click here to read more
Boxers and Writers Magazine June 2010 Card Girls of the Month
Mark Connor
© Copyright 2010, Mark Connor
Ashley Loberg, Dominique Sorenson, and Ce-anna Buzzell were the Card Girls at the St. Paul Armory on Friday, June 11 for the card featuring Caleb Truax's victory over Antwum Echols. They shared with Boxers and Writers Magazine the titles of their favorite books. Ashley's favorite book is the novel, Marley and Me: life and love with the world's worst dog, by John Grogan; Dominique's favorite is Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell; and Ce-anna's favorite is the novel, Nineteen Minutes, by Jody Picoult.
Watch this page not just for more good book recommendations from Card Girls, but also from other women who play key roles in the boxing world.
If you'd like to share the pleasure of Ashley's reading experience, click the link below to order a copy of
Marley and me.
For a taste of historical drama found in the classic so admired by Dominique, click below to get a copy of
Gone with the Wind.
To share Ce-anna's reading pleasure with a book that suggests a short event but carries you delightfully through the whole day, click below to get your copy of
Nineteen Minutes
Boxers and Writers Magazine 2009 Card Girls of the Year
Mark Connor
© Copyright 2009, Mark Connor
As a special feature emphasizing the Boxers and Writers Magazine mission statement: "To celebrate the arts of Boxing and Writing in a manner that proliferates the popularity of both, promote literacy in the boxing community, and encourage all to believe in themselves and their dreams," Boxers and Writers Magazine will regularly feature ring card girls with a mention of their favorite writers and stories. As this feature is introduced at the end of 2009, we name the two card girls from the Minnesota Heavyweight Championship match between Joey Abell and Raphael Butler not just as our first featured card girls, but our card girls of the year. For that matter, they are the card girls of the decade. They were in the right place at the right time. And they have some great recommended reading for you, too.
 Meet Kendra Nguyen, pictured left, whose favorite author is Stephen King. She loves anything written by Stephen King. Although he is known for the horror genre, he is also the author of great works of the more traditional literary variety. They include a short story that was turned into the 1980s film "Stand By Me" that starred the late River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell, Corey Feldman and Kiefer Sutherland, and a novella, "Rita Haywarth and Shawshank Redemption", adapted to the screen as "The Shawshank Redemption" starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins. With Kendra is Kelsey Kowalski, whose favorite book is "A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive" by Dave Pelzer. (For Minnesota boxing fans, please don't confuse the author with former Golden Gloves boxer Dave Pelzer, who became an excellent painter and married an Irish citizen with whom he lives across the water with their children.) The author Dave Pelzer's "A Child Called It" is a harrowing story and is also both a New York Times and USA Today Best Seller.
To purchase the perfect Christmas present for your favorite Stephen King fan or admirer of Author Dave Pelzer, click through the links below and order these books and/or movies. The first three King books are rare collector's items and expensive, and the DVDs and other books are at discounted prices.
"Stand By Me" (DVD)
"The Shawshank Redemption" (DVD)
"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"
by
Stephen King (Collectors edition)
"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"
[Screenplay by Frank Daramont]
(Collectors, Very limited availability)
"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story From Different Seasons"
by
Stephen King
"The Body" (made into movie 'Stand By Me')
by
Stephen King
"Under The Dome" A novel, 2009
"Just After Sunset" Stories, 2008
"Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft"
"The Stand"
A Novel, 1978
"The Dark Tower" (Box Set, books 1 - 4)
"Wolves of the Calla: The Dark Tower, Book 5"
"The Dark Tower, Book 7"
"Song of Susanna: The Dark Tower, Book 6"
"A Child Called 'It': One Child's Courage to Survive"
by David J. Pelzer
"The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family"
by
Dave J. Pelzer
In keeping with the value of the second portion of our mission statement, to "promote literacy within the boxing community," the Literacy and Education page is offered. To help another person achieve a greater degree of literacy, contact the National Center for Family Literacy at www.famlit.org. They are physically located in Louisville, Kentucky (the childhood home of Muhammad Ali). They can be reached via phone at 1-877-famlit-1, and they will supply information for literacy education assistance throughout the U.S.
Minnesota Literacy Council and National Literacy Council contact information is at www.themlc.org/volunteer.
