Baby LeRoy
Name: Baby LeRoy
Birth Name: Leroy Edmerson
Hometown: Oakland, California, USA
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Died: 2004-03-05 (Age:72)
Pro Boxer: Record
Manager: Jack Attell (on West Coast)
Leroy "Baby Leroy" Edmerson trained former WBA heavyweight champion Greg Page from 1974 to 1984.
Page began boxing under the tutelage of Edmerson at a Louisville Parks Department gym at age 15.
Edmerson was dismissed as trainer after Page lost to Tim Witherspoon in a 1984 fight for the vacant WBC heavyweight title. [1]
Trainer gave guidance to a generation of champions
By Bob Hill, The Courier-Journal, March 11, 2004
Terry Silver was sitting in his comfortable Jeffersonville, Ind., home watching a grainy video of himself fighting Sugar Ray Leonard for the 1974 National Golden Gloves Championship. A Howard Cosell sound-alike was doing the television voice-over, both fighters looking so young, so lithe, so agile.
With Silver was Tyrone Moore, an old friend who had fought Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns for the 1977 national title. Silver and Moore lost those fights. Silver would win his national title in 1980, his career interrupted by four years of college.
Both men would turn professional, sparring with and fighting some of the best, including Golden Gloves and WBA world champion Greg Page.
All three Louisville fighters would share one piece of history, their trainer, Leroy "Baby Leroy" Edmerson. Silver was 12 when he met Edmerson. He lived in Alpha Gardens. His neighbor was a former fighter, Billy Williams. Silver thought he and Williams' four sons all would be getting boxing lessons from their dad.
"All of a sudden this man pulled up in this old beat-up car and there was Leroy," said Silver, 48, now a mortgage salesman.
Moore, 45, grew up in Cotter Homes and works for the Metropolitan Sewer District. He needed some early quickness to launch his career. Edmerson was hauling Cotter Homes kids to the gym in the old car, but refused to include the 15-year-old Moore, saying he was too small.
"That old car had one back door that wouldn't open," Moore said, "so one day I just snuck in first and let the other guys come in behind me. I knew Baby Leroy wasn't going to put everybody else out just to get me out."
Silver and Moore recently told "Baby Leroy" stories for 40 minutes, laughing hard, pausing for reflection, searching for the words. Edmerson was from Cincinnati. He fought professionally for more than 20 years, never more than a journeyman, hanging on too long.
Small, compact, fit, he worked as a janitor, helped raise four daughters, wanted nothing from boxing except to train its next generation. He built his first ring in a Beecher Terrace basement with thin foam on the floor and four old posts for corners. He later used a sparsely furnished gym in an upstairs room at 919 Baxter Ave., then Baxter II on Oak Street.
A hundred young men came to him eager to learn his sport, including a chunky, overweight Page. Edmerson gave them guidance, discipline, direction, a life schedule and rides in his old car for free.
"I don't even remember ever giving him a dime for gas," Silver said.
Edmerson didn't raise his voice. He was a stickler for fundamentals, trained his fighters so well he would take entire Louisville teams to the national Golden Gloves finals.
"He produced as many national champions as Rick Pitino and Denny Crum and one world champion," said Silver, who wants to see Edmerson in the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame.
In failing health, Edmerson was living in an Indianapolis nursing home when he died last Friday at 72. Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. today at Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church, 443 E. Kentucky St., with burial in Cave Hill Cemetery.
Silver saw Edmerson a final time last year. Not sure his old trainer recognized him, Silver kept talking to him, trying to make a connection, reminding Edmerson of his old admonition: "Stick your move."
"I kept saying `Leroy, Leroy, stick your move,'" Silver said. "Finally his eyes fluttered a little bit and he said, `I told ya, move.'"
"He wouldn't say anything else after that. I sat there about 40 minutes. ... It brought tears to my eyes."