From the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries, boxing was one of the most popular sports in the United States, generating journalistic attention and crowds that sometimes surpassed those for football and baseball. Pugilism, as it was once known, was especially popular among immigrant Catholics.

As late as the 1970s, boxing saturated U.S. Catholic culture. There were parish boxing clubs and matches sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, sermons about boxing by prominent bishops, and boxing columns in Catholic periodicals. Boxing lessons were common in parish schools, and priests served as trainers at all levels of the sport, a few working with titleholders like Sonny Liston and Joe Louis. The prominence of devout Catholic titleholders like Rocky Marciano, Gene Tunney and Floyd Patterson was a particular source of pride. Bishop Bernard Sheil founded the Catholic Youth Organization in 1930 to promote athletic and spiritual discipline among Chicago’s delinquent youth, primarily by training them to box. And since 1931, students at the University of Notre Dame—home of the Fighting Irish—have raised money for missions in present-day Bangladesh through an annual series of boxing matches known as the Bengal Bouts.

Read the entire article from America – The Jesuit Review here.

Dr. Robin Hardin, Professor

Sport Management

University of Tennessee

865-974-1281

@drrobhardin