Editor, News-Register:

I met Roger “Cookie” Wallace through his brother Richard “Dick” Wallace, a Brooke County school bus driver who listened with encouragement about my aspiration to be in the fight racket. When I was working in Wellsburg back in the late ’70s his brother would come from a long day’s work at Eagle Manufacturing to do his banking when I was a teller. But Cookie enjoyed unclaimed fame in the glove game having been the wheels in 1980 for the Ohio Valley Tough Man contest at what was then Wheeling Civic Center. In what was a rather tense drive Cookie provided a comic sigh of relief for Dick, Gary, his nephew, and myself. This was all new and none of us knew exactly what to expect. Cookie, Dick, and I had been regulars in Bar Room Boxing at Aquant Lounge near Toronto, where I met the owner of the Columbiana County Ambulance service and Salineville Funeral Home boxing matchmaker Ray Manning who would open the door for me to climb the ring steps.

The Wallace brothers began boxing at Web’s Pool Hall on 8th street between Charles Street and Main Street in Wellsburg, encouraged by their father and a fellow named Johnny Durbin. Dick’s oldest son Richard Jr. and Garey pounded on the old army canvas in the back. Dick, Richard, Garey, and I traveled to the famed Center Avenue YMCA in Pittsburgh in the early winter of 1974, it was Cliff Sachini of Follansbee who fought at the YMCA under the guidance of Leo Paugh. He also boxed at Sullivan Hall St. Marys’ Parrish on Mt. Washington a week later. Not long after Scotty Cross and Richard Wallace Jr. boxed in the preliminaries of the Pittsburgh Diamond Belt in 74 at Sullivan Hall. Scotty won the 132 sub novice title at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Richard Jr provided a spartan education to his younger brother Garey, known effectively as Geese.

In between, Garey won the Pittsburgh Golden Gloves 132lb sub-novice title under the guidance of Leo Paugh. Later, Garey fought on a card in Salineville where I served as chief second.

Back in Wheeling in 1980 Gary prevailed but it was “Cookie’ who remains the unsung hero of that first Toughman night. As Dick wrapped Gary’s hands with white gauze and surgical tape. … I can see ‘Cookie” face looking like his brother’s whose face was red as the gel was applied on Gary’s skin, preparing the champion prizefighter for the evening’s first battle. I wore a white medical lab coat filled with an assortment of supplies. Tommy Shaffer the “Uniontown Barber” had brought his boxing ring with three burgundy ropes and white dirt and blood splattered-stained canvas. Cutie Pie Chambers, who had once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in an amateur show near Pittsburgh back in the early 1970s, was serving in some official capacity sitting on the east of the arena. I wanted to lift the stool in a timely fashion and lift it before the buzzer and chambers said I had never seen someone so anxious to get the stool in the ring but Cookie barked back in my defense. I remember walking back to the locker room holding the bucket, the ice melting, the water with small blood spots from the mouthpiece on the surface and Cookie carrying the towel. My memory is clear on this point, saying “We have done good…really good.”

Cookie was so proud of both Gary and Dick on the ride home. Cookie came up to me years later at the Wellsburg Banquet Hall asking if I still remembered him, as our paths had not crossed for several years. I said “Cookie, I ain’t that old yet.” People who chew the fat say in the fight game you meet the same people going up the ladder as coming down. To quote Angelo Dundee, ”I just carried the spit bucket.” It was a thrill to have been part of that first Toughman all those years ago, a pleasure to have known Cookie and his brother Dick they were truly very good men.

Michael Traubert

Wellsburg