TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY LIRA, CHARACTER EXTRAORDINAIRE
WHEREAS, Shakespeare wrote "... the good is oft interred with their bones". So let it be with Johnny Lira, a former lightweight boxing champion, sometimes controversial but always colorful, who passed away on December 8, 2012; and
WHEREAS, Prior to coming before the Honorable Marvin Aspen at the age of 19 after a botched job of breaking and entering a jewelry store where he fell from the skylight, shattering his leg after the rope broke on which he was lowering himself, Johnny Lira was committing burglaries and getting into street fights. Aspen, now a federal judge, recalls asking him, "What good are you in life? What do you have that's worthwhile?" Johnny held up his hands like a prizefighter; and
WHEREAS, Judge Aspen took a chance and released Johnny Lira to continue his pugilistic ambitions on the condition that he stay out of trouble and pass on his training in the "sweet science" of boxing to those who where incarcerated. Johnny did not disappoint; and
WHEREAS, Johnny Lira trained at the Catholic Youth Organization's iconic gym on West Jackson under the tutelage of such greats as Chuck Bodak, Johnny Tocco, and Tony Zale (who was a two-time world middleweight champion). Johnny became Golden Gloves champion the same year Judge Aspen had released him and won the U.S. Lightweight Championship in 1978. A year later, he fought Ernesto Espana for the World Lightweight Championship, coming within two or three counts of a knockout but lost by a TKO when Espana broke his jaw in the ninth round; and
WHEREAS, Since his days with Golden Gloves and the CYO, Johnny Lira was active in working with young amateur fighters at the Union League Boys Club. In 1979, he took his first team of boxers from the club to fight at the Ohio State Fair. The following year, he brought a Union League boxing team to the Illinois Silver Gloves competition in Springfield, an event for budding boxers 15 years of age and under. Out of his team o...
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