Boxing Legend Angelo Dundee Never Forgot His South Philly Roots

Frank Fitzpatrick at the Philadelphia Inquirer offers a piece on the late Angelo Dundee's roots in South Philadelphia.

He never lost the accent, the street savvy, the playfulness and toughness he'd developed growing up near Eighth and Morris Streets.

Mr. Dundee, who became nearly as great a boxing legend as the fighters he trained, died Wednesday at 90 in Florida.

While he would always be attracted to the sport's more cerebral aspects, Mr. Dundee admired the grit and guts boxing demanded. And he found plenty of that in the gyms that dotted Philadelphia's boxing landscape.

"Philadelphia is not a town," he once said in what he intended as a compliment. "It's a jungle. They don't have gyms there. They have zoos. They don't have sparring sessions. They have wars."

Mr. Dundee quickly realized that he had a better head for boxing than a chin. He became a cornerman, as adept at mapping out strategy as he was at stemming the blood from a nasty cut.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/boxing/138618109.html?viewAll=y