Thank you to Kendra Nguyen and Kelsey Kowalski for their performance talent, beauty and intelligence, and thank you for your generosity in sharing reading recommendations. Happy Holidays and Best of Luck in the New Year!
This Feature Brought to you by:
A special thanks for support from Bill Bisanz at:
Elite Destination Homes
1.866.650.4334
Tareq Azim Lives Family Legacy with Afghani Women's Boxing Federation, Hope of Mother, and a Desire to Give
by
Mark Connor
© Copyright 2009, Mark Connor
Tareq Azim has learned to apply the basics of success from one area in his life to another, fulfilling a responsibility he accepts to represent himself, his family, and their country of origin in a dignified manner. He does so through the exercise of his talents in boxing and other combat sports, as well as in social and political activism aimed at uniting, serving, and empowering the people of Afghanistan. His most unique contribution to growing and strengthening the nation comes from his establishment in 2007 of the Afghani Women’s Boxing Federation.
Azim explains that he started the Afghani Women’s Boxing Federation in 2007 because the world wants Afghanistan to stand on its own two feet. “Well how do you expect it to stand on its own two feet,” he asks, “if it’s a male dominated society and women have nothing to say? Women have to be the second foot.” Strengthening that foot and balancing the national posture are an end result of building relationships, he says, and now that the process has begun it will most likely perpetuate itself as the program continues.
“What I did is I united with the people of Afghanistan,” says Azim; “the supposed warlords and some of the gangsters and some people who are extremists, and supposedly some of the people who are for women’s oppression like the Taliban—and I connected with people from every single one of these groups about my mission of wanting to start the Afghan Women’s Boxing Federation and why. . . I introduced the most male dominated activity in the world, which is Boxing, Combat Sports, to women. And I challenged the women, I said, ‘You want to be treated and respected like a man? Well come learn how to fight like a man. Make a stance at the world; show these people that you’re not scared; you’ll stand up to anything. If they’re standing up to getting punched in the face by each other, they’re going to stand up to anything.”
Azim was born in Germany in 1982, the country to which his parents fled from the Soviet communist occupation of Afghanistan and the disappearance of his maternal grandfather as a prisoner of war in 1978. Azim explains that his grandfather, General Shaw Wali who was a fighter pilot in the Afghani Air Force, always told his mother that if she had a son his name would be Tareq. Knowledge of this family story seals a bond Tareq Azim has with the Grandfather he never met, and it motivates his continued work through boxing and Mixed Martial Arts, as well as his support of Hope of Mother, the nonprofit he co-founded with his own Mother, Mina Wali, in 2004. The organization, found on line at www.hopeofmother.org, assists Afghani people through three other projects besides the Afghani Women’s Boxing Federation, including the Shawl Patcha Academy of Education, a private coed school for young men and women in the largest Opium cultivated region of Nengrahar and the first school in the area to allow female students; Shawl Wali Khan Center for Orphans, a recreation center with tutoring, mentoring, and other activities, as well as protection from potential kidnapping into terrorist organizations; and Lily’s Medical clinic, the first facility of its kind in a town called Surchroad Village.
Azim and his family immigrated to San Francisco, CA shortly after his birth, and in 2004 he graduated with Bachelors Degrees in Environmental Science and Agribusiness from Fresno State University. Azim, who now stands at 6’-2” and caries a weight of 185 pounds, explains that he compiled a total record of 16 and 2 as an amateur boxer, and he has a Professional Kickboxing record of 6 and 1. A close friend who helped with his amateur boxing training took him to the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, run by former Lightweight contender and trainer of 23 World Champions, Freddie Roach. At Roach’s gym Azim was paired with veteran trainer Juan Carlos Martinez, also known as “Panda”. He enjoyed training under Panda, and in the gym of champions he developed his competitive edge and also learned to teach and train others. As a kick boxer and mixed martial artist he eventually secured work as a trainer at Fairtex Muy Thai in San Francisco. He currently trains a number of successful professional Mixed Martial Artists, and he travels every third week back to Los Angeles in order to train at Wild Card. Fairtex is listed as a sponsor on the Hope of Mother web page, and Azim says he received tremendous support from both them and Wild Card in establishing the Afghani Women’s Boxing Program. He credits Fairtex with providing the majority of necessary equipment and apparel for the program’s initial success, and Freddie Roach, Juan Carlos “Panda” Martinez and everyone at Wild Card for the skills and confidence to initiate it.
