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
**Ge ...
immigrant and
Waterloo, Michigan,
settler
A settler is a person who has 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 pioneer.
Settle ...
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 Columb ...
,
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, 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 Monta ...
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 th ...
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 for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
—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, th ...
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 choi ...
."
He is most remembered for achieving the first "million dollar gate" in boxing when the
Jack Dempsey vs. Georges Carpentier bout generated a record $1,789,238 in ticket sales, and for managing
Jack Dempsey, who became
World Heavyweight Champion 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 American professional boxer who won the World Welterweight Championship twice. Statistical boxing website BoxRec lists Fields as the #19 ranked welterweight of all-time ...
,
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, and
Archie Moore.
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, 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 def ...
of the century."
In 1990, Kearns was inducted into the
International Boxing Hall of Fame 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
Jack Dempsey vs. Georges Carpentier bout.
IBHOF
"Jack (Doc) Kearns", International Boxing Hall of Fame, 1990. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
See also
* Jack Dempsey vs. Tommy Gibbons
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