Page 1 - Gordie MacDougall, Boxer: My Life

ISSUE : Issue 57

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1991/6/1

Gordie MacDougall, Boxer: My Life From Conversations with John Cochrane and Cape Breton's Magazine INTRODUCTION: This is more than a boxing story. Gordie MacDougall of South Bar was a boxer. He had 67 fights, 4 losses, 3 draws. IHe was also a seaman, and a man who spent some time down on his luck. He always fought his way back up. Today Gordie lives under what he calls "a death sen? tence." He has ALS, a dis? ease doctors call Ameo- trophic Lateral Sclerosis but which most of us know as "Lou Gehrig's disease." Gor? die was born June 16,1934. We visited with Gordie and Shirley MacDougall. We asked Gordie, "How did you get started boxing?" Gordie MacDougall: I got started main? ly through a good friend of mine, went to high school together--Ernie MacKinnon. He was a heck of a good fighter. He was fighting at the time. So he used to ask me to go down to--they had a hall down by his place, down Low Point So the two of us would go in the hall, we*d put an old alarm clock on the chair. Only two of us in the hall. We'd set the alarm clock to go off in maybe 3 (min? utes) , some rounds would be 5. And we'd box. He kept after me, "Come on. Come on to the gym with me." So then I finally-- "Yeah," I said, "okay, I'll go in the gym with you." John Nemis had the Police Club then. When they weren't working out there, I could go down to the Strand Gym. Then from there, next, you know, they'd coax me, "Come on" --fighting. So I did, and I started box? ing. So poor Ernie got killed in the mean? time, in a car accident. Coming home from work one night from the pit--killed in a single-car accident--rolled the car on a turn coming home. That kind of set us. me and Johnny Nemis, back quite a bit, be? cause I lost one of the best friends I ev? er had in Ernie MacKinnon. So I laid off boxing for 6 months or so. Then I started her up again real sincere, GORDIE CONTINUES ON NEXT PAGE Cape Breton's MAGAZINE • Number Fifty-Seven Wreck Cove, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia BOC IHO Second Class Mail Registration Number 3014

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