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Former referee opens boxing gym

How would you like to get in the boxing ring for 12 rounds with the greats at their peak -- Mike Tyson, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler?

Richard Steele has done it time and again. Not as an opponent but as the fight's referee, something he did for roughly 30 years.

He now owns and operates the Richard Steele Boxing Club at 2475 W. Cheyenne Ave., Suite 110, in North Las Vegas. Steele and his wife, Gladys, live in Henderson and have four grown children.

His last refereeing bout matched Floyd Mayweather against an older Zab Judah , a fight Steele classified as "no contest. The first three rounds were good, and then he (Mayweather) turned it up. He's a master."

Steele grew up in Los Angeles and began boxing in the U.S. Marine Corps. In 1963 and 1964, he was All Marine Corps Champion.

"Boxing is all you," he said. "There's no one throwing a block for you, no one pinch-hitting for you. It's just you."

He competed in the 1964 Olympic trials, but one of his teammates, Ken Norton, who went on to become world heavyweight champion, got the Olympic nod for the Marine Corps team instead. Steele went into professional fighting. At 6 feet 1 inch tall and 172 pounds, he was a light-heavyweight but often fought heavyweights.

"I was fighting guys who were 220," he said. "I was asking for trouble."

Trouble came during a fight when he missed blocking a hit that smashed into his torso. Three of Steele's ribs were broken, but he answered the bell to continue fighting. Three rounds later, the referee, Joey Olmos, sensed something was wrong and came over to his corner. Olmos learned of Steele's injury and called the fight off.

It took six weeks to heal. Steele entered the training ring again and re-broke the ribs almost immediately. Six weeks later, he took a hit that broke them again.

Enough was enough. Steele left the sport as a boxer with an amateur record of 21-4 and a professional record of 16-4 with 12 knockouts and the bragging rights of having never been knocked out.

It was the end of his fighting career but the beginning of another. Soon after Steele retired from the ring, he received a call from Olmos, now with the California State Athletic Commission . Olmos asked him to become a referee.

Steele was only the second black referee to be appointed. Ronald Reagan was the governor of the state at the time and presented Steele with his license.

To remain unbiased, Steele stopped hanging around gyms and stopped discussing fighters.

"I didn't even let my kids play with (any boxer's) kids," he said.

For the next three decades, he was in the ring for all the big matches in the boxing world such as Marvin Hagler versus Thomas Hearns, and Sugar Ray Leonard's 1987 comeback where he beat Hagler. Steele refereed five title bouts with former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

He went on to referee 167 world title fights, more than any current or past referee.

"Refereeing was the most important thing I ever had," he said. "It gave me what I was looking for my whole life. ... I felt I'd accomplished something."

His career took him to see the world, but he refused to referee any bouts in South Africa, a personal protest against apartheid. It earned him special recognition in 1999 from Nelson Mandela, then-president of South Africa.

Regrets? He's had a few. Steele stopped a fight in the 12th round with two seconds to go, in which Meldrick Taylor took a beating from Julio Cesar Chavez . The ring doctor later called him to say he'd probably saved the fighter's life, that four pints of blood were pumped out of Taylor's stomach. There was also brain damage that showed up later in Taylor.

"I wish I'd stopped it in the fourth round," Steele said.

Lanell Bellows is one of the aspiring fighters at Steele's facility. What's Steele's best advice?

"Stay focused and the hard work will pay off," Bellows said.

Steele helps train fighters by day and youngsters by evening. His gym is home to the Richard Steele Health and Wellness Community Center, a program to keep children out of gangs, learn self-esteem and see that they stay in school. It provides tutoring, health-awareness and a drug prevention program.

Alonzo Jones is a 10th-degree black belt and COO of the program. He teaches martial arts training. Jones said that Steele teaches by example not to smoke, take drugs or drink alcohol.

"I think kids understand his stardom," he said. "The younger ones, only moderately, but they understand his heart for them, for their families."

What's it like, being at Steele's gym?

"It's an opportunity to train under history," Bellows said.

For more information, visit steeleboxing.com.

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.

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