Had I known the seriousness of Angelo's condition and the short time he had left to live, I would have been sorely tempted to fly to Tampa to be at his side along with his son Jimmy and other relatives, even though I was no kin to him and was preoccupied in covering the death of another iconic figure, former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, and the run-up to college football's national signing day.
Oh, sure, I counted myself as a friend of Angelo's - everyone who ever met him counted themselves as friends of Angelo's - but he was far more than that to me, and I'd like to believe I was more than that to him, too. That bond was forged one late October morning in 1992, in a London coffee shop. Those 90 minutes remain the most indelible memory of my many years of covering boxing, more so even than Buster Douglas' upset of Mike Tyson in Tokyo, or Tyson's ear-chomp disqualification loss to Evander Holyfield, or Meldrick Taylor's hugely controversial technical knockout by Julio Cesar Chavez with only 2 seconds remaining in a bout Taylor had won on the scorecards.
I probably wouldn't have been on the boxing beat at all were it not for the other principal figure in this three-person tale of pugilistic camaraderie, a onetime welterweight named Bernard "Jack" Fernandez Sr. - my father. He had a storied amateur career in his hometown of New Orleans and dreamed of turning professional when a bigger fight than he'd ever been in, World War II, broke out.
Dad served on a destroyer escort in the South Pacific, where he spent 4 years as a potential victim of torpedoes, naval shellings, kamikaze pilots and typhoons. When the war ended, Dad - who had two pro bouts during his time in the Navy, on Archie Moore undercards when his ship was being refitted in San Diego - reluctantly put away his dream. Too many years had passed; he had a new wife to provide for and a baby boy on the way.
