Norvel Lafollette Ray LEE
(Heavyweight)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lugar de Nacimiento: EEUU.
Fecha de Nacimiento: 22 septiembre 1924.

Récord Amateur: ???
Light Heavyweight Olympic Champion (Helsinki, 1952)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Norvel Lee won the 1952 Olympic Games in the light heavyweight class and received the prestigious Val Barker Cup for showing the best style at the Olympics. He also won three Intercity Golden Gloves titles in 1950-52 and National AAU titles in 1950 and 1951. Lee represented the United States at the 1951 and 1955 Pan American Games and was an alternate on the 1948 Olympic team but did not fight.

In September of 1948, after the Olympics, Norvel was arrested for violating Virginia’s segregation law and convicted on two counts of refusing to take a seat in sections reserved for Negro passengers on a Chesapeake & Ohio train. The case was appealed in the Virginia State Supreme Court and Lee won a landmark victory as the high court unanimously threw out his conviction.

In 1952, he lost in the preliminary round of the National Olympic Trials, but Pete Mello, the U.S. boxing coach, went before the boxing committee and gave them an ultimatum: either Lee would go with the team, or Pete would resign as coach. Finally they agreed that Lee could be an alternate, and Mello decided to make him a light-heavy. In order to make the weight and compete at the Olympics, Norvel had to trim off 11 pounds.

“He did. I kept after him,” the coach recalled. “I kept a set of scales in my room – old grocery scale. I fixed them so they’d weigh a pound heavy. So I made Lee weigh in on those scales. That way, there was never a chance he’d go over.” Mello’s gamble paid off – Norvel went on to score four unanimous decisions and win the light heavyweight tournament.

Norvel never turned professional. He said after the Games: “I’m too old at 27 to be starting as a pro boxer. Besides, I’m just that, a boxer, and I don’t think the fans want to see a boxer. They like to watch the sluggers.”

After graduating from Howard University, Lee taught English, math and social studies at the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C. He also coached boxers, refereed and judged amateur and professional contests, and served as the Chairman of the District of Columbia Boxing Commission.

Palmarés Amateur de Norvel Lee:

1948

1949

1950

1951

1952

1955

REGRESO A PÁGINA DE INICIO

Nota: Éste palmarés está incompleto y puede ser inexacto.

Responsable: [email protected]
(Ultima actualización: Abr-22-2007)

Special thanks to Vladimir Branicki.