Boxing

Summer 2016

Pete Rademacher

Long before the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s Miracle on Ice, there was Pete Rademacher ’53.

The tenacious 6-foot-1 boxing heavyweight stunned the world during the 1956 summer games with his one-round knockout of previously undefeated Soviet champion Lev Moukhine for the gold medal.

The decisive, triple-knockdown bout in Melbourne, Australia transformed Rademacher into a Cold War hero and international inspiration. Hungarian athletes, still reeling from the Soviet invasion of Budapest just a few weeks earlier, joined the U.S. team in hoisting Rademacher onto their shoulders in celebration.

“It was very emotional,” recalls Rademacher, 87, now a retired business executive living in Ohio and the … » More …

Winter 2002

Deeter recalls demise of college boxing as a sad day

More than four decades have passed since intercollegiate boxing was dropped, first at Washington State University following the 1959 season, and nationally in 1961.

Isaac “Ike” Deeter established the college boxing program at Washington State College in 1932 and coached for 24 years. He also taught men’s physical education courses until retiring in 1967.

“I hated to see boxing go, but I realize the circumstances,” he says. Competition in the Pacific Northwest was too hard to find. Idaho State, Sacramento State, and San Jose State were the nearest opponents. For other matches, WSU had to travel to the Midwest and Big Ten Conference. The cost … » More …