Bobby Beaton; boxer & referee (Good)
amelia...@gmail.com
Nova Scotia boxing referee revolutionized judging in the ring
A competitive hockey player and boxer despite losing sight in one eye
during childhood, he became a boxing official and introduced the three-
judge system
ALLISON LAWLOR
Special to The Globe and Mail
August 28, 2007
HALIFAX -- Leaving behind a promising boxing career to play hockey,
Bobby Beaton went so far as to turn professional before returning to
pugilism as a referee and changing forever how the sport is judged.
Mr. Beaton, arguably the best boxing referee in Canada at one time,
was credited with introducing a three-judge system to Pictou County,
N.S., in 1954 that was subsequently adopted throughout the continent.
Until then, a single referee also acted as a judge. Mr. Beaton
contended that it was difficult enough for a referee to keep order in
the ring - why not leave the scoring to ringside judges?
HE was Nova Scotia's first referee-in-chief, and officiated in the
province from the 1940s until the early 1980s. Until 1994, he acted as
an adviser to the Nova Scotia Boxing Authority.
"I refereed for over 40 years. They just wouldn't let me stop. I
referred up until I was 72," he told the Halifax Chronicle Herald in
2005. "I don't like bragging about myself but right through Canada
they all figured I was the best referee in Canada,"
Before retiring in 1983, Mr. Beaton officiated at more than 500
boxing bouts, including 41 Canadian championships, five British
Commonwealth championships and one World Championship. During that
time, he worked fights featuring such Canadian boxing greats as Yvon
(the Fighting Fisherman) Durelle, Richard (Kid) Howard and Terrence
(Tiger) Warrington.
He left on a high note - his last fight was an International Boxing
Federation cruiserweight title match in Halifax between Marvin Camel
and Canadian Roddy MacDonald. Mr. MacDonald lost the fight when Mr.
Beaton called a technical knockout, deciding that the fighter wasn't
fit to continue the match.
"It was an exciting fight," said Hubert Earle, the Canadian Boxing
Federation's referee-in-chief, who considered Mr. Beaton his lifelong
mentor. He insisted that moral values couldn't be ignored in the ring
- that the fighters were human beings with families.
"He was fair, compassionate and definitely firm," Mr. Earle said. "...
He did it from the heart and that's what separates officials. He loved
the sport."
So did thousands of others. For 40 years, Halifax was considered the
boxing capital of Canada. Starved for entertainment, Nova Scotians
couldn't get enough of boxing, and temporary rings were often set up
on the stages of local movie theatres. "He travelled from Cape Breton
to Yarmouth doing fights," Mr. Earle said.
There was a prosaic element to the sport, too. Boxing was seen as a
way out of poverty for coal miners, fishermen and others without
formal education.
In Mr. Beaton's case, he did it all with the sight of only one eye,
after suffering an accident in childhood. On Christmas Day, 1915, when
he was just 3, he careened into a barbed wire on a toboggan and
punctured his left eye.
"People wondered how I got along so well, and I just said 'I don't
remember ever having it.' I just had to work around it," he once told
The Chronicle Herald.
He grew up in a family of eight children in Stellarton, N.S. His
father, Alexander, became the town's chief of police and also worked
in the coal mines. In 1935, he died in an explosion in the Allan Mine.
Like many young boys in Pictou County, Mr. Beaton loved to play
hockey. He was good at it, too - in 1932, he was selected to play
right wing for the senior team in neighbouring New Glasgow and
demonstrated such ability that he was recruited by the English
National League, which attracted many Canadian players between the
wars. In 1938, he played for Streatham and then the Brighton Tigers,
winning the European championship in Berlin. The following year, he
played for the Falkirk Lions in Scotland. By then, war clouds had
gathered over Europe. Having brought his new bride, Bertha, with him
to Britain, he decided it would be best if they returned home to
Canada.
During the war years and into the 1950s, he played and coached hockey
teams in Nova Scotia, winning three Nova Scotia championships and
three Maritime titles, among others. National Hockey League scouts
watched him play and showed interest in signing him until learning he
had sight in only one eye.
"I never thought about [having one eye] while I played hockey or
boxed. It was never a handicap. When I was playing hockey in Saint
John, twice NHL scouts came down and saw me play. They couldn't tell I
had only one eye until they came down and talked to me," Mr. Beaton
told The Chronicle Herald in 2005.
A machinist by trade, Mr. Beaton worked at Ferguson Industries in
Pictou, where he helped build ships for the war by day and played
hockey at night. Working at the shipyard was a dirty job. One day
after returning home from work, he hopped in the shower, grabbed a
bottle and proceeded to lather his black hair. When he got out of the
shower, he had turned blond. It had been a bottle of peroxide, not
shampoo. "My hair was the talk of the game that night."
For a short time, Mr. Beaton was involved in both hockey and boxing.
His two sporting interest first overlapped in the 1930s in Stellarton,
where he and a brother were sparring on their front lawn when a boxing
referee came by. That night, Mr. Beaton attended a local boxing match.
One of the fighters was a no-show. Organizers asked if anyone in the
audience wanted to fight - Mr. Beaton didn't step up, but his interest
was piqued. He went home and asked his dad to teach him some moves.
By all accounts, he was a quick study and it didn't take him long to
gain the upper hand. He had a short but impressive boxing career,
winning all 12 of his professional bouts, nine by knockout.
"He had to be facing the fella with his good eye," said Billie Dee,
executive director of the Pictou County Sports Heritage Hall of Fame.
"He was said to have the best left hand ... it was quick and
powerful."
Boxing under such monikers as the "Dynamite Kid," he eventually gave
up fighting to pursue his hockey career. In the 1930s, it wasn't
permitted to be an amateur in one sport and a professional in another.
It was probably the right choice. He enjoyed a long and interesting
hockey career that took him places, whereas most boxers seldom last
more than 10 years in the ring. Mr. Beaton didn't give up competitive
hockey until the early 1950s, when he joined the SunLife Assurance
Company of Canada as an underwriter. In 1958, he was transferred to
Sydney, N.S., to become branch manager. After retiring in 1985, he and
his family returned to Pictou County.
Mr. Beaton, who stood not quite six feet tall, remained in good
physical shape throughout his life. He hit the punching bag every day
and carried little fat. A devout Roman Catholic, he attended church
regularly, never smoke or drank and made 17 consecutive pilgrimages to
the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré shrine in Quebec.
"He was a perfectionist," said his daughter, Anita. "No matter what he
did, he gave 100 per cent."
Despite having quit boxing decades earlier, Mr. Beaton's last punch
was thrown in the summer of 1988, when he was 76. It was a Sunday
afternoon and he and his wife had stopped at a local pizzeria. The
found the restaurant entrance blocked by three young men.
"Get out of the way, old man," one said while aggressively trying to
prevent Mr. Beaton from entering. Before he knew what had hit him, the
younger man was knocked out with one punch.
"He never went around looking for fights," Mr. Dee said. "He was the
nicest fellow I ever met and the most knowledgeable I've ever met. He
was an encyclopedia of [Maritime] sports."
Mr. Beaton was inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame, the
Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame and the Pictou County Sports Heritage
Hall of Fame, where he also served as honorary chair.
BOBBY BEATON
Robert Beaton was born June 19, 1912, in Port Hood, N.S., and died on
June 11, 2007, in hospital in New Glasgow, N.S., two months after
suffering a fall and a week shy of his 95th birthday. He is survived
by daughter Anita and sons Robert and Bernard. He also leaves sister
Marcella and numerous grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife,
Bertha, who died of breast cancer in 1992, and by sons John and Graham.