John T. Ochs
The One Is Jack Hurley is an epic three-volume bio-history of boxing’s Golden Age beginning with Jack Dempsey in the 1910s and ending with the emergence of George Foreman in 1970, as filtered through the life experience of legendary manager and promoter “Deacon” Jack Hurley. Hurley began his career in Fargo, North Dakota, just before World War I, worked in and around New York and Chicago from the mid 1920s through the ‘40s, and settled in Seattle in 1950.Hurley’s life, more than any other, personifies the sport’s journey out of the backrooms and bars of the 1900s, to the arenas and stadiums of the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s, and into the parlors and family TV rooms of the 1950s and ‘60s. It is a history not only of one man’s life, but of pro boxing itself. A tale long neglected only because Jack’s career was so long and multifaceted.Volume Three, Deacon Jack and the Dawn of Major-League Sports in Seattle, tells the story of Hurley’s life in Seattle and of the city’s coming of age as a sports town. Long before anyone ever thought of the Supersonics, the Seahawks, or the Mariners, Jack sewed the seed for major-league sports in the city. The narrative begins with his move to Seattle as manager of local fighter Harry (Kid) Matthews. Taking on the mighty International Boxing Club, Jack instigates a federal investigation into the club’s monopoly tactics and forces it to grant Harry a heavyweight elimination bout with Rocky Marciano at Madison Square Garden in 1952. Matthews lost, but the Deacon’s mission to bring Seattle a world title fight was just beginning.After British champion Don Cockell defeats Matthews in Seattle, Hurley’s effort to promote a Marciano-Cockell heavyweight title bout is thwarted when the University of Washington and the Seattle School District deny him use of the city’s two largest venues. The Deacon’s run-in with the establishment highlights the need for a new stadium to attract pro sports to the region and leads to a county-wide vote on the construction of a multipurpose stadium.Hurley’s perseverance is rewarded when new heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson agrees to defend his title in Seattle against Olympic Gold Medalist Pete Rademacher in 1957. Despite far-flung criticism that he is crazy to even think about promoting such a bizarre event, the Deacon converts the city’s minor-league ballpark into a boxing venue, and the match comes off without a hitch.Hurley’s successes with Matthews and the Patterson-Rademacher fight cement his reputation as a local sports oracle and the city’s most famous sports personality. Accepting a post as advance man for the the famous Harlem Globetrotters of basketball fame, he enjoys nationwide celebrity status as an elder statesman, continuing to dispense entertaining bits of thought-provoking wisdom about his first love, boxing, wherever he goes.In 1966, an aging Deacon returns to the limelight to manage Boone Kirkman for one last run at the heavyweight title, only to fall short when future champion George Foreman stops Kirkman in their 1970 fight at Madison Square Garden. After two years of retirement, the story ends with Hurley’s death in November 1972, less than a month before his 75th birthday.
