Punch brothers

Don Landry had already done more in sports than most people could imagine.

He was a fantastic basketball coach for Nicholls State and later that school’s athletic director. Ultimately, he was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame. Landry was the commissioner of the Southland and Sunshine State conferences, executive director of the National Cutting Horse Association, and, before he finally retired, director of special projects for the Texas Rangers.

But way back when, as a student at Cathedral in Lafayette, Landry was a boxer who lettered for the first time as a 90-pounder in the eighth grade. He claims he was no good, but he never forgot how huge the sport once was in Louisiana.

After moving to Baton Rouge so he and his wife could be with their four sons and 12 grandchildren, Landry got to work researching his first athletic love, and from his efforts came the new book Boxing: Louisiana’s Forgotten Sport.

It’s a history of high school and college boxing in our state and, frankly, it is news to most under the age of 60.

“When I started, I knew LSU had great teams, and my alma mater (Louisiana-Lafayette), which was called SLI at the time, had teams, and that there were eight colleges in Louisiana that had teams,” Landry says. “But it was really big on the high-school level,” he adds, noting that there was prep boxing from 1931, starting in the Depression and ending in 1958 in Louisiana. After football, it was the “second-most popular sport in the state, and at many of the really small schools more kids boxed,” he says.

Landry was beyond meticulous in his research and gathering of old black-and-white photos. He immersed himself in the project, reconnecting with many of the guys he saw at boxing reunions. The book is historical in nature but interesting and enlightening all the same.

“The reason I wrote the book was the younger generation or people who have moved in had no knowledge of the rich history,” he says, smiling. He contemplates some of the Louisiana legends of the sport, including former Lt. Gov. Bobby Freeman.

“It meant a lot to these older boxers,” Landry says. “They’re very proud that this book came out.”