Boone: Tom Lovgren, keeper of state's boxing history, was fighter and treasure himself
Sep 1, 2017Two years before he co-promoted Joe Frazier’s heavyweight title defense against Ron Stander, Tom Lovgren persuaded Cy Young Award winner Dean Chance to bring Earnie Shavers to fight in Omaha.Stander-Shavers made sense, Lovgren told Chance, who was managing arguably the hardest puncher of all time while he was pitching for the Minnesota Twins. Lovgren, of course, downplayed the ability of Stander (9-0), selling Chance on the idea of Shavers (12-1) knocking out an unbeaten fighter on the road.And, for a short time, it looked like that might happen. Shavers beat Stander up in the first three rounds.“For a while there, it looked like I was going to have to move out of town,” Lovgren often told me.That wasn’t necessary. Stander rallied to knock Shavers out in the fifth round on May 11, 1970. Two years and two weeks later, “The Bluffs Butcher” met “Smokin’ Joe” for the heavyweight championship.The story of the Stander-Shavers fight is one of my favorites of the hundreds Lovgren told. Nebraska’s boxing historian, 78, died early Tuesday. He had battled multiple sclerosis for most of his life.I met Lovgren and his wife, Jeaninne, at an outdoor boxing event at Abbott Sports Complex in Lincoln in July 2005. I recognized Tom from his bio on the Nebraska State Athletic Commission’s website, which features some of the work he had done over the years to chronicle the history of boxing in our state.We quickly became friends. That night, the Lovgrens invited me to look through Tom’s extensive compilation of boxing material, which includes a Ring magazine collection that dates back to its early years, countless photos and clippings, and tons of information passed on by former World-Herald sports editor Wally Provost. Tom and Wally are members of the Great Plains Amateur Boxing Hall of Fame.In addition to chronicling Nebraska boxing history dating back to the 1890s, Lovgren authored a pair of booklets — one on Stander and another on brothers Art and Ferd Hernandez. He claimed Art was the best fighter from Nebra... (Omaha World-Herald)
