Jack "Doc" Kearns (born John Patrick Leo McKernan; August 17, 1882 – July 7, 1963) was an American boxer and boxing manager. He was born on a farm in Waterloo, Michigan to Phillip H. McKernan and Frances M. Knauf (aka Hoff, later Quigley), daughter of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

immigrant and Waterloo, Michigan,

settler A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...

Peter Knauf. His father was the son of Irish immigrants Philip and Amelia "Ann" McKernan and is noted as being "among the early pioneers in the Northwestern Territories of

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Professional boxing

Known as "Young Kid Kearns", he adopted the Kearns surname while boxing. Following 67 professional

lightweight Lightweight is a weight class in combat sports and rowing. Boxing Professional boxing The lightweight division is over 130 pounds (59 kilograms) and up to 135 pounds (61.2 kilograms) weight class in the sport of boxing. Notable lightweight boxe ...

and

welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify the ...

fights, he became more well-known as a flamboyant boxing coach and manager. Kearns was reportedly tutored as a manager and promoter in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

—then the epicenter of the boxing scene in America—by veteran

featherweight Featherweight is a weight class in the combat sports of boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Boxing Professional boxing History A featherweight boxer weighs in at a limit of . In the early days of the division, this ...

Dal Hawkins, the former boxing instructor at the Seattle Athletic Club, a city in which Kearns had briefly "piloted a primitive

taxicab A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

." He is most remembered for achieving the first "million dollar gate" in boxing when the

Jack Dempsey vs. Georges Carpentier Jack Dempsey vs. Georges Carpentier was a boxing fight between world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and world light-heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier, which was one of the fights named the "Fight of the Century". The bout took place in th ...

bout generated a record $1,789,238 in ticket sales, and for managing

Jack Dempsey William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (June 24, 1895 – May 31, 1983), nicknamed Kid Blackie and The Manassa Mauler, was an American professional boxer who competed from 1914 to 1927, and reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. ...

, who became

World Heavyweight Champion At boxing's beginning, the heavyweight division had no weight limit, and historically the weight class has gone with vague or no definition. During the 19th century many heavyweights were 170 pounds (12 st 2 lb, 77 kg) or less, tho ...

from 1919 to 1926 and gave him the nickname "The Doc". Kearns was sued by Dempsey, then repeatedly and unsuccessfully sued Dempsey for large sums of money, following his firing; the two became friendly again in later life. Following his death, Dempsey was quoted as saying that Kearns "made me a champ... he was a great manager, and I'll miss him." Kearns managed six world champions: Jack Dempsey, Mickey Walker,

Jackie Fields Jackie Fields (Jacob Finkelstein, February 9, 1908 – June 3, 1987) was an People of the United States, American professional boxer who won the World Welterweight Championship twice. Statistical boxing website BoxRec lists Fields as the #19 ran ...

Benny Leonard Benny Leonard (born Benjamin Leiner; April 7, 1896 – April 18, 1947) was a Jewish American professional boxer who held the world lightweight championship for eight years, from 1917 to 1925. Widely considered one of the all-time greats, he was r ...

Joey Maxim Giuseppe Antonio Berardinelli (March 28, 1922 – June 2, 2001) was an American professional boxer. He was a World Light Heavyweight Champion. He took the ring-name Joey Maxim from the Maxim gun, the world's first self-acting machine gun, based ...

, and

Archie Moore Archie Moore (born Archibald Lee Wright; December 13, 1913 – December 9, 1998) was an American professional boxer and the longest reigning World Light Heavyweight Champion of all time (December 1952 – May 1962). He had one of the longest ...

Personal life

On March 20, 1915, Kearns married Edythe Angell, a dancer who had performed in

Vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

as the Angell Sisters with her sister Gertrude and solo as Ledana. The couple divorced, and he remarried August 4, 1921; the pair were also divorced, on March 18, 1932. However, Kearns disputed the existence of this second marriage to a woman known as Legana Kearns, despite a judgement against him for alimony, which he lost by default, being a no-show in court.

Legacy

''The Million Dollar Gate'', Kearns' memoir as told to sportswriter

Oscar Fraley Oscar Fraley (August 2, 1914 – January 6, 1994) was an American sports writer and author, perhaps best known, with Eliot Ness, as the co-author of the American memoir ''The Untouchables''. Early life Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Fraley ...

, was published posthumously in 1966. In 1989, the ''LA Times'' reported Kearns to be "one of the great sports

con men A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have de ...

of the century." In 1990, Kearns was inducted into the

International Boxing Hall of Fame The modern International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), located in Canastota, New York, honors boxers, trainers and other contributors to the sport worldwide. Inductees are selected by members of the Boxing Writers Association of America. The I ...

and is there lauded as "a master of publicity and... largely responsible for making possible the first million-dollar gate in boxing history" at the 1921

bout.IBHOF
"Jack (Doc) Kearns", International Boxing Hall of Fame, 1990. Retrieved July 12, 2018.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kearns, Jack 1882 births 1963 deaths American boxing managers Boxing promoters American boxing promoters Promoters

Boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

American male boxers American people of Irish descent Irish male boxers Lightweight boxers Welterweight boxers Boxers from Michigan

Professional boxing

Personal life

Legacy

See also

References

External links