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How A Champion Trains

Scientific Treatment as Applied to Conditioning for a Big Bout

By JOHNNIE KILBANE
Featherweight Champion
Professional boxers, as a class, are clean, hard working, ambitious young men who win good money and a wide reputation by strict application to business. The day of pugs and bruisers has largely gone by though certain state legislatures don't seem to recognize the fact. Johnnie Kilbane is a fine example of successful athlete.

IRST of all I want to disillusionize across an item concerning street fights your mind of the ante-bellum idea in which star boxers are concerned? that fighters are necessarily bruisers. Seldom, I'll warrant. In fact, I cannot In the old times it was undoubtedly so. The call a single one to mind. Perhaps it is as one boxer I know exmost popular ringster was one who could outdrink his supporters, and one who did pressed it when urged into a street scrap. not think it beneath his dignity to " go He said, " I ' m not afraid of that fellow, to the floor" with an antagonist in a bar- but if we are arrested, public opinion will room brawl. To-day there is not a title be against me. Whether I am right or holder from Jess Willard to Jimmy Wilde wrong people will sneer and say, ' What else who does not live a clean, exemplary life. can you expect? He's only a prize-fighter.' How often, in scanning the newspaper The old game has a lot to live down, and over your bacon and eggs, do you come I ' m going to do my best to help it. Besides, fighting is my stock in trade. I sell it as a salesman does his goods. And you wouldn't catch any salesman standing on a street corner, giving away a thousand dollars worth of his samples, would you ?" What has brought about this radical change in sentiment? Well, there is one

Photos by American Press

Johnnie Kilbane's fighting face outstanding reason in my mind. That is the change in the type of man with whom the fighter is brought into close personal contract. After 1860, when the British aristocracy abandoned boxing because of Heenan's abonimable treatment in his international battle with Savers, the pugilistic game fell into decided disrepute. The riff-raff of society were in many eases the dominant factors, and bare knuckle fightingaside from its insensate brutality became the crookedest and most criminally infested sport in the world. The modern boxing bout is as different from old time fights as a fencing bout is from a duel with rapiers, and the class of men who conduct the business end of the game has changed just as radically. Instead of professional gamblers, thieves and cheap politicians big, successful men like " T e x " Rickard, Jimmy Dougherty, Matt Hinkle, Jimmy Dunn and scores of others have found in boxing a vent for their business and sporting inclinations. They understood that if pugilism was ever to be classed on a level with baseball, football, etc. its exponents would have to be as clean as they wanted the game to be. Publicity, of course, is the biggest factor in making a man or an undertaking a success. Years ago the fight interests tried to make themselves agreeable to newspaper men through the medium of "booze parties." Notice how differently we are brought in contact now. One Sunday, while I was training for my unlucky bout with Benny Leonard, the lightweight title holder, the Philadelphia sporting writers were invited to spend a day at the quarters. Jimmy Dougherty,

Johnnie Kilbane and his daughter Helen

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with Benny Leonard. He neglected to estimate the hours and days that I worked to get in condition. And since that was my lastand one of my most important, if unfortunate, battlesI'll tell you how I prepared for it. When all arrangements to stage the battle in Philadelphia had been completed I motored there from Cleveland, with my family and that of Jimmy Dunn, my manager and dearest friend. The women folks and children were sent off to Atlantic City. I took up training quarters at Jimmy Dougherty's Colonial Hotel in Liepersvillea sleepy little village on the Chester Pike between Wilmington and Philadelphia. I started the hardening process almost immediately, and let me tell you it was a hardening process. When I was fighting in the preliminaries some ten years ago, training consisted of a haircut and shave after the day's work. This sort of training is somewhat different. My day commences at five o'clock, when an infernal alarm clock rattles and bangs me out of bed. The sun in just peeping into the world when I get on the road,

who promoted the bout, and who is as big hearted as he is muscular, arranged a splendid program, beginning with a baseball game between the newspapermen and the boys of the camp, and winding up with a. splendid supper. There was laughter and good cheer and healthful exerciseand there was a lack of any feature that might have proved objectionable to the most sensative. But you asked me to tell you how a champion trains, and here I've wandered off into a defense of the boxing game. Now I'll get down to brass tacks. Strict training is the well defined rut which every boxer must follow. They used to say that Aurelia Herrera, the wonderful Mexican lightweight, ate and drank what he chose, and smoked black cigars from the moment he rose until he went to sleep with one between his teeth. But Herrera's career was cut short by his defiant disregard of training rules, and it remains a warning to the athlete with a grain of sense in his head. Some scribe, with a mathematical bent, estimates that I received thirteen hundred and eleven dollars a minute for my bout

