KADIN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-22 published
Champ didn't tell his mother
Toronto fighter was talked into boxing by his brothers during
the Thirties as a way to make more money
By Barbara
SILVERSTEIN
Special to The Globe and Mail Saturday,
March 22, 2003 - Page F11
When Leon SLAN became Canada's champion heavyweight boxer, he
didn't tell his mother. She disapproved of the sport, so he kept
the news to himself -- though not for long. Mr.
SLAN, who died
last month at the age of 86, had for years fought under another
name and managed to escape his mother's wrath until 1936, when
he won the national amateur title and the irresistibility of
fame upset his comfortable obscurity.
The modest Mr.
SLAN went on to become a successful Toronto businessman
who had so allowed boxing to settle into his past that in 1986
most of his Friends were surprised when he was inducted into
the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame. It astonished everyone that
the man they knew as the co-owner of a luggage-making company
was known in boxing circles as Lennie
STEIN, holder of the Canadian
amateur heavyweight title from 1935 to 1937.
A quiet and unassuming giant of a man, his wife described him
as invariably soft-spoken. "I never heard him raise his voice
once in all the years we were married, Isabel
SLAN said.
By all accounts, Mr.
SLAN's mild demeanour belied his prowess
in the ring, said his son, Jon
SLAN. "
For a man who was a champion
at a blood sport, he was the gentlest person you ever met."
Born in Winnipeg to Russian immigrants on June 28, 1916, Mr.
SLAN was the second of three sons. In 1922, the family moved
to the Annex area of Toronto where he attended Harbord Collegiate
Institute.
His father, Joseph
SLAN, was a struggling tailor with
interesting ideas about the garment industry. In 1931, he headed
a co-operative called Work-Togs Limited. It consisted of a small
band of tailors who were to share in the profits. The project
suffered from poor timing: It came on the scene at the height
of the Depression and failed dismally.
In 1934, Joseph
SLAN died in poverty and Leon and his two brothers
Bob, who was born in 1914, and Jack, born in 1918 -- had to
provide for their mother. Bringing home meagre paycheques from
what little work they could find, the three decided to find a
supplement.
At the time, boxing was a popular spectator sport and one of
the few that was open to Jewish athletes. Bob and Jack knew that
a good fighter could earn a decent living in the ring. Their
eyes fell on Leon. At 17, their 6-foot-2, 200-pound, athletic
brother towered over most grown men.
"Leon was big and strong and Bob and Jack thought he should be
boxing, Mrs.
SLAN said. "The family needed the money."
They persuaded him to give it a try and promised their support,
she said. "They took him to over the gym. There they were, the
three boys walking down the street arm-in-arm with Leon in the
middle. They all walked over together to sign Leon up."
They didn't consult their mother. In fact, the brothers decided
to enter the fight name Lennie
STEIN, so she wouldn't read about
Leon in the papers and worry.
As it turned out, the new Lennie
STEIN was a natural. Mr.
SLAN
won his first major fight in a Round 1 knockout over the Toronto
Golden
Gloves title holder. "
STEIN is durable and exceptionally
fast for a heavyweight, " The Toronto Star reported in 1935.
"He has the ability to rain punishment on his opponents with
both hands."
In this way, he won almost all of his major fights. It helped,
too, that his coach happened to be Maxie
KADIN, a legend in Ontario
boxing. Out of 40 bouts, Mr.
SLAN netted 34 wins, 22 by knockout,
and six losses.
A fighter who possessed a dogged and implacable manner, he was
popular with the fans.
"He was known for not staying down on the canvas, Jon
SLAN
said. "On those rare times when he was decked, he always refused
the referee's outstretched hand and picked himself up."
Yet, for all his success, Mr.
SLAN rejected the opportunity to
go fully professional. A manager and promoter from New York had
seen him in a bout with a certain German boxer and saw possibilities.
"He wanted to promote him as the Great White Jewish Hope, " Jon
said.
The
German boxer happened to be the brother of Max
SCHMELING,
the Aryan protégé of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, who in
1936 had defeated the otherwise invincible Joe
LOUIS in the upset
of the century. To make it even more interesting, the manager
proved to be the famous John
BUCKLEY, who called the shots for
Jack SHARKEY, a heavyweight who had beaten
SCHMELING four years
earlier.
"The promoter got so interested in this meeting of German and
Jew that he offered my father a contract, but he didn't offer
enough money, " Jon said.
The problem, it turned out, was that Mr.
SLAN couldn't afford
to turn professional, he once told a Globe and Mail reporter.
"I was making good money then, $25 a week, and I was supporting
my mother, " he said in 1988. "I asked him [Buckley] to put up
$5,000 [and] he just laughed at me. He said he had hundreds of
heavyweights."
