Louis paved fairway for Tiger and company

George Kimball America at LargeDerry's John Duddy is on the books to fight for a world title this summer, but his February 23rd bout on the Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov card at Madison Square Garden won't be part of the HBO telecast. American television viewers that night will see Kelly Pavlik, the world middleweight champion Duddy will challenge on June 7th, in action, and Pavlik isn't even fighting that night. And for this perplexing state of affairs, you can thank the late Joe Louis.

A Tunisian named Walid Smichat is all that stands between Duddy and a million-dollar payday for his title bout against Pavlik, but US viewers who tune in to Klitschko-Ibragimov expecting to see Duddy's tune-up fight will be disappointed. The broadcast of the heavyweight unification match will incorporate instead a replay of the previous weekend's Pavlik-Jermain Taylor pay-per-view fight, preceded by an "undercard" showcasing a boxer deemed even more significant than Duddy - namely, the Brown Bomber himself. Sit tight, there, Grasshopper. All will be revealed.

February is designated Black History Month in the USA, and the cable network has had a feature-length film entitled Joe Louis: America's Hero . . . Betrayed in production for over a year. HBO committed several months ago to premiering the film in February.

Pavlik is scheduled to face former champion Taylor in a February 16th rematch, but the title will not be at stake. Even should Pavlik lose, promoter Bob Arum confirmed his first defence would be against Duddy on June 7th.

Arum had long ago reserved Madison Square Garden for that night - the eve of New York's annual Puerto Rican Day parade - in anticipation of a fight showcasing WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, who has fought there in conjunction with the Puerto Rican festivities for three years running. But over the past three weeks (a) super-middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe agreed to fight Bernard Hopkins in April, thus depriving Pavlik of his most obvious option, (b) WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather opted to face Oscar De La Hoya in a September rematch, thus closing the door on a possible Mayweather-Cotto fight on June 7th and leading Cotto to (c) reach out for a quick piece of change by defending against Alfonso Gomez in April, leaving Arum with a prime Garden date and looking for a way to fill the building.

A cynic might note that Duddy's presence on both the February 23rd and June 7th cards might have more to do with his clout at the Garden box office than with his ring qualifications; viewers of the HBO documentary are about to learn Louis was invited to participate in the 1952 San Diego Open for much the same reason.

The first black heavyweight champion since Jack Johnson, Louis held the title for a dozen years and defended it a record 24 times. His 1938 triumph over Hitler's favourite heavyweight, Max Schmeling, is celebrated for its political implications. That Louis enlisted in the US army and gave the proceeds of several fights to military relief, rendered him a revered figure.

Since Louis's reign was devoid of controversy and his later years were marked by drug and tax problems that left him performing humiliating roles - professional wrestler and obsequious "greeter" at Caesars Palace - his image for the most part remains that of the acquiescent "good Negro" who strove to avoid rocking the boat. But as the HBO film shows, Joe was no Uncle Tom.

Outside the ring, Louis became an accomplished golf player. In 1951, the year he lost his final fight, to Rocky Marciano, the Brown Bomber won the championship of the old United Golf Association, an event described as "the Negro National". The following year the organisers of the San Diego Open, dollar signs no doubt dancing through their heads, invited Louis to their event. This precipitated a firestorm in which Horton Smith, PGA president, ruled Louis could not compete because participation in PGA events was limited to "the Caucasian race".

By the time Louis presented himself in San Diego, the issue had become a cause célèbre. Joe, who had reason to know a bit about Nazis, described Horton Smith as "another Hitler", and the influential broadcaster Walter Winchell threw his weight behind Louis's cause.

The result was something of a stalemate: Louis was allowed to play in San Diego as an "exempt amateur". Bill Spiller, a black professional who had duly qualified, was not.

Since the San Diego Open eventually morphed into the Buick Invitational, which just last weekend was won by You Know Who, it might be argued Louis paved the way for Tiger Woods.

Thanks in a large measure to Louis's high profile, public opinion soon forced the PGA to revise its policy. The 1952 compromise decreed that while blacks could still not become PGA members, neither could they be barred from events for which they had otherwise qualified, and when Louis was shortly thereafter provided with an exemption to play in a qualifying round for the Phoenix Open, he accepted on condition other blacks be similarly accommodated.

Louis was paired with Charlie Sifford and two other black professionals. When they reached the first green, Sifford looked into the cup and saw it freshly filled with human excrement. "I can't imagine," says golf historian Pete McDaniel in the HBO film, "what Joe Louis must have felt."

Neither Louis nor Sifford qualified that week for what was the direct ancestor of the FBR Open that starts in Phoenix this morning, but Sifford eventually prevailed in a lawsuit that forced the PGA to strike the "Caucasian rule" from its constitution. He became the first black member of the PGA and the first to win a Tour event, but, notes McDaniel, "As far as I'm concerned, Joe Louis will always be remembered as the guy who opened the door."