“If it wasn’t for wild Card I would never have been a good boxer, I wouldn’t be sponsored by Fairtex,” he said. “I wouldn’t have that avenue, you know, so I give Wild Card all the credit in the world because they developed my hunger and desire as a good boxer, and I especially credit Juan Carlos ‘Panda’ Martinez.”
While training as an amateur at Wild Card Azim was hoping to make the Afghan Olympic team, but an injury halted progress towards that goal. So he adapted his ambitions and channeled them into incorporating boxing into other forms of combat sport, as well as to directing his energy into Hope of Mother projects.
Hope of Mother has scheduled a fundraising gala in San Francisco for 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 26 at Ruby Skye. Tickets are $100, and attire is Cocktail. Entertainment will be provided by DJ Amplive of ZION I with Special Guests and San Francisco celebrity entertainment, DJ Momentum, local and national leaders, and a Surprise Guest as Master of Ceremonies.
“We’re looking to grow bigger and stronger, of course,” Azim says. “That’s why I keep fighting and staying in the limelight of the fighting arts, because of the media attention and support that I can attract people toward our programs and create awareness and show all athletes in the world that us athletes are extremely powerful if we just know how to use our power.
COMING SOON:
Tareq Azim on Boxing to Improve Mixed Martial Arts Performance, and his Assessment on how Brock Lesnar can be Defeated
Sugar Ray Leonard Recommends Book
(from Boxing Coverage page)
Sugar Ray Leonard was in Minneapolis for a celebrity roast of Scott LeDoux at the City Center Marriot to raise money for the charity Wishes and More on Sunday, May 3. Looking well, articulating himself eloquently, and politely and respectfully granting Boxers and Writers Magazine a quick interview before signing autographs, Leonard lived up to his legend as a classic American.
“Giving back, it costs nothing,” Leonard said. “Whether to use my celebrity to raise a few more thousand, that’s wonderful, because I think that a champion is defined not just by what he does in the ring but by what he does outside the ring.”
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Leonard paused to contemplate a further articulation of his feelings about doing charity work, finally uttering the simple conclusion, “It’s my responsibility.”
Discussing education and reading, Leonard identified the acquisition and utilization of knowledge as one of his most central values.
“It’s never too late for education, it’s never too late to learn, to better yourself,” he said; “whether it’s reading or whatever the case may be. I think that—I don’t think, I know—education is the key, it’s what has brought me to where I am today. Because you need that education, I stress upon that to my kids all the time.”
When asked about his reading preferences and what books have influenced him, he made a recommendation.
“I read autobiographies,” he said. “I read Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane. I love autobiographies, I love being inspired.”
It was very interesting and even motivating to hear Sugar Ray Leonard tell me he read and was influenced by Mark Mathabane’s Kaffir Boy, because it was recommended to me in 1987 during my first term of college. “Kaffir” is a derogatory term for black people in Afrikaner, the language of White South African’s. Kaffir Boy is a black man’s story about coming of age in Apartheid South Africa. I never did get around to reading it, but now that Sugar Ray Leonard has made the recommendation I intend to do so as soon as I can, and I invite you to do the same.
Interestingly enough, when Sugar Ray Leonard fought in the latter part of his career, he wore boxing trunks with the word “Amandla” embroidered across the front of the beltline. The word is Zulu for “Force, strength, vigor,” according to Webster’s Online Dictionary. I remember the TV announcers explaining that Leonard wore the word in solidarity with the fight to end Apartheid. For those of you who don’t remember, Apartheid, the segregation of the indigenous blacks of South Africa into ghetto townships and the denial of many basic human rights to them by the Anglo-Dutch colonial whites, did not end until 1991 when President F.W. DeClerk lifted the ban on the African National Congress political party and negotiated an interracial government between it and his own National Party. That’s when the International Olympic Committee lifted a ban of South African athletes from Olympic competition. In1994 Nelson Mandela, a former boxer, a lawyer, and a political prisoner for 27 years, became the country’s first black president.
Jazz great Miles Davis also released an album by the name Amandla in 1989.
