San Francisco, CA– Some local emailed me and was hot over the fact that some change has taken place in the Northern Calif. USA Boxing. To the chagrin of some, the aghast of many, last year the California Attorney General Jerry Brown had his office shutdown amateur boxing statewide. This lasted but a few weeks. Having watched people throw close to $90,000 in Lawyers fees to right the wrong that was the status quo here, and then watch them fail, I felt that any change couldn’t be much worse.
WATCHED STATE ATTORNEY FUMBLE BOXING BALL
The real change never happened as a hapless appointee of Brown’s predecessor, California State Attorney Kelvin Gong never got any grasp of what boxing was and how some had perverted it in this locale. And while I never threw myself behind any persons, again, and I’m not being redundant, but any change up here would be for the good. If proven that the new group is flawed or compromised like some of those ousted, then they can be voted out.
FIDEL CASTRO WOULD BE PROUD
Before the Attorney General got involved, North Calif. USA Boxing President Sonny Marson had the election rigged in that there were more “at large members” appointed by Marson, whom each had a vote, this gave Sonny more votes than there were individual clubs. Sonny, much like Fidel Castro, could never lose an election until Gong took action after the Lenny Albert vs. North Calif USA Boxing case. Need an example of the chicanery or something downright criminal? Question for ex-treasurer, the late Fran Jones: “Can you account for the $105,000 in checks that you wrote to cash?” Instead of answering, she broke down.
CHANGE DIDN’T COME SOON ENOUGH FOR MANY RAN OFF
You guys that are ticked at the change, I saw how much stuff Ernest “Sonny” Marson wrote off to the Nor Cal USA Boxing. Filling us Cadillac weekly, his phone bill, airline and hotel bills, restaurant receipts, I can go on, but I think those of you that are still here realize that much. Some of the jilted say that Sonny was no longer in control, yeah, technically, but he had the Olympic club gig and that was worth upwards to $15,000 to Sonny’s boxing club. When asked by ABC TV 7’s Dan Noyes how many boxers did he have in his club, Sonny stumbled before saying “None.”
HOSTED AN AMATEUR EVEN A FORTNIGHT AGO
Having MC’d the fifth annual “Hilltop Cup” featuring collegiate pugilists at the University of San Francisco, I can say that the officials are basically the same ones I work with year and year out, Bob Schneider, Mike Mercado, Marty Sammon, to name a few. In closing, I don’t care if they brought Sarah Palin in here to run the amateurs, and I don’t like her either, yet I would vote to put her in charge, that’s how bad the tentacles that led eventually to Sonny Marson needed to be cut!
Pedro Fernandez