Sport: Blacks to Berlin

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Last week after months of milling & mauling in qualifying tournaments sponsored by the U. S. Army, the National Amateur Athletic Union, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Chicago Tribune, 16 top-notch amateur boxers trooped into the Chicago Stadium to fight it out for the eight National Golden Gloves titles. Since a title automatically carried with it a place on the U. S. Olympic boxing team, 19,000 fight fans paid $33,000 to see these fisticuffs. Though they witnessed no knockouts, they received their money's worth, watching: ¶ The 118-lb. championship match which Jackie Wilson, a six-foot Negro bootblack won simply because his pint-sized opponent could not reach his face. ¶ The 147-lb. title bout which Negro Howell King won despite the unholy booing of partisan spectators who thought he had overcome Chicago's own Chester Rutecki by low punches. ¶ The 160-lb. championship contest which went to Negro Jimmy Clark, who was so enraged at the continued booing that he floored his Syracuse University opponent for a count of nine in the first round. ¶ The 175-lb. bout won by Creighton University's Footballer Carl Vinciquerra, who beat to a pulp the handsome face of plucky, tattooed William Townsend, who junketed 5,000 mi. from his U. S. Army post in Hawaii for the tournament. ¶ The heavyweight championship in which the listless performance of winning Negro Arthur Oliver and losing Negro Willis Johnson again prompted spectators to boo. Unprecedented result was that to Berlin this summer will go a U. S. Olympic boxing team composed of four whites, four blacks.