Maurice Hinchey: “I ask my colleagues here in the House to join me in celebrating the life of an outstanding American, an American who was…”

“I ask my colleagues here in the House to join me in celebrating the life of an outstanding American, an American who was a boxer and the heavyweight champion of the world. His name was Floyd Patterson. He died recently, on May 11 at the age of 71. He was a truly outstanding athlete and, I think even more importantly, an incredibly outstanding human being. All of us who had the opportunity to know him benefited from that knowledge and our association with him, and I am proud to be one of those people who knew him well. Floyd Patterson was born in a rural cabin in Waco, North Carolina, one of 11 children. When he was still young, his family moved to Brooklyn, New York. As a young child there, he struggled in a tough urban environment and as a youngster got into a certain amount of trouble. He was sent upstate to Wiltwyck School For Boys where, under the proper kind of supervision, he began to turn his life around. He did so in a very dramatic way. He became associated with a very important boxing trainer named Cus D'Amato, and at the age of 17 Floyd Patterson won a gold medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, boxing as middleweight. He was known as a ``gentleman boxer.'' He was known as a gentleman boxer because in the ring he knocked a number of people out and a lot of people down, but he always helped them to their feet. He had an amazing boxing career.…”