THEY’RE IN HIS CORNER : McCoy Still Manages to Earn His Fighters’ Respect, Honestly

Away from the ring, people would never guess that Jack McCoy is a fight manager. The old “What’s My Line” panel would have gone down for the count.

The quiet man from Orange County is much less a throwback to the stereotypical Burgess Meredith of “Rocky” than he is an example of the age of enlightenment that regards fighters as something more than subhuman. The difference is that the others are still coming around to what has been McCoy’s way for 36 years.

In a sport that certainly has its seamy side, McCoy has managed to walk through a mudslinging contest in a white tuxedo without collecting a spot. And while he may live with his family in the wholesome suburbia of El Toro instead of a walk-up flat on Main Street, he doesn’t avoid the infighting.

McCoy, 63, has always been a working manager, not only negotiating matches and finessing careers but patching cuts, passing the slop buckets and showing up at the gym for workouts every day, even when his fighters don’t.

His way has produced five world champions, most of whom enjoyed undisputed recognition before the alphabetical confusion of today. All will attend the professional matches at the Irvine Marriott tonight on “Jackie McCoy Night” to express their gratitude to the man to whom they owe various measures of their self-esteem.

For McCoy and three of the former fighters--Mando Ramos, Raul Rojas and Don Jordan--it’s not really a reunion. They see each other frequently on the Wilmington-San Pedro waterfront where they all work as longshoremen.

The other two live farther away. Carlos Palomino, now an actor, lives in Topanga Canyon. Rodolfo Gonzalez works for San Diego County in the rehabilitation of hard-core criminals.

One theme runs through their tributes to McCoy: honesty. Apparently, it’s a rare commodity in McCoy’s line of work.

“I don’t think it’s that rare,” McCoy said. “But it’s nice that they say that. I try to be that way.”

A look at McCoy’s champions:

Don Jordan, welterweight champion, 1958-60 (career record 50-20-1, 17 knockouts).

McCoy says of his first champion: “He had great natural ability but abused it. Right after winning the title he was arrested for drunk driving. And then he was arrested for marijuana. He wouldn’t train too much.”

Jordan is not offended by McCoy’s frank assessment.

“He tries to see that his guys do right,” Jordan said. “Gives them a lot of fatherly advice on how to take care of themselves. If a guy can’t fight, he’ll tell him the truth. Other managers won’t do that. As long as they can make a buck off a guy, they don’t care.”

Raul Rojas, World Boxing Assn. featherweight champion, 1968 (38-7-2, 24 KO).

Rojas lost the title in his first defense.

McCoy said he was “a tough guy. He could punch. But he didn’t have the dedication. As soon as he started making a few bucks he started drinking and not training. That’s what kept him from doing better than he did.”

Rojas concedes: “We used to give him a hard time. He’d get really disgusted with us.”

Us? In 1968 Rojas and Ramos signed for a championship doubleheader at the Coliseum, Rojas to defend his featherweight title and Ramos to challenge for the lightweight crown. McCoy took them to the Saddleback Inn in Santa Ana to train.

Either Rojas or Ramos alone would have been a handful for any manager. Together, they were totally unmanageable.

Rojas: “Jackie (would say), ‘If you’re gonna go out and party, why do it to the kid?’ But I didn’t have to twist his arm to do anything.”

Their double downfall came when the card was postponed because of an opponent’s illness and Rojas took Ramos out on the town.

McCoy went running with the sparring partners at 5:30 the next morning. Rojas and Ramos hadn’t come in yet.

Three weeks later, “We both lost the same night,” Rojas said.

Rojas lost his title to Sho Saijyo of Japan. Ramos lost in his bid for the title against Teo Cruz of Mexico.

Mando Ramos, lightweight champion, 1969-70, 1972 (37-11-1, 23 KO).

Ramos was the most popular fighter in the Los Angeles area since the outrageous Art Aragon, the Golden Boy, and Ramos had more talent. As McCoy groomed him toward the title, Ramos packed the Olympic Auditorium week after week to chants of “Mando! Mando! Mando!”

McCoy: “Mando had more natural ability than any guy I’ve ever been around. He won the world title twice in spite of probably using every drug known to man, besides being a drinker. He was his own worst enemy.

