Emanuel Steward, a legendary boxing trainer who worked with greats like Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Lennox Lewis and Robert Duran, died Thursday in a Chicago hospital after complications from surgery for diverticulitis, according to Reuters.
Emanuel Steward, legendary boxing trainer, dies at 68
Emanuel Steward, a legendary boxing trainer, died in a Chicago hospital Thursday.
Alex Grimm
Diane Steward-Jones, Steward’s sister, told the Detroit Free Press that Steward was thinking about boxing until the very end, reportedly trying to recruit members of the hospital staff to box for him.
“They loved him,” Steward-Jones said. “He’d tell them to lose some weight and fight for him.”
Steward, who was born in West Virginia, moved to Detroit when he was young and eventually founded the famous Kronk Gym, where he worked with many fighters of all levels, including some of the eventual champions listed above. More recently, he’d worked with Wladimir Klitschko.
In a statement, Klitschko said, “It is not often that a person in any line of work gets a chance to work with a legend, well I was privileged enough to work with one for almost a decade.”
Steward, who also worked doing commentary for HBO, is a member of both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.
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