By LES EAST, Written for the LSWA
Eddie Flynn is generally regarded as the greatest amateur boxer in New Orleans history.
The pinnacle of his undefeated amateur career – which featured boxing at Loyola University under the tutelage of legendary Tad Gormley – was his gold-medal victory as a welterweight (147 pounds) at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Flynn’s boxing accomplishments have finally, 90 years later, earned him induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame where he joins his mentor.
Flynn’s career will be celebrated June 23-25 in Natchitoches as he and 11 others are spotlighted in the Class of 2022. For participation opportunities and information, visit LaSportsHall.com or call 318-238-4255.
But the immortal acclaim of being an Olympic gold medalist was no more important to Flynn than another title he earned – Doctor.
Dr. Eddie Flynn was as accomplished as an oral surgeon in Tampa as he was a boxer before, during and after his graduation from Loyola in 1936. The two careers of Eddie Flynn, who posthumously will become the seventh boxer inducted to the Hall of Fame, reveal an enigma.
“He would never swear,” said Flynn’s grandson, Doug Belden, “but he would put the fear of God into you.”
Belden knows because he was largely raised by his grandfather after both of his parents died relatively young.
“He was my closest friend,” Belden said. “My grandfather basically took over my whole life (after the parents’ deaths).”
Dr. Flynn’s accomplishments have resonated through subsequent generations.
“He was always a legend in the family,” said Cory Martin, Belden’s nephew, who will accept induction on his great-grandfather’s behalf in Natchitoches. “He stepped in as the father figure of the family. There has always been that lore.”
The story of Flynn’s life, which touched countless others in New Orleans and Tampa, began in the small town of Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
The Flynn family had emigrated from Ireland and Eddie’s father was a newspaper publisher who ran afoul of the Ku Klux Klan when Eddie was a youngster because of the family’s heritage and editorials the paper had published denouncing the Klan’s practices.
So the family migrated from Oklahoma to New Orleans, then to Tampa before Eddie returned to New Orleans to attend Loyola on a boxing scholarship where he “basically supported the entire athletic program,” Belden said. “He’d fill up the gymnasium.
Flynn had 144 amateur bouts – and 144 amateur victories.
Flynn won an AAU national championship in 1931, then came the Olympic year and he repeated as AAU champion, won an NCAA championship and made the U.S. national team.
The welterweight division was the most crowded at the Games, featuring 16 boxers. Flynn won three matches to reach the gold-medal bout, his fourth fight in five days, against a German policeman named Erich Campe, winning a three-round decision, 60-59.
Flynn turned professional after the Olympics. There are conflicting reports about his precise professional record. It was might have been 23-7-1, 29-7-2 or 14-1, but the primary purpose of the professional career was to finance his way through dental school and to start his own practice.
He was drafted into the military in 1935 and served through the end of World War II.
According to NBCOlympics.com, Flynn explained his relatively short professional career by saying, “I got kind of sick of putting on gloves and hitting some fellow in the face when I’ve got nothing against him.”
Flynn’s boxing exploits earned him induction in the Loyola Athletics Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class in May 1964, induction into the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1981, the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 1974 and the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame in 2010.
But the end of Eddie Flynn’s boxing career was just the beginning of his professional life.
“As an oral surgeon he would take care of all the poor people, the nuns, the priests, the police officers, the firemen,” Belden said.
Dr. Flynn would tell those patients, “pay me what you can.”
If dentistry halls of fame were as commonplace as sports halls of fame, the list of inductions for Dr. Flynn would be even longer than it is.
Artwork by CHRIS BROWN, Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame