Boxing

Hinda Schuman is a photojournalist, but she is capable of looking at the world though an artist's eyes, as many of her professional colleagues do. In any case, the distinction between pure reportage and art has never been all that distinct, as Schuman's suite of photographs in the current Challenge exhibition at the Fleisher Art Memorial suggests. Schuman's 13 black-and-white photos were made at boxing matches in Philadelphia and Atlantic City over a two-year period. Individually, the pictures represent the standard boxing images one finds in the newspapers; in this sense, none is remarkable or an indisputable work of "art.

It was nice to learn that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has reinstated two-time heavyweight champion Mike Tyson's license to commit mayhem in the ring. After all, it would have been disappointing if boxing's reputation for the absurd were marred by a rational decision on the part of its many governors. I won't suggest that Tyson never be allowed to fight again. After all, it is the business of a boxer to maim his or her opponents. But you're supposed to use only your hands.

In the relatively short span of two weeks, the Delaware Valley Olympic Boxing Committee put together the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Golden Gloves tournament in early April. Viewed at first as an experiment, the project was regarded as a success by the committee. Now the organization, headed by Joe Kelly and Marvis Frazier, is trying for something a little larger: the 1996 U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials. Kelly, a Delaware County Council member and president of the Delaware Valley Olympic Boxing Committee, is handling the funding end, trying to involve surrounding counties.

Anthony "Tony" Georgette, 87, who became a Camden boxing promoter and manager at age 15 during the Depression and managed fighters though the '50s, died Saturday at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center in Camden. Mr. Georgette died of injuries suffered in a car accident on June 28 on Route 70 near Red Lion Circle in Southampton Township. Although he started out boxing, Georgette quickly switched to managing and promoting for Camden fighters that included Gene "Tiger" Jones, Joey Allen, Johnnie Lucas, Pedro Firpo, Frankie Rapp, Mickey and Frankie Blair and Joey Powell.

A female recruit at the State Police Academy had boxed with a male recruit about an hour before she collapsed with serious brain injuries Wednesday, state police said yesterday. Patricia Quinn, 25, a recruit from the Washington Township police force in her seventh week of training at the police academy at Sea Girt, Monmouth County, remained in critical condition and on life-support systems in a coma yesterday at the Medical Center of Ocean County, Point Pleasant Division. Her neurosurgeon, Dr. David A. Yazdan, said Quinn suffered from a large bruise on her brain.

New Jersey has named a new commissioner to oversee boxing in the state. Aaron Davis was confirmed yesterday to head the state's Athletic Control Board. The board oversees boxing in Atlantic City as well as martial arts and other combat sports. Davis, 39, a native of Willingboro, was boxing commissioner for the state of Kansas for the last 4 years. He takes over for Sylvester Cuyler, who served as acting commissioner after longtime commissioner Larry Hazzard was fired last November.

If every state athletic commission in America had enough backbone to deny him a license to fight professionally, Mike Tyson, the powerful and uninhibited hit man, would quickly become little more than a distant and dreadful memory. Of course, if he were banished from fighting in the U.S., he could fight elsewhere in the world. But without the sanction of the United States, his earning power would drop dramatically and interest in him would disappear in less time than it took for him to bite off a quarter of ex-heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield's ear in June 1997.

Boxing is the theme of a series of commemoratives and souvenir sheets issued recently by Sierra Leone. Eight stamps, each 200 le in denomination, honor former ring champions Joe Louis, Archie Moore, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard and Evander Holyfield. A 1,000-le souvenir sheet features Ali and handlers in a corner under the caption "The Greatest. " In the lower left corner is a portrait of Ali in a fighting stance. Eight commemoratives, each 200 le, reproduce scenes from memorable boxing movies.

It is said that some men are born to greatness, others have it thrust upon them. Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest fighter who ever lived, qualified on both counts. Robinson, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and hypertension, died yesterday in Culver City, Calif., at age 67. He often said that he considered boxing a profession, not a passion. "I never liked this business," he insisted. "Even when I was a kid and going high, I didn't like it. I never had a day's pleasure out of fighting another man. " Had Robinson, born Walker Smith Jr. on May 3, 1921, in Detroit, chosen another road to travel, he still might have emerged as an internationally known bon vivant.

Ingemar Johansson, 76, the Swede who stunned the boxing world by knocking out American Floyd Patterson to win the world heavyweight title in 1959, died Friday at a nursing home in Kungsbacka on the Swedish west coast, his daughter Maria Gregner said yesterday. Johansson was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and dementia more than 10 years ago when he lived in Stockholm. Known as "Ingo" to Swedes, Johansson knocked out Patterson in the third round at New York's Yankee Stadium on June 26, 1959, to win the heavyweight title.