To the Editor,

The famed Steubenville and Weirton fight promoter and matchmaker Don Elbaum passed away on July 27 at the age of 94. He brought the squared circle to local venues, touching the lives of local fighters and fans, including mine. The New York Times bled ink bout his death, recalling his time mentoring Don King after his release from the Mansfield penitentiary, the man who went on to promote the flying fists with young Donald Trump.

Elbaum was the kid who truly ran off and joined the circus. His humble beginning included a June 4, 1960, fight card at the Steubenville Armory when Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was still president of the United States. Among the boxers on the show was Rex Agin, who married a Wellsburg girl and later served on the West Virginia State Boxing Commission.

When JFK was in the White House, he filled the sports pages of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times with stories about the fight game promoting at Grant School gym in Steubenville in the mid-1960s, the Big Red gym, Harding Stadium and what would become St. John Arena. Across the river, he brought fights to the Millsop Community Center. He went on to promote the big names — Cassius Clay and Sugar Ray Robinson.

When ESPN began broadcasting a weekly live TV program for the first time since the early 1960s, Elbaum gave local boxers a chance to come to the boardwalk to fight in Atlantic City. I was offered a chance to come to the Jersey Shore to work in the squared circle industry to spin gauze and cut tape. My barber, Mike Slavik, a former pro fighter, told tales of Don while I still had blonde hair and a booster board because I was too small to sit in the regular barber chair.

Reading all those sports stories about Don in the local paper first introduced me to boxing.

Every story has a beginning! He was part P.T. Barnum — step right up and see the greatest show on earth.

Michael Traubert

Wellsburg