Ray Wells

Name: Ray Wells
Birth Name: Ray L. Wells
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Birthplace: Nebraska, USA
Died: 2004-10-18 (Age:71)
Stance: Orthodox
Pro Boxer: Record


Ray Wells, 71, died October 18, 2004 of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Wells started his boxing career at what is now Girls and Boys Town when it was still Father Flanagan's Boys Town for abandoned, abused or otherwise troubled youth. He chose to live there when his divorcing parents got into a custody fight when he was about 12. He returned to Omaha to finish his last two years of high school and boxed for the Omaha World-Herald Golden Gloves team, winning the city lightweight championship in 1949.

He boxed for the Golden Gloves team at the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center and coached, too, for 18 years. He won the city middleweight championship in 1954, and in 1957, he turned pro.

After a period of odd jobs, he started working as a bus driver in 1975 for the Metropolitan Transit Commission, now Metro Transit. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he also served on the board of the Way, an advocacy organization.

After Wells retired from the transit commission in 1994, he returned to boxing as a coach at Glovers Gym for a couple of years.