Negotiations ended right there. "He was [only] interested in
me because I was Jewish and that would go over big in New York."
It wasn't the only time that race emerged as an issue. Mr.
SLAN
had boxed under the auspices of the Young Men's Hebrew Association
until 1936 when it was blackballed by the Amateur Athletic Union
of Canada for withholding a portion of its proceeds. The money
was earmarked for the Canadian Olympic effort, but the Young
Men's Hebrew Association had refused to support the upcoming
1936 Berlin Games because of Germany's poor treatment of Jews.
In the end, the Amateur Athletic Union permitted Mr.
SLAN to
enter as an independent and he went on to fight unattached to
win the Toronto and national titles.
"It seemed so easy at the time, " he said in 1988. "I was a very
quiet kid, but when I won, I became such a hero."
That glory turned out to be the undoing of Lennie
STEIN, the
fighter -- though it was all something of an anticlimax. The
one thing Leon
SLAN had feared on his way up through the ranks
came to nothing: his mother finally found out that he boxed and
then failed to react -- at least, not that anyone in the family
can remember.
"She just took it in her stride, said Isabel
SLAN. "
She was
a Jewish mother from the old country. I don't think she really
understood what boxing was all about."
Perhaps, too, it helped to smooth matters that her son's secret
endeavours had ended in triumph. She can only have felt a mother's
pride.
In 1937, Mr.
SLAN retired from boxing and found a job at a produce
stall in Toronto's old fruit terminal on Colborne Street and
was later hired by his brother Bob, a proprietor of Dominion
Citrus
Ltd. It was tough work with long hours, Mrs.
SLAN said.
"Leon would have to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning to go
unload the fruits and vegetables off the trucks."
Even so, he still had some time for boxing. After working long
days at the market, he taught athletics at the Young Men's Hebrew
Association and it was there that he met Isabel
MARGOLIAN. A
concert pianist newly arrived from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, she
happened to take one of his boxing classes for women.
"We were all lined up in a row, punching bags, " she remembered.
"Leon came up to me and told me I wasn't punching hard enough.
Then he took my hand and hit it into the bag to show me how to
do it. I felt my bones crunch, but I didn't say anything."
As it turned out, he had broken her hand. When he learned what
had happened, he phoned her and thus began a different relationship.
They married in 1942 and later that year Mr.
SLAN enlisted in
the army where he ended up in the Queen's Own Rifles. While in
the army, he returned to boxing and won the 1942 Canadian Army
heavyweight title.
After the war, the
SLAN brothers founded Dominion Luggage in
Toronto's garment district, a company that started small with
eight workers and grew into a successful enterprise employing
200. Each brother had a different responsibility -- Jack was
the designer, Bob took care of the administration and Leon was
the salesman.
"It was a job that really suited him, Mrs.
SLAN said. "He was
very personable [and] sold to Eaton's, Simpsons, Air Canada --
all the big companies. He became good Friends with many of the
buyers."
The three brothers enjoyed a comfortable relationship built on
affection and loyalty, Jon said.
"Bob liked to fish, so he took Thursdays and Fridays off to go
to his cottage. My father took Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
afternoons off to golf."
Jack, the creative force among them, rarely left the business
but never begrudged his brothers their leisure time.
"They had the perfect partnership, " said Jon, a relationship
anchored by their mother. "They were her surrogate husbands.
I don't think there was a
SLAN wife who felt that she wasn't
playing second fiddle to my grandmother."
The brothers went to her house every day for lunch until she
was 90. "She made old-time Jewish food. Her definition of borscht
was sour cream with a touch of beets, " Jon said. "She cooked
with chicken fat and the boys loved it."
Sophie SLAN died in 1984 at the age of 93.
In 1972, the
SLANs sold Dominion Luggage to Warrington Products,
a large conglomerate. "Warrington made them an offer they couldn't
turn down, " Isabel said.
Even so, the brothers' relationship continued into retirement.
"They called each other every day, even when their health was
failing, " Jon said. "Bob died in 2000 and Jack in 2002. My father
took their deaths very hard."
Although he never boxed again, Mr.
SLAN played sports well into
his 70s and could still show his mettle. He had taken up tennis
at about the age of 40 and, when he couldn't get a membership
at the exclusive Toronto Lawn Tennis Club in Rosedale, he co-founded
the York Racquets Tennis Club. It opened in 1964, directly across
the street from the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club.
Mr. SLAN died of heart failure in Toronto on February 11. He
leaves his wife
Isabel, son Jon and daughters Elynne
GOLDKIND
and Anna RISEN.
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