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Another American classic, the late Miles Davis cut A Tribute to Jack Johnson in 1971.
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It is of course Davis’ homage to the first black Heavyweight Champion of the world, Jack Johnson. The two arrangements on the album, “Right Off” and “Yesternow” are top notch expressions of musical
genius I strongly recommend to everyone.
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Ruben "Hurricane" Carter Dares you to Dream
by
Mark Connor
© Copyright 2009, Mark Connor
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Former Middleweight contender, Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, has spent years promoting literacy. Convicted of a triple murder in 1967, he appealed his case for 20 years until released from New Jersey State prison after charges were dropped in 1988. He answered my questions at a press conference for literacy promotion and on behalf of  the Canadian based International Association of the Wrongfully Convicted in 2001 at the University of Minnesota. We met again in North Minneapolis in 2005, where he autographed the article I wrote about the first appearance, a press pack photo of him, and a copy of Hurricane: the miraculous journey of Ruben Carter, an autobiography with James S. Hirsch published in 2000. The book is strongly recommended for insight into Carter’s experience. The message Carter includes with his autograph—"Dare To Dream Always,"—coincides with the values of boxersandwritersmagazine.com.
==== Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter
====
In keeping with the value of the second portion of our mission statement, to "promote literacy within the boxing community," the Literacy and Education page is offered. To help another person achieve a greater degree of literacy, contact the National Center for Family Literacy at www.famlit.org. They are physically located in Louisville, Kentucky (the childhood home of Muhammad Ali). They can be reached via phone at 1-877-famlit-1, and they will supply information for literacy education assistance throughout the U.S.
Minnesota Literacy Council and National Literacy Council contact information is at www.themlc.org/volunteer.
Stories, Events, Information, and Presentations Linking the Arts of Boxing and Writing with a Special Emphasis on Literary Works and Figures Connected to Boxing
To arrange a literary event, performance or open mic, class presentation or speaking engagement, contact Mark Connor at :
This web site was launched at the close of March and opening of April, 2009. Because the Literary Arts page consists originally of Irish oriented stories, including the below references to the theatrical boxing exhibition at the 2008 Minnesota Irish Fair, it feels appropriate to mark the transition away from Irish month and into a celebration of April as U.S. National Poetry Month with a mention of Literary Pugilist Ulick O'Connor.
Ulick O'Connor was born in 1928 in Dublin, Ireland, educated in University College, Dublin and Loyola University, New Orleans, LA. Besides being a writer of poetry and plays, a biographer, a historian and a lawyer, he also is an accomplished boxer who won the British University Welterweight Championship in 1950. The first book I recommend is "The Troubles: Ireland 1912 - 1922". It was originally published as "A History of Ireland 1912 - 1922". His poetry collections include "Lifestyles" (1973), "Three Noh Plays" (1980), "All Things Counter" (1986), and "One Is Animate" (1990), as well as a translation of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal", with an introduction by Michel Deon of the Academie Francaise. He authored at least 10 plays, along with biographies of IRA novelist Brendan Behan and Oliver St. John Gogarty. Although I don't believe us to be directly related, the O wasn't dropped from my own name till my Great Grandfather's Grandfather was in Pennsylvania, so I recommend Ulick both as my namesake and as a boxing brother.
Another book I'd like to share with you is "This Won't Hurt A Bit" by Tim Sheard. I met Sheard in August, 2007 at the biennial National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981) Delegates Assembly at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. I was there as a delegate for the Twin Cities Chapter, and he for the New York Chapter. I saw him again that December while making a pre-Christmas visit to a great friend of mine in Manhattan. Tim came into the city from Brooklyn to sit with me over a cup of coffee so I could buy this novel, as well as a sequel, "Some Cuts Never Heal". I read this one and gave the other as a gift to my mother for Christmas. They are part of the Lenny Moss mystery series. But the reason I bring them up to Boxers and Writers Magazine readers is because of the faithful Lieutenant to mystery solver Lenny Moss, a former boxer named Moose Lennox.
