Lionel Rose dies at 62

[RonPrice]

LIONEL ROSE

AUSTRALIAN boxing great Lionel Rose died today at age 62. Rose began his professional boxing career on 9 September 1969 the week I went back to the teaching profession in southern Ontario at the age of 25. My life of fighting was nothing like that of Lionel Rose. This bantamweight champion had 53 fights for 42 wins and was one of Australia’s greatest sporting legends. His close friend Jeff Fenech was shattered when told of his passing tonight. ''Lionel was not only a great fighter but a wonderful human being,” Fenech said. ''He was an absolute legend and I was honoured to know him as a friend.” Rose’s wife Jenny was too upset to talk when contacted last night.

Rose beat Japan's Fighting Harada in Tokyo in February 1968 to win the world bantamweight title and in doing so became the first Aboriginal to win a world title. At the time I was fighting for my psychological life among 15 Inuit kids in a grade 3 class on Baffin Island, a pioneer post for the Canadian Baha'i community. On Rose’s return to Australia with the title belt, he was greeted by more than 100,000 people outside Melbourne's Town Hall. Rose was made Australian of the Year that same year. His death today made it a bitter-sweet day for Australian boxing, coming on the day Daniel Geale became only the fourth Australian boxer to win a world title overseas, joining Rose, Jeff Harding and Jimmy Carruthers in claiming the honour.

Rose was born into poverty at Jackson's Track, near Warragul in country Victoria on June 21 1948 and started boxing aged 10. I was four years old at the time and living beside Lake Ontario in a lower middle class Caucasian family. By 15, in 1963, Rose was the Australian amateur flyweight champion and I was just starting university battling my first episodes of bipolar disorder. Four years later he was world champion and I was living among the Inuit in my first year as a teacher. In the 70s Rose became a recording artist and had two hits with I Thank You and Please Remember Me. In the 1970s my career finally blossomed in the teaching profession.

Rose suffered a stroke in 2007 that left him partially paralysed and with speech difficulties. I, on the other hand, was finally getting my meds package sorted out for what I hoped would be a long life ahead. But, of course, only time would tell.-Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 8 May 2011.

I hardly knew you, Lionel,
although I’ve had a very
general interest in boxing
since the early 1950s with my
father. I wish you well, Lionel
in that land of lights to which..
I trust you have now gone with
your ancestors of your dreaming.

Ron Price
8 May 2011
__________________
married for 42 years, a teacher for 35 and a Baha'i for 52