Isle of Palms Winter-Spring 2018-19

16 www.IsleOfPalmsMagazine.com | www.ILoveIOP.com | www.IOPmag.com inducted into the Carolinas Boxing Hall of Fame. Boyd won five South Carolina State Junior Olympics titles and two regional championships. He traveled to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Rapid City, South Dakota, for the National Junior Olympics but lost in the semifinals. He won three consecutive South Carolina State Golden Gloves crowns and took the Carolinas Golden Gloves title in 1978. In 1976, boxing in the regional Olympics trials in Detroit, he lost his second match but easily whipped New York Golden Gloves champion Johnny Magnifico in his first match. Boyd won in excess of 200 matches and lost just 31. Along the way, he picked up 25 outstanding boxer awards, the Junior Olympics and state Golden Gloves titles and was ranked in the top five National Junior Olympics boxers two years in succession. “We had a very active boxing club on Isle of Palms,” said Boyd, 59. “At one time, there were around 50 boxing clubs in the state, and we traveled to different tournaments around South Carolina and into North Carolina. Roy Leopold and Roy Cole were the coaches of the Isle of Palms boxing team, and we trained at a little gym that was off 26th Street. There were probably around 15 people on the team, and we worked out Monday through Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. I fought from around the age of 9 until I was 18. Later in my amateur career, I fought at the 119-pound class and had a lot of success.” According to Boyd, the Isle of Palms Boxing Club, because of its relatively small training area, did not host tournaments, and the members of the club fought at various gyms. “We fought in Charleston quite a bit, and there was a big gym on Yeamans Hall Road in North Charleston that held tournaments. We also boxed at the Armory in Mount Pleasant. The tournaments would go from Thursday through Saturday, with the championship bouts the final day.” A number of Isle of Palms youngsters were on the team, Boyd recalled. Photo courtesy of Johnny Boyd. Photo courtesy of Hal Coste. A young, disciplined Johnny Boyd with some of his boxing awards.