with the sweet, clean country smell in my nose, to do a stiff six mile run. And let me tell you, boys, the fellow who never sees the break o' day except when he's rolling home from the carbarets misses a tonic that is as good for his soul as his body. The six mile jog ends at a quarry pond about a quarter of a mile from Dougherty's home. A cold plunge puts the finishing touch to that bounding, exhilirating feeling that makes just living so vitally interesting to a healthy, hungry man. For an hour and a half after breakfast I just loaf around, and let the meal digest. Then comes more exertion in the form of broncho-busting. Jimmy Dougherty had purchased an unbroken saddle horse for his daughter, and getting that horse tractable was one of the most difficult yet pleasing stunts on the calendar. It is in the afternoon, though, that every boxer does his hardest conditioning work. In my case I box forty five minutes with Dunn, who was once a crack lightweight, and Jimmy Downs, my sparring partner. Dunn is a big man, able to take as well as give a punch, and we go at it hammer-and-tongs. Of course, the gloves are big, but when a punch lands it stings. My work-out with Dunn develops my punch and ability to withstand heavy blows. Sparring with Downs helps my speed, for Jimmy is about my weight, and is lightning fast. Working with those two men for three quarters of an hour a day is no joke. On the contrary, it is the hardest kind of toil. After that comes the more montonous part of the routineskipping the rope, punching the bag, and fooling with the medicine ball. If monotonous it is wonderfully beneficial in limbering and toughening the muscles and aids in developing the wind as much as road work does. I keep that up for an hour or more, and by that time I am dripping with sweat and ready for a session with Mike Graelis, my trainer. After a refreshing shower bath I stretch out on the rubbing table, and Mike massages me, and attends to any bruises or cuts I may have accumulated during the day. That bath and rub-down banishes any slight feeling of fatigue, and when it is over I grab up a ball and glove, and head for the diamond. Fighting is my business, but to me baseball is the greatest sport in the world. Not a clear day passes that I do not play. Entirely aside from the pleasure it gives, baseball is as good a conditioner of men as can be found. I stay on the diamond until the supper bell rings, and always leave it reluctantly. After supper I usually motor about the countryside for a couple of hours, returnJohnnie Kilbane and a group of well known sport writers who staged a baseball (Continued on Page 592) game at Liepersville as a part of the former's Boxing Training

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HOW A BOXER TRAINS

(Continued from Page 550) ing in time to turn out the light and crawl between the sheets by nine o'clock. That sounds like a pretty full day, but there are dozens of other things that must be attended to. Newspaper men are continually after photographs and information. Friends and acquaintances come in to shake hands and introduce friends of theirs. There are letters to write. In fact there are a thousand and one things to do in a few odd moments even when one has an efficient manager as I have. After all the training period must be a period of mental stimulation as well as physical development. Many a fighter has beaten himself before he entered the ring by working himself into a nervous state, brooding on the outcome of the fight, or becoming so overconfident that he unconsciously slacks his preparation. It is all a matter of temperment, of course. Jim Jeffries was always sullen and restless as each day brought the

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battle nearer. On the other hand, Billy Papke, once middleweight champion of the world, looked on every fight as a joke, and often entertained friends in his dressing room before entering the ring. Abe Attell, from whom I won the featherweight title, was nervous before facing his antagonist, but became cock-sure as soon as the gong rang. In my own case, I never allow thoughts of what may happen to bother me during training. My nerves are in good condition, and I figure that my opponent is the one to worrynot I. That isn't egotism. It is merely self confidenceand a good digestion. Of course, the worry experienced by most fighters going into a championship bout only crystallizes during the last two days, when the grind of training slackens sufficiently for them to conjure up the possibilities of disaster. The most nervous man in the world would not have time to worry if he kept as busy as I do while I 'm working to get in trim. From five to nineas I have said beforethere is not a minute I can call my own. After nine o'clock I am asleep, so deep and dreamlessly that it would take a good sized earthquake to wake me up. Every fighter has his own method of bringing himself to top-notch physical condition. Some specialize in road work; others depend more on bag punching and shadow boxing; still others institute fads of their own. When Battling Nelson was training for his fight with Terry McGovern he took up Rokoa game invented by Fenton Spink, of Clevelandand claimed that it did him lots of good. But, as a whole, the same general routine is followed. The boxer must develope wind, speed, strength and hitting power. The neglect of any one will lose a battle on which thousands of dollars and his own reputation depend. The worst element of the game, particularly to a man who accumulates fat easily, is the constant effort to make weight. A man whose best fighting poundage is one hundred and twenty six, for instant, has often to go through torture to rid himself of the excess weight. Turkish baths, long runs, a minimum amount of water tends to weaken him. If he keeps that effort up over a stretch of years the weakness is bound to become permanent. Jockies suffer in this respect more than fighters, but many a ringman has shortened his life as well as his career in the effort to make weight. Fortunately for me I never have any trouble getting down to the featherweight limit of one hundred and twenty two pounds, so I always am at my best when I step into the ring. Many another champion has not been so fortunate, however. The fighting game has been good to me. It has carried me from poverty to comfort; it has brought me into contact with some of the finest men in the country; in short,

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it has given me everything I possess in this world. But let me whisper a word in your ear: I would enjoy it even more than I do if I could somehow discover the formula for perpetual fitness, and skip the drudgery of the training camp. FOOT BALL GUIDE PUBLISHED Edited by Walter Camp, as usual, Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide has made its annual appearance, its contents embracing all the familiar subjects and information that has made it so valuable to every player and follower of the gridiron sport. The revised rules are, of course, the feature of the book, while Mr. Camp's All America selections and his comments on the season, together with reviews of the game in various sections of the country by writers familiar with the play in their respective localities, comprise the text, with President Wilson's letter to Mr. Lawrence Perry of the New York Evening Post, upholding the continuance of athletic activities in the schools and colleges, having the place of honor as frontispiece usually occupied by the leading team of the previous season. The list of officials designated by the Central Board is up to date, the excellent pictures are there as usual, and altogether the Guide, despite the difficulties in the collection of material which have naturally arisen, presents all the features which have made it indispensable in the realm of foot ball. The Guide is published by the American Sports Publishing Company, 45 Rose Street, New York, and will be sent to any address on receipt of 10 cents. SPALDING'S