The Roman Catholic High School Alum Who Beat The Champ
By Chris Gibbons
Originally published in the September 25, 2014 Philadelphia Inquirer
Atlantic City – September 11, 1926. The kid from Philadelphia looked across the ring at the much feared and seemingly indestructible heavyweight champion, Jack Dempsey, and for the first time in his boxing career he was visibly nervous. Although it was only a sparring session to help Dempsey prepare for his upcoming title defense vs. Gene Tunney in Philadelphia, Tommy Loughran knew of Dempsey’s fearsome reputation for routinely knocking out his sparring partners. “In the corner, (my trainer) looked at me and said, `What the hell’s the matter with you, Tommy?”, Loughran recounted in a 1979 Sports Illustrated article by Sam Moses. “I can’t understand you. You never get excited about fights.’ “I said, `Joe, this isn’t just a fight.’ “`Don’t worry, Tommy,’ he said, `you’ll knock his block off.’ “I said, `Joe. I sure wish I had your confidence.’
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My continuing search for the alumni of Roman Catholic High School who fought in World War I not only revealed the incredible story of Thomas “Tommy” Loughran from the Class of 1920, but it also enlightened me to a remarkable time in Philadelphia’s history when our city was buzzing with excitement.
By September 1926, Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial International Exposition, celebrating our country’s 150th anniversary, had hosted millions of visitors, and preparations for one of the biggest sporting events in our nation’s history were in high gear. On September 23, 1926, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney would meet for the heavyweight championship in front of a record crowd of 130,000 in Philadelphia’s new Sesquicentennial Stadium, later known as JFK Stadium. The result of that fight signaled the beginning of the end for a legendary, larger-than-life sports personality, but it was a little known sparring session just a few weeks before that foretold the fight’s outcome, and led to the rise of one of the greatest fighters in Philadelphia’s rich boxing history.
The son of Irish immigrants, Loughran was born and raised in South Philadelphia as a member of Saint Monica’s parish. At the beginning of his sophomore year at Roman in 1917, Loughran, just 14 years old, was eager to fight for his country in World War I, and enlisted in the Army without revealing his age. It was many months before the Army realized Loughran’s age and released him from the armed services. Rather than return to school, he found work with a neighborhood blacksmith and also began to hone his boxing skills in the gym. Loughran built an impressive record through the mid-1920’s, and was known for his great footwork, speed, and accurate counter-punching. His style was similar to Tunney’s, and Dempsey personally requested Loughran to spar with him in preparation for the big title fight.
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In the first round of the sparring session, Loughran’s footwork and quickness enabled him to avoid Dempsey’s relentless onslaught and his confidence grew. “He couldn’t hit me to save his life, see, and it made him furious”, Loughran recalled in the SI article. “Ooh, was he mad. I’d stay against the ropes and say, `Let’s see if you can hit me, Jack.’ I’d go this way, then I’d go that way; next time he came at me I’d step back, he’d step forward. I’d step back another way. He didn’t know what to do.”
Emboldened by his first round performance, Loughran became more aggressive in the second round and began to land his combinations. “I let him have it on the nose”, Loughran said. “Blood squirted in all directions. He stepped back and cussed me out loud, and when he did, I grabbed him and turned him around and put him up against the ropes. Gees, I poured it on him, I gave him such a beating. I hit him in the belly, hit him with uppercuts, hit him with a hook, caught him with another. I had his eyes puffy, his nose was bleeding, he was spitting out blood. I had him cut under the chin, and I think his ear was bleeding. I don’t know whatever held him up. He always came tearing back in, no matter how hard I hit him.”
Dempsey’s corner stopped the sparring session before their fighter could absorb more punishment. The sportswriters and spectators were stunned. Two weeks later, Gene Tunney used that same combination of footwork, speed, and accurate counter-punching to defeat Jack Dempsey and become the new heavyweight champion. Paul Gallico, the renowned N.Y Daily News sportswriter, reported after the title fight that Loughran “wrote Dempsey’s finish in letters large enough for all of us to see, except that we, too, were blinded by our own ballyhoo and the great Dempsey legend that we had helped to create.”
Loughran would go on to win the light heavyweight championship the following year, and successfully defend it 6 times before vacating it to fight as a heavyweight. He eventually fought for the heavyweight title and lost by decision to Primo Carnera, but his boxing career was truly extraordinary. Loughran had 169 total bouts and fought many middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight champions in his career, including Harry Greb, Jack Sharkey, and Gene Tunney. As a light heavyweight, Loughran defeated two future world heavyweight champions: Max Baer and James J. Braddock. He was The Ring Magazine’s Fighter of the Year in 1929 and 1931, and he was elected to the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame in 1956.
Tommy Loughran died in 1982, and there is a Historic Marker at 17th and Ritner in South Philly in his honor. He was posthumously inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991, and he is often ranked among the Top 5 Light Heavyweights of All Time by boxing historians.
The stories that I have uncovered in my search for the alumni of Roman Catholic High School who fought in World War I not only inspire me and my fellow alums, but they also seem to resonate with many Philadelphians. In 1979, Tommy Loughran reflected on that long forgotten sparring session against the great Jack Dempsey, and his words from the SI article not only revealed the key to his eventual success, but they also serve as a reminder to all of us as to how we should confront life’s seemingly insurmountable obstacles: “Those two rounds with Dempsey gave me confidence in myself. I learned an important lesson that day: never to be defeated by fear.”
Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. He can be reached at gibbonscg@aol.com
More stories of notable Roman Catholic High School alumni, famous Philadelphians, WW I veterans, as well as an entire chapter chronicling the author’s search for the Roman Catholic High School alumni who fought and died in the Great War, can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below: