A Boxing Lesson from SJS Coach Dee Portal
Scotts Valley, CA, Library
Coach Dewitt (Dee) Alfred Portal coached at San Jose State from 1934 until his untimely death in 1953.
A San Jose High School graduate, he was ASB [Associated Student Body] president while attending SJS. During one summer, perhaps his first while coaching at SJS, he directed the Community Club in Fort Bragg, California. [The Community Club was like the current Boys & Girls Clubs in that it was coed and had basketball courts, a swimming pool, and, almost certainly when Portal was there, a boxing ring.] Portal said he would be starting a boxing team in 1937 at SJS and encouraged my father to attend San Jose State.
Because the lumber mills were closed during the Depression my father worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, where he was lucky indeed that his unit had a poor cook, for one of his co-workers told the Sargent in charge of their unit that my father could cook. [His Finnish mother decided that her 5 boys would learn to cook along with her 5 girls.] I'm not sure when the lumber mills re-opened, but in 1936 he enrolled at SJS, where he joined the boxing team.
A lightweight (130 lbs), he boxed in some Golden Glove Tournaments. He said he used to carry an article in his wallet from a San Jose newspaper [the Herald or the Mercury] which stated that he was a promising lightweight boxer with a good left jab.
However, some time after 1936, while sparring with Portal, a middleweight (150 lbs), that jab created problems. He apparently caught Portal on the "beak" with a couple of good jabs. Portal "bulled" him into a corner of the ring and proceeded to work on his body. And when my dad tried to escape from the corner Portal used his shoulders to keep him in the corner. And it was beginning hurt.
But the body blows were to be expected since my father had never been knocked out in a fight.
Someone finally said, "Knock it off, Coach." But Portal continued working over his cornered victim.
Finally, that someone put his glove on Portal's shoulder and said, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" The glove belong to the Team Captain, Stan Griffin, a light heavyweight who went on to be the first of San Jose State's several PCI [Pacific Coast Intercollegiate] and/or NCAA champions.
That ended the boxing lesson; Griffin had been the 1937 Long Beach Coast Champion. [During WWII he was a pilot who may have "flown the Hump." After the war he was a pilot for TWA until retirement.]
The last NCAA Boxing Champion was Stu Bartell, who had boxed in the navy as a light heavyweight but fought for SJS as a middleweight. He defeated Charlie Mohr with a strong right hand to the head in the 2d Round. While Mohr said he was OK the referee stopped the fight when it was clear he could not win. [See Links below.] I met Bartell when he joined Tau Delta Phi, the Mens's Scholastic Honorary Fraternity in 1960 or 1961. Clearly he had done well in more than his PE classes. Not sure if he was married at the time, but he didn't join the rest of us when we adjourned to a bar near the post office to imbibe. He was clearly smarter than the rest of us who were still recovering the next day during our early classes.
There are several links below which indicated how strong SJS's boxing program was. The Spring 2013 issue of the Herald, a San Jose High School publication, stated that Portal's boxers won five NCAA championships, 2 AAU titles, and an Olympic gold medal. When Portal was killed while repairing his tractor in September 1953 his long-time assistant Julie Menendez took over the program and made it even more dominant. A baseball and basketball coach at Santa Cruz High School said that the turnout for the AllComers Meets, which featured both experienced and inexperienced boxers and wrestlers, usually filled the Civic Auditorium.
Links:
Routes:
- Su 16 Oct Actual Route: DWLs - SV Lib - SV $ Tree - S/W - DWLs
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- Th 20 Oct Actual Route: DWLs - Aptos Lib - Salinas W/M - Marina W/M - DWLs
- F 21 Oct Actual Route: DWLs - SV Lib - $ Tree - DWLs
- Sa 22 Oct Actual Route: DWLs - SV Lib - WHLs - DWLs
- Su 23 Oct Actual Route: DWLs
- M 24 Oct Actual Route: DWLs - E.Cliff $ Tree - SV Lib - DWLs
- T 25 Oct Route: DWLs - SV Lib - DWLs
- W 26 Oct Actual Route: DWLs - Aptos Lib - Gilroy W/M - San Jose - DWLs
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