“When he was 16 or 17 years old I thought, ‘Gee, this is a guy you dream about getting.’ He could do everything. But the dream turned out to be more of a nightmare. Couldn’t find him half the time. When he lost the title (the second time) he disappeared completely a week before the fight.

“We were all up in training camp at Banning. We used to try to isolate him, but it didn’t work. Mando would call in when it was about time for him to work out. I remember one day he said, ‘Yeah, I’m at Disneyland, but don’t worry. I’m gonna make the weight.’

“And I said, ‘Make the weight? What the hell is that? I can make the weight. You’re not gonna be able to fight if you don’t train.’ ”

A few days ago Ramos had just gotten off work and was working out at the Wilmington Teen Center where he is deeply involved in the Boxing Against Alcohol and Drugs (BAAD) program. He was on the way to his nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Ramos says he has been drug- and alcohol-free for more than four years.

Now he appreciates not only what McCoy did for him but what McCoy tried to do.

“I idolize the guy,” Ramos said.

“My son is 17. About a month ago he said, ‘I want to fight.’ If he does, I told him, ‘Dad will be your trainer and Jack McCoy will be your manager.’ ”

Rodolfo Gonzalez, World Boxing Council lightweight champion, 1972-74 (61-7, 50 KO).

Gonzalez was already 26 when he came to McCoy after running through several other managers. He had a good record--once he got into the ring--but was notorious for having his fights postponed.

McCoy: “When I got him all the matchmakers said, ‘You’re wasting your time with this guy. He’s the biggest headache.’

“So I told him from the beginning, ‘Hey, Rodolfo, if you’re gonna be with me, the only way you’re ever gonna pull out of a fight is if you break a leg and I can see it’s broken.’ And he says, ‘That’s the way I want it.’

“I never had a problem with the guy. He worked out hard.”

Gonzalez said of McCoy: “He’s a very honest person. You can depend on whatever he says. . . . I’d trust him all the way.”

Carlos Palomino, WBC welterweight champion, 1976-79 (27-3-3, 15 KO).

“Carlos was the easiest guy that I ever had to manage,” McCoy said. “He had good ability and he was super dedicated. If you wanted him to go five miles, he’d run seven miles.”

While campaigning for the title, Palomino earned a degree in recreation from Cal State Long Beach.

Said Palomino: “The first four-round fight I had I got $80 at the Olympic, but he and Noe (co-manager Noe Cruz) didn’t take a cut of my purse until I got into main events.

“He’s never gotten a lot of credit because he’s so quiet. He wants his fighters to be in the limelight and out front. Many times people wanted to interview him and he’d say, ‘Interview Carlos. He’s the fighter.’ ”

McCoy currently has four fighters. One, Jorge (Rocky) Garcia of Placentia (26-7-2) meets Cesar Zepeda (19-6-1) of Mexico City in tonight’s 10-round feature.

The others are Canadian heavyweight Willie DeWitt (17-1-1), an Olympic silver medalist who lives in Anaheim; featherweight Joe Relles of Placentia (25-3) and middleweight Tomas Perez (17-2) of Santa Ana.

He discouraged another young prospect: his son John, 18.

“When he was younger, about 12 years old, I’d take him to the junior fights and he’d say, ‘Ah, man, I could lick those guys.’

“But I didn’t encourage him at all, and finally he just forgot about it. It’s a sport that if I had it to do over again, I’d do it and wish I could do it better. But it isn’t something I’d like to see my son do.”

As a corner craftsman, McCoy also is in demand. He has worked as a cut-repair specialist with several champions and was training Gerry Coetzee when the anti-apartheid South African won the WBA heavyweight title.

McCoy gives credit to others for his success.

When the boxing scene shifted from the old Hollywood Legion Stadium to the Olympic, McCoy rode the crest.

“That was the big reason I wound up doing as well as I did,” he said. “I was always pretty close with the matchmakers--Mickey Davies and later Don Chargin.”

But promoter Aileen Eaton, he says, was the driving force.

“I could never say enough good about her. Promoting fights is the toughest business in the world. She not only kept it going when times were good, but she hung in there when times were bad.

“There’s no way I could have developed some of those fighters without her.”