Moose Lennox is a Philadelphia hospital employee who helps Moss—a Custodian and Union Shop Steward who always supports his fellow workers—solve the strange case of a murdered doctor found among the cadavers by medical students in a dissecting class. He uses the energy and determination of a boxer to push the reluctant hero through danger and pain to find the real killer and free their co-worker who they know has been wrongfully accused and waits in jail for salvation. The journey takes the reader through the various sections of the hospital while revealing the multicultural mosaic of characters—from a highly educated Russian immigrant stuck with Lenny in the low paying janitor’s job to a devout African American Christian woman praying for Lenny’s and Moose’s safety, and a vast array of others—populating this novel the way people of all backgrounds occupy a boxing gym. The novel and the entire Lenny Moss series can be purchased at www.timsheard.com.
I wrote an entire review of the novel called "Boxer is Pleasure of Novel 'This Won't Hurt a Bit'" on the Blog section of this site.
I can't forget a special book of poetry published in December 2007 that I'd like to share with you. It is "Lane Changes" by David Lawrence, published by Four Way Books. I interviewed him at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, New York, where he teaches boxing to enthusiasts. A former literature professor at Hunter College, he began boxing in his mid thirties because his wife insisted he needed a safer hobby than riding motorcycles. He considers himself the first White Collar Boxer, and he turned professional in his forties, compiling a record of 4 wins and 2 losses, all by knockout. Lane Changes is an excellent read and I strongly recommend it.
=== Lane Changes
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I wrote a full review of the book along with a profile of David Lawrence on the blog page of Boxers and Writers Magazine titled "David Lawrence is a Man of Words."
David Lawrence's wife, Lauren Lawrence, is also an author, having penned a book exploring the dreams of celebrities called Private Dreams of Public People with a forward by Larry King.
=== Private Dreams of Public People
===
Literary Pugilist ‘Malicious’ Mark Connor
back in ring for Irish Fair Exhibition
While launching this first edition of the new online literary boxing magazine, boxersandwritersmagazine.com, I happily report that 2008 kept me busy in a very positive way. While running a personal training business, contracting freelance writing work as well as writing fiction, drama and poetry for future publication, and making ends meet with a three-quarters time third shift job at a homeless shelter for children, time to publish this magazine or train like a real athlete is scarce. In fact, the time management challenge is the main—if not the only—reason I haven’t boxed professionally in recent years, although my desire to do so before I’m too old is extreme. But one must thoroughly dedicate many hours a day to training, even on the entry level of the sport, so until I’m able to finance that kind of discipline I’m grateful at the chance to share my talents publicly. Luckily I was able to do so on August 8, 9, and 10 at the 2008 Minnesota Irish Fair on St. Paul’s Harriet Island.
‘Irish’ Danny Morgan, the former Super Middleweight boxer from the Twin Cities who fought three world champions, invited me to participate in the third annual theatrical exhibition at the Minnesota Irish Fair, where we paired up with others in period costume, fighting in 1908 as Grandsons of Fenian rebels who’d followed the great William O’Donahue, whose grave rests in Rosemount, Minnesota, over the Canadian border to attack the British Army there. I wrote a narrative and published a play book that was distributed during the exhibition, and I included in it an article on Morgan, who is also an artist, that featured his drawings. It was the most literarily structured boxing presentation at the Irish Fair yet, but it also lacked effective organization and publicity, so the pictures presented here are the only ones I have available at this time. Please enjoy them, as well as the feature article about Morgan, his boxing career and military service, and his art. The exhibition was a Bogside Boxers Productions event directed by Danny Morgan and written by me.
Portrait of the Artist as a Boxing Man
by
Mark Connor
(Published August 8, 2008 for the Minnesota Irish Fair)
“Irish” Danny Morgan began boxing at a very young age. Most fighters who go far do. Coming from a family of 12—including five brothers and six sisters—he grew up in an environment that encouraged competitive athletic development. After all, a lot of siblings means a lot of rough-housing, and when it comes time to compete in sports there are plenty of family members to cheer you on. Also, his father, Jim Morgan, was a professional wrestler and a boxer who eventually ran boxing gyms in Richfield and Minneapolis.
“It was a hand-me-down, just like a pair of socks,” Morgan explains. “My dad got taught by his dad, and his dad got taught by his dad, and they just passed it on down.”
