A dream no longer deferred

By Joe Scalzo

A few years ago, Johnny Swanson was lying in his hospital bed after getting his appendix removed when he turned to his mother and told her his boxing dream.

“He said he wanted to win enough money to open his own gym, so he could get kids off the street and help them stay out of trouble,” said his mother, Patricia Swanson. “I don’t know if he ever told anyone else.”

On Sept. 26, 2006 — one year and one day before his friend and former teammate Kelly Pavlik won the middleweight title — Swanson died suddenly in his sleep at age 26 due to complications from asthma.

He didn’t achieve his dream but his mother wanted to keep part of it alive.

She’ll take a big step forward on July 5 when she joins Pavlik, along with former Youngstown boxing champions Harry Arroyo, Greg Richardson and Jeff Lampkin for the Johnny Swanson Memorial Fundraiser at St. Luke’s Hall on South Avenue.

The proceeds will benefit one of Swanson’s former gyms, the Southside Boxing Club, which is owned by Pavlik’s trainer Jack Loew. The money will go toward deserving fighters who need help for gear, equipment and traveling money for tournaments.

“I feel like if we can help just one kid, it will make me feel like I’m doing something,” Patricia Swanson said. “It will help give me some closure.”

Swanson, a two-time Cleveland Golden Gloves champion, left behind a 6 1/2 year-old son, Logan.

He attended Boardman for most of his life before graduating from the Mahoning County Joint Vocational School.

“He was probably the hardest-working kid in the gym,” said Loew, who has historically used his own funds to help underprivileged boxers. “He wasn’t a great boxer, but he was a gym rat. If you walked into the gym and didn’t know anything about boxing, you’d say, ‘Who is this kid?’

“One time he in a national tournament against the No. 1 kid in the country and in the first round, he threw a left hook and dropped the kid on his butt. I think he panicked after that, because he didn’t do too much in the fight after that. But it was a great moment for me.”

Swanson always befriended the kids who didn’t belong, Patricia said, and tried to help those less fortunate, whether it was a friend or a stray pet. The Southside Boxing Club is the type of gym he wanted to open, one that helps fighters from all walks of life.

Since graduating, Swanson had been living with his parents and taking care of Logan, bringing his son to the gym during workouts and only leaving him while he was at work.

“I think boxing really instilled confidence and discipline in him,” Patricia said. “He worked really hard. He would go down in our basement with his son and work out on the heavy bag and put on his boom box and the whole house would shake.

“Now I would kill to have the house shake again.”

Loew plans to hand out the “John Swanson Award” each year to a fighter at his gym, rewarding the hardest-working boxer.

Loew said he believes if Swanson were still alive, he’d be one of his assistant coaches.

“He’d be involved in boxing somehow,” he said. “If I took some of the talent we’ve had in the gym and put it in John Swanson’s body, he’d have been a world champ.”

scalzo@vindy.com