Terry Rondeau
Name: Terry Rondeau
Alias: Buzzsaw
Hometown: Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA
Birthplace: Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA
Died: 1995-02-14 (Age:45)
Pro Boxer: Record
TERRY RONDEAU: THE 'BUZZSAW' HAD HIS SHARE OF UPS AND DOWNS, by Eddie Spence:
A small, intense, acne-faced young man lay against the steering wheel of a car after slamming into another parked car. As his senses returned, the young man, scarcely past his late teens, thoroughly intoxicated, realized his situation. He was driving a stolen car and if he knew what was good for him, he'd get out of there quickly.
He fell from the car and ran around the side of a nearby community college in Pittsfield, Mass. Glancing over h is shoulder, he noticed five or six students come out of the college, hesitate, and then start out in his direction. Around the corner of the building he saw open space of a park. Freedom!
As he raced across the park, the sound of pursuing footsteps grew louder. His lungs pleaded for air. Damn, all that smoking. Then he felt the weight of a crushi8ng tackle bring him to the ground. He struggled to his feet and faced a short, stocky blond man.
Two quick rights and the blond man sprawled on the ground. Four more hands seized him almost immediately and a voice tried to calm him. "Take it easy, kid. No one' going to hurt you."
Subdued, he waited.
The men turned him over to the police and he appeared in Central Berkshire District Court the next morning. The young man was Terry Rondeau. The judge asked his plea. "Not guilty, your honor, " Terry said.
"Not guilty!" the judge said in dismay, "son, I was in teaching at the college last night when you crashed into that car. Part of my class were the policemen who caught you. Now sit down and let's straighten this out."
It was straightened out.Terry Rondeau, then 20, got nine months in the Berkshire County House of Correction. No stranger to trouble, Terry spent his adolescence creating sleepless nights for the Pittsfield Police.
TROUBLED TEEN
As a teenager, his life was one continuous probation; as an adult, he pent the better part of two years making short trips to the House of Correction. "When I got out of jail, " Terry says, "I'd get a job, but I never stayed too long...maybe a week...and I kept getting into trouble. I'd have a few bee4rs, get nasty, and belt somebody."
As he sat in his bathrobe this Sunday afternoon , he joked about his past, happy that it was now past. He freely admits that perhaps his biggest opponent has always been himself.
"Ever since I can remember," Terry recalls, " everybody was telling me I'd never amount to anything. I wanted to prove that I could be as good as anybody."
But things got worse before they looked better. Numerous convictions for juvenile and adult offenses came and went before Terry thought seriously about fighting. To make things more difficult, he quit school in the eighth grade."My name was such a black mark that I had to prove to my family and the people of Pittsfield that I was OK," says Terry. "The only way I felt I could clear my name was by fighting. I'm not a bright guy. I had no education, no background. Boxing was the only way I could show the people of Pittsfield that I was really someone."
It would be nice toreport that everything worked out fine. But life is full of little steps that lead to bigger steps. In the autumn of 1967, Terry approached Roger Sala, Pittsfield fight manager, about boxing for him.
" I told him if he wanted to fight, OK," Sala recalls, "But I didn't think he was serious. I knew his reputation around town."
Terry promised Sala he'd be a serious fighter, but he freely admits it was only a half-truth.
TROUBLEMAKER AND WINO
"Roger thought I was a trouble maker and a wino. To tell the truth, I was. I wanted to fight to help support my habit."
Somehow Terry stayed sober and out of trouble long enough to train successfully. On Nov. 2, 1967, without a single amateur fight, he fought Bobby Diamond in Portland, Maine, capturing four-round unanimous decision.
(Eddie Spence wrote the above story for the September 1970 issue of Boxing Illustrated. Rondeau died in 1995 of complications brought on by cirrhosis of the liver.)