Another gift passed down to Danny Morgan was the value of intellectual development, particularly in the area of  art and literature. So when he wanted to get away from the noise and commotion of a crowded house, he’d retreat to his room to draw. There he came up with humorous cartoons, some centered in the theme of boxing, others concentrating on family and Irish culture. When he grew up to become a professional boxer and serve in the United States Military, he continued developing his artistic talents. By his mid-twenties, when he began fighting professionally, he’d compiled a significant portfolio of drawings, occasionally securing publication for some of them in newspapers and magazines around the country.
The public normally only sees the raw heart of the fighter in the ring, respecting him as a skilled and dangerous combatant.
But throughout the world there are boxers with tremendous creative talents, and Danny Morgan celebrates his every time he picks up the drawing pen.
Morgan, whose professional boxing career lasted from 1986 to 1993, compiled a win-loss record of 40 and 4, with 28 wins by knockout. Three of his losses came in brave efforts against world champions. The first was a challenge of World Boxing Association (WBA) Super middleweight Champion Christophe Tiozzo on November 23, 1990; the second was on December 11, 1991 against Steve “The Celtic Warrior” Collins, a leading contender who would eventually be World Boxing Organization (WBO) Super middleweight Champion, in Collins’ hometown of Dublin, Ireland; and the third was a challenge of WBA Super middleweight Champion Michael Nunn on February 20, 1993.
“I was just a pretty decent club fighter,” Morgan modestly insists, “so we hit the road all the time with a lot of club fights a year, and that’s how we got to have so many fights.”
Morgan did a stint in the United States Marine Corps shortly after high school, and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he joined the Army National Guard.
  “I thought I’d just do my part,” Morgan says. “So now we’re going to Iraq. Everybody does their duty, does their job, and it’s just my turn to do my duty.” Sometime in the coming months he will be among National Guard support troops heading to Iraq for one year. His cousin, Eric Knode [a Morgan on his mother’s side], who is appearing with The Bogside Boxers in the 2008 St. Paul Irish Fair Boxing Exhibition as Ryan “The Hook” O’Neal, recently returned from Iraq with a group from the same National Guard unit. Patriotic Americans, the two of them are part of a cultural tradition of descendants of Ireland fighting for nations around the world known as The Wild Geese. The history dates back to the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, which involved 20,000 Irish troops departing for France under the belief that British leaders would respect the rights of their countrymen. Instead the people of Ireland got the Penal Laws, which not only outlawed Catholicism and the Irish language, but ushered in discrimination against Presbyterians and non-Anglican Protestants, resulting in centuries of more emigration. Like the descendants of Ireland before them who have served in various nations’ military forces, but especially in America’s, they are brave Wild Geese in the truest sense of the term.
Danny Morgan will honorably exemplify The Wild Geese in the coming year, but during the 2008 Irish Fair, he and all of The Bogside Boxers will embrace the Irish heritage so proudly flowing with the Mississippi River through the heart of Minnesota’s Capital City on Harriet Island.
“This whole exhibition was started in recent years when I suggested to the Irish Fair that we put on a boxing play,” Morgan says with a mischievous laugh. “They just didn’t know that during this play we actually hit each other. So they freaked out about it a little bit . . . but how else do you act in boxing?”
For further information on the saga of The Wild Geese, visit The Wild Geese.
FIGHTING FENIANS:
a St. Paul Boxing Tradition
by
Mark Connor
© 2008, by Mark Connor
(Editor’s Note: The following story is a fictional narrative for a semi-scripted Theatrical Boxing Exhibition at the 2008 Minnesota Irish Fair in St. Paul, MN, USA. The story is an original creation of Mark Connor protected by U.S. Copyright law, and the production is the property of Danny Morgan and The Bogside Boxers, also protected under U.S. Copyright law.)
It is 1908, the state of Minnesota is 50 years old, and its Irish immigrant population has lived through tough times that seem to keep getting tougher. Nowhere is that more clear than in the capital city, St. Paul, where for two generations the Irish have spread out among the Germans, Swedes, French and other immigrants who have driven its development.
