Not long before his title defense, when the standards of his profession dictated that he should be spitting fire and threatening destruction, Cory Spinks told Alvin A. Reid of the American that he cried when he heard about the historic response of St. Louis to his upcoming fight.
Cory cried n and told us that he did.
No one made a fuss about it, and Alvin didn’t exploit it in his piece, but it struck me. This young man, a world boxing champion with his title on the line, told a reporter from his local community paper n and, by extension, all of black St. Louis and anyone trying to follow news of his fight n that he had just wept.
In the schoolyard, in the street, in most sports dominated by men, they call that weakness, or worse.
Therefore, I call it courage. I call it courageous to show or admit emotion in the macho, dangerous world of boxing.
Those of us who value boxing as a vivid test of manhood were reminded by Cory Spinks that real men n tough men n cry.
I was on the floor of the Savvis Center last Friday afternoon before the weigh-in. I came down to get a media credential and stayed to pick up a parking pass. I didn’t plan to do any reporting but couldn’t help but soak in the atmosphere of the boxing ring waiting for its fighters the following night and perhaps 100 journalists and officials waiting for a boxing ritual.
When the Spinks team entered the room, dressed in light blue sweats and St. Louis Cardinals baseball hats, no one made a fuss. We were in the middle of a long media cycle, and the reporters were there for the weigh-in. No one needed or expected to bag any color or quotes. So no one approached Cory.
Neither did I, though we happened to be standing very near one another when something unexpected happened. His father, the boxing legend Leon Spinks, walked out onto the floor of the Savvis Center.
No one was working yet. Notebooks were jammed into pants pockets and cameras were slung over shoulders. No one even noticed that Leon Spinks was in the house n Cory didn’t even see him, at first n but I did.
And I watched with great surprise as Cory and Leon Spinks nearly ran into one another, and nearly ran into me in the process of doing so.
For one, long moment, only three people in the world knew that father and son were having an unexpected reunion on the floor of the Savvis Center, and I was one of them.
I alone saw the look on Cory Spinks’ face when he set his eyes upon his dad.
His eyes got very wide, and very wet. Then he ducked one shoulder and gave the old man a hug that only a little boy can give to his dad.
Cory held the hug for a moment, like a fighter who needs to steady himself and clear his head after taking a shot. I guessed that he was trying to fight back those tears, which he surely did not intend to share with a roomful of photographers.
It worked. When he pulled out of the hug, his face was set again. Sure enough, he was instantly set upon by several dozen photographers. They all knew they could use a fresh photo of this particular father and son together.
There aren’t too many photos in the files of Cory and Leon Spinks together, and this might help explain the emotion I saw in Cory’s eyes.
Cory Spinks may have cried a different kind of tear late Saturday night. No one in this city would blame him if he did. More than 20,000 people would have been willing to offer him a shoulder for that tear and a hug bigger than the Savvis Center.
Big sporting events come and go, records are made to be broken, someone will someday stage a bigger title fight than Spinks-Judah II, and there will be other boxing champions, even other boxing dynasties, from St. Louis, but the ultimate human story is the family drama, and that, too, was part of this unforgettable event, and I alone saw it in the eyes of Cory Spinks when he saw his dad on the floor of the Savvis Center.
