Henry Milligan and Ali

 

I met Henry Milligan in Cape May, where he was working part time as a bar bouncer, while trying to extend his boxing career. After earning 10 letters in sports at Princeton, none in boxing, he turned down a chance to play professional baseball to take up boxing.

Although he was a certified genius, and top graduate in his class with honors, he wanted to know if he could make it as a professional boxer, often fighting in weight classes above his own weight.

The highlight of his career was probably defeating Henry Tillman, an Olympic Gold Medalist, and then being knocked out by 17 year old Mike Tyson in the second round, although leading on points on all cards.

When Tyson was on a roll, and fighting frequently in Atlantic City, I got press passes to the fights, usually held at Convention Hall on the Boardwalk (now Boardwalk Hall), though pre-fight and post-fight parties were held at various casinos.

This photo I took of Henry and Ali was at a pre-fight party at Bally's.

Sorry it is so foggy, but it is a scan of a contact print that I recently found among my affects.

There's also a photo I took of Arnold Cream, aka "Jersey Joe Walcott," heavyweight champion of the world from Camden, New Jersey, my hometown.

I was surprised to learn, when I Googled Henry Milligan and read his Wicki bio, that he too was from Camden, New Jersey, although he grew up in Delaware.

THE STORY

Amateur Boxing Champ – Golden Gloves for Silver Screen
The SandPaper – Thursday, June 11, 1987

The beach bullies don’t kick sand in Henry Milligan’s face. Its not that the diminutive, bespectacled Milligan is so imposing. He’s really quite timid. It’s just his reputation.

Though he hasn’t obtained celebrity status yet, he’s known as a boxer and in fact is quite an anomaly in the history of contemporary American boxing.

Sitting in a both at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, just across the street from his favorite Cape May beach, Milligan pondered his past and his future over three stacks of pancakes. Considering his main goal, in many ways he is in the same situation in which he found himself in 1981 – seeking recognition in an unobserving world.

As the oldest son of DuPont executive, he was a Princeton University engineering graduate who didn’t want to just settle down in a plush job at the company. His father was known as Hank, so he was always Henry, who then worked part time at the shore as a bouncer at Gloria’s saloon (now Cabanas).

“Working for the summer as a bouncer, I though a lot about boxing,” Milligan says while munching on his pancakes. He called a boxing trainer on the telephone and told him he was interested in taking up boxing. “He asked me how old I was, and when I said 23, he thought I was too old.”

That’s all Milligan had to hear to get him into training. When they told him he couldn’t go to Princeton, major in engineering and play three sports he went out and became the first and only Princeton graduate to ear ten varsity letters in three sports – football, wrestling and baseball. And they say that if he would have majored in a less demanding discipline he would have been a candidate for a Rhodes scholarship.

At first the boxing handicappers, sitting back with their cigars, didn’t know what to make of this handsome 185-pound, well-fed white boy.

Like gymnasts and ballerinas, those who want to be groomed as a boxing champion have to start early, and those who train champions want young, easily malleable students. But Mulligan had already proved he was both a good student and great athlete. In the beginning he looked a little out of place, but stepping into the ring over 40 times in his amateur career, he often knocked out his opponents before they could start boxing.

In 1983 at Colorado Springs, Colorado, he went undefeated to win the National Amateur Boxing Championship and was recognized as the best athlete in the tournament.

The following year he competed in the U.S. Olympic trials, losing only to Mike Tyson, who is now considered to be the number one undefeated professional contender for the heavyweight championship. While still an amateur, however, Tyson was runner up for the heavyweight Olympic challenge, losing to Henry Tillman. Tillman, whom Milligan had previously beaten for the U.S. amateur title, went on to win the Olympic gold medal that year.

“It was very frustrating sitting out the Olympics and having a guy I knew I could beat, in fact already had beat, win the gold medal,” Milligan said while pondering his career over breakfast. After three regular plates of pancakes, he ordered what he calls “round two,” 25 silver dollar pancakes and three waffles.

Putting his amateur career behind him, Milligan then turned professional, winning his first ten bouts and generating a lot of fan support from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, and his summer home at Cape May.

Every time he had a bout at one of the Atlantic City casinos his friends, family and fans would rent buses and go to the shore in a caravan to watch him fight. His younger brother Mike helped him train for many of his fights.

Then he lost a decision to go ten and one before breaking his nose, or rather having his nose broken in a fight at Resorts International. He didn’t want to throw in the towel and came out at the bell, but he was drinking his own blood, so the referee called it a TKO – technical knockout. Now he’s retired from the ring.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. “I don’t miss the violence or the hurt, but I do miss the attention, the limelight, and people recognizing you for who you are and what you’ve done.”

But he was still eating. “Round three” was a final order of Indian corn pancakes, no butter and just a little syrup.

“Now I’m writing nutritional articles for athletic magazines, doing some modeling and trying to break into acting,” Milligan said with a smile, citing his Princeton theatrical experience and work as a boxing commentator.

“I’d be in New York knocking on doors tomorrow if I just had the name of an agent or someone who could help me get into acting,” Milligan said, “though right now I’m concentrating on promoting nutrition.”

Though his mother thinks that maybe he’s a bit over-conscious about his nutrition, there’s little chance of arguing about his health. There’s not an ounce of fat on his body, yet he eats like a horse.

“Your average American doesn’t eat right,” Milligan asserted, complaining about their using a lot of butter and other additives. “It’s not what you eat, it’s what you put on the food. Pasta and pancakes are all right. They’re easily burned off if you work out like I do – swimming and running, but you can’t put a lot of junk on them.”

Finishing up his last pancakes, and Milligan holds the Uncle Bill’s unofficial record of 22 pancakes, he reflected briefly on next week’s “War at the Shore” with Michael Spinks and Gerry Cooney, knowing that it could possibly have been him up there, maybe as an under card. “Yea, I miss the limelight, the attention, the fact that everybody’s watching you, and you’re up there in the ring going one on one with somebody to see who is the better man.”

“Maybe that’s why I want to be an actor now,” he reflected, “to get back in the limelight.”

Now all Henry Milligan needs is an agent to tell him he can’t make it as an actor in New York, and he’ll be there in a minute.