Charlie Mohr, a UW-Madison senior and Olympic prospect on UW's boxing team, took a hard hit during the NCAA middleweight championship on April 9, 1960. He lost the match, retreated to the locker room, suffered a brain hemorrhage and slipped into a coma.
Eight days later, 22-year-old Mohr died in University Hospital on Easter Sunday.
College boxing died with him.
The UW Faculty Senate abolished the sport at UW-Madison 22 days after Mohr's April 17 death. The NCAA followed Wisconsin's lead and officially stopped supporting the national tournament in late 1960, unofficially terminating the sport.
Though it took less than a month to eliminate the sport after Mohr's death, boxing's demise had been imminent for at least a decade""partly due to Wisconsin's huge success.
The problem with the sport was that we won. We beat everybody,"" said David Walsh, who witnessed the infamous fight as a high school junior. Walsh's father was legendary UW boxing head coach, John, who died in 2001.
By the time college boxing ended, UW had beaten nearly every team in the country, with only the western programs left to conquer, he said. Because many schools didn't have as much boxing prestige or history as UW, they ended their boxing programs. Truth is, other schools pulled out because the competition was too hard.
Walsh, who is also president of the UW System Board of Regents, said by the 1950s, southern schools refused to allow black boxers, so their programs fizzled out because of a lack of opponents.
In the early 1950s, the Badgers dominated Louisiana State, winning boxing's Sugar Bowl Trophy in Louisiana. This victory came after LSU decided it didn't want black boxers to fight in their ring.In the late 1940s, UW had its first black boxer, and southern schools, including LSU, were uncomfortable with letting Wisconsin fight. The award currently sits on Walsh's desk.
Other factors, such as professional boxing's alleged relationship with organized crime and the sport's general barbaric reputation also contributed to its fall, according to Doug Moe, author of ""Lords of the Ring,"" a book about the UW boxing team.
Other UW sports never faced such opposition, even in similar situations.
In 1979, a UW redshirt freshman football player, Jay Silar, died during practice when he was hit and suffered a brain aneurysm, similar to Mohr's injury. While safety precautions were discussed following his death, there was no outcry like there was when boxing was cut, said UW-Madison Associate Athletic Director Vince Sweeney.
UW boxer Bob Ranck, who won two heavyweight national titles in the early 1950s, said he heard rumblings from university administration regarding the sport's brutal nature during his college career.
""[Mohr's] death was the straw that broke the camel's back,"" Moe said. ""[It] sealed its demise.""
Though there was little controversy immediately following the abolishment, some boxers were disturbed by the Faculty Senate's decision.
""I was living in Ohio at the time of Charlie's death and I read about it in the sports page,"" said Dick Murphy, who won the 155-pound NCAA title in 1951. ""I was kind of upset about it.""
Murphy added he thought the decision was done in haste and that many boxers were disappointed that their sport abruptly ended""particularly when Mohr's death was the first of its kind.
""[In college boxing,] if there was any bleeding, they usually stopped the fight,"" Walsh said. ""Charlie's death happened at a bad time. The decision wasn't hostile, just an over-reaction in a very sad time.""
""Basically, it happened to the wrong person at the wrong time. Meaning, Charlie was such a beloved kid,"" Moe said. ""It was a tragedy during an unfortunate time.""
