By John F. McKenna (McJack): Jack lost the Lightweight Title to rugged Bob Montgomery in a razor thin decision on March 3, 1943 then won it back again on November 19, 1943. He lost the title again to Montgomery in 1944 then both he and Montgomery entered the Army as privates. Shortly after entering the Army, Jack and Montgomery fought an exhibition at the Garden to raise money for the war effort.
They raised 35 million dollars in war bonds, a fantastic amount of money for the time. Both fighters donated their entire purse to the war effort. “That was for the country I live in,” said Jack after winning the fight, adding “That was the proudest thing that could happen to me.”
After World War II Beau Jack’s skills as a fighter began to erode, partly because of the “Battle Royal’s” he had participated in as a kid and partly due to his crowd pleasing style of fighting. He had absorbed a tremendous amount of punishment as a fighter. He had three matches with another World War II legend Ike Williams, one of which was an epic draw. Although Beau was in the best of condition for the inevitable rematch with Williams, he still lost. Beau Jack continued to fight until 1951, his fighting skills steadily eroding. After Jack’s retirement he opened a drive through barbecue in Augusta, which he ran for four years before attempting a comeback, which almost all fighters do after their skills have long since vanished. The comeback was short lived.
Beau Jack eventually began shining shoes again, this time at the Fontainebleau in Miami.
Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon paid a visit to Jack one day at the shoe shine stand. Some people recognized him and still called him champ. Others referred to him as boy.
Cannon was quoted as saying that “There was never more of a man than Beau Jack.”
Legend has it that Rocky Marciano saw this once great fighter shining shoes and was horrified at the spectacle. Some say this incident contributed to Marciano’s paranoia about money and the efforts he took to ensure that what happened to Beau Jack did not happen to him.
Although fortune turned against him and he was forced to go back to shining shoes, Beau Jack never complained. “I’ve been to the top of the mountain. I was Champion of the World,” he told the New York Times in 2000.
After his retirement, Beau Jack campaigned heavily to develop a pension plan for retired fighters. He did not want other fighters to endure what he had having to shine shoes to eke out a living after his boxing career was over.
In his later years Beau Jack suffered from pugilistic Parkinson’s disease, the disease that would eventually kill him and the same disease that afflicts Muhammad Ali and also afflicted the late Joe Louis. Beau Jack died on February 9, 2000.
At Augusta where it all began there are no statues, there are no plaques on the wall and nothing to acknowledge this great fighter and individual who got his start here. Like Joe Louis before him, he donated huge amounts of money to a country that was in dire straits during those dark days of World War II. Nothing can be done now to right the wrongs that were done to Beau Jack in his youth. It would be nice however, if Augusta National gave some recognition to his accomplishments and for his huge contribution during World War II.
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