These immigrants have survived tremendous violence, starting with exile during the so-called Potato Famine, when the colonial British shipped edible food under armed guard to England while the Irish people starved. Upon arriving in the U.S., revolutionaries among them formed the Fenian Brotherhood in 1858, the same year the state of Minnesota was founded. Dedicated to organizing a rebellion to free Ireland from Britain, the Fenians gained military experience in the U.S. Army, fighting on the Union side of the Civil War. Some of them followed a fiery leader, William O’Donahue, and attacked the British in Canada. After those battles were over O’Donahue settled in Rosemount, where his grave now lies, and his most valued soldiers married and raised families in and around St. Paul, teaching their sons to be fierce fighters in the tradition of the Na Fianna, the ancient warriors of Ireland after whom the Fenians are named.
After a lifetime of war and witnessing the unjust violence against the Dakota people, these soldiers of O’Donahue went to their graves having passed on a warrior spirit that survived in their grandsons----”Danny” Dan O’Malley, “Murderer” McCrea, “Malicious” Mark McMilseán, Ryan “The Hook” O’Neal, “Kid” Callahan, “Mad” Matt O’Hara, and “Cunning” Connor Conroy----who have decided to meet up at Harriet Island on the Mississippi River in the heart of St. Paul to see who is the best fighter from Ireland.
Witness “Kid” Callahan, who used to look up to the older “Danny” Dan O’Malley, try to take his head off in a grueling grudge match pitting the young up-and-comer against the crafty veteran. Watch the tremendous evasive footwork and counterpunching techniques of “Malicious” Mark McMilseán, who perfected the “Irish Shuffle” at traditional step dance parties, take on the knockout power of Ryan “the Hook” O’Neal, whose left hook has been known to drop whoever it touches. You’ll also see “Kid” Callahan take on the maniacal “Murderer” McCrea, whose long, powerful arms are known as the “lead pipes” of the ring. Not to be out shined by the young Callahan, “Mad” Matt O’Hara takes on “Danny” Dan O’Malley to prove that he too can battle with the best of the veterans, while O’Malley confidently enters the ring with anyone who dares challenge. Finally, “Murderer” McCrea is intent on employing his bullying tactics against the much smaller McMilseán, and before the weekend is over, one of them will be challenged by the precocious youngster, “Cunning” Connor Conroy, who believes his small size and speed will combine with his tremendous smarts to outbox and outpunch any of these fighters.
In the summer of 1908 the United States are still developing and the challenges are many among Minnesotans. International events in the next few years will develop into a world war, and these descendants of Fenian grandfathers are themselves secretly assisting efforts that in eight years will result in the Easter Rebellion in Ireland. But this weekend they will fight their hearts out to decide who among them is the true Ard Rí “Hi King” of Irish Boxing.
Mark Connor Writing Experience
B.A. English, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, December 1991
~Freelance Journalist in Twin Cities market (St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN) since 1997 with concentration on feature length articles ranging from political and social news to sports and business.
~Currently revising the rough draft of a novel and will eventually return to revising an original play for which a developmental workshop was produced by Trú Rúts Endeavors, a Twin Cities based arts organization, in April 2003.
Some publications that have featured writing by Mark Connor:
~The Ring Magazine
Wrote the Ringside Report on the March 6, 1999 IBF Junior Flyweight title fight, Will Grigsby vs. Carmelo Caceres
Other boxing features published in----
~MinnesotaBoxing.com (Narrative of assisting Raul Gracia's corner at Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL, July 2006, )
~St. Paul Almanac (2007-2008, along with features on other St. Paul subjects)
~Pulse of the Twin Cities
~Asian Pages
~Public relations announcement for Grigsby's Minneapolis title defense, March 1999, KMOJ Radio, Minneapolis
~Public Relations for Raúl Gracia's short career, April 2005 through November 2006
Some publications not related to boxing include:
~Upsize Minnesota May 2005—September 2008, periodically published feature articles profiling Minnesota businesses, including cover article and another feature in September, 2008
~The Irish Gazette (Irish cultural and historical)
~Minnesota Monthly, August 2000
~Pulse of the Twin Cities (Metropolitan Weekly) and Southside Pride (neighborhood monthly), wrote regular feature articles, cover articles, and calendar announcements from July 1997 through September 2003
Journalistic Employment:
~Felien Publishing January through May, 2001 (Pulse of the Twin Cities/Southside Pride) Interim Assistant Managing editor of Pulse, a Minneapolis-based alternative weekly of politics, music, art and culture, and Interim Managing Editor of Southside Pride, a neighborhood monthly with three separate editions covering different sections of South Minneapolis
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