Ed Sanders (boxer)

Hayes Edward "Big Ed" Sanders (March 24, 1930 – December 12, 1954) was an American heavyweight boxer who won an Olympic gold medal in 1952.

Sanders was the oldest male child of the family.

His older sister, Winifred, died in a Scarlet Fever epidemic, in 1939.

As a child, Sanders was very large for his age and physically strong.

At age 12, he was recollected to be the size of a normal 18 year old.

Sanders and his younger brother, Donald, collected coffee cans, filled them with cement and connected two of them with a steel bar to make a weight set for exercising.

As "Big Ed" grew bigger, faster and stronger, Sanders excelled in football and track and field at Jordan High School.

Outside of the ring, Sanders was known as affable, gentlemanly and highly intelligent.

In 1950, at the National Junior College Boxing Championships in Ogden, Utah, the six-foot four-inch, 220 pound Sanders attracted the attention of Idaho State College boxing coach Dubby Holt and football coach Babe Caccia.

"He had a good left hand, and for the big man that he was, he was a real orthodox, skilled boxer," Holt recalled.

Shortly thereafter, Sanders was awarded an athletic scholarship to Idaho State College (now Idaho State University) in Pocatello, Idaho, where he boxed and played football.

Sanders flourished at nearly all-white Idaho State.

In his first collegiate bout, Sanders knocked out the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Champion.

Sanders also set a record by never losing a bout in a collegiate dual meet.

While attending Idaho State, Sanders fell in love with Pocatellan Mary LaRue, who was then a secretary at Idaho State's athletic department.

She later became his wife.

In 1951, Sanders was drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Korean War, but was convinced to join the Navy by his coaches.

He then continued his boxing career as part of the U.S. Navy Boxing Team under G.E. “Moose” Detty.

Sanders scored a string of major victories when he defeated the Navy Heavyweight Champion, Kirby Seals, in San Diego, California, and won both the Los Angeles Golden Gloves and Chicago Golden Gloves Tournaments.

He subsequently toured Europe, winning the Golden Gloves Tournament in Berlin, Germany, which enhanced his reputation as a dominant heavyweight.

Upon his return to the United States, Sanders trained at Naval facilities in Maryland for his dream—the Olympics.

The Olympics, once a faraway dream, were suddenly within Sanders’ grasp, but the Olympic trials loomed as a major test, as stiff competition from around the country vied for the few coveted U.S Team spots.

In the Mid-West Regional in Omaha, Nebraska, Sanders was defeated by Army Corporal Lloyd Willis, but still advanced to the finals because of his prior victory over Navy Champion Seals.

Sanders and Willis met again in a bout in Kansas City, Missouri that decided the last spot on the Olympic boxing team.

With a broken hand, Sanders knocked out Willis, dropping him with a smashing left hook in only one minute.

The 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki turned out not to be much of a challenge for Sanders, as he knocked out his first three opponents and reached the final against Swede Ingemar Johansson.

Their match was unremarkable.

For the entire first round, Johansson avoided Sanders by circling along the edges of the ring.

The crowd, growing impatient, called for Johansson to fight.

In the second round, Johansson continued the same strategy.

Finally, in the third minute of the second round, Johansson was disqualified for failure to fight by the referee.

Johansson was ushered from the ring between policemen, and was subsequently refused the silver medal.

Sanders later stood atop the prize dais with the place for the silver medalist vacant and a Swedish flag in its unfurled knot.

Johansson maintained he was not fleeing Sanders, but rather was trying to tire his huge opponent for a planned third round onslaught but he was not awarded his silver medal for another 30 years.

On 11 December 1954, he faced Willie James for the New England heavyweight title.

James knocked out Sanders in the 11th round and Sanders had to be carried from the ring.

He never regained consciousness and died 18 hours later.

On May 26, 2012, Sanders' son Russell presided over his posthumous induction into the Compton Community College Athletics Hall of Fame, under the category of boxing.

He also was inducted into the Idaho State University Athletic Hall of Fame.

After graduating from Jordan High School, Sanders attended Compton College, where he again excelled in football and a new sport, boxing.