Earl Kane was born to be a trainer, delivered into the

world with the DNA of someone cut from that cloth. It

was in the stars, a preordained vocation that became a

passion and a life-long love. At the very least, he really

couldn’t avoid some connection to professional boxing,

not after watching so much of it, some of the very best

of it, take place during his formative years.

Earl was a youngster during the golden age of boxing

in Minnesota, when St. Paul was a boxing mecca, not

unlike Philadelphia in later years when the City of

Brotherly Love spawned one star after another in the

fight game.

In its heyday, St. Paul produced fighters with national

reputations, fighters of prominence, many of them

with Irish surnames...Malone, Gibbons, O’Dowd,

Flanagan.

“Dad loved it from the time he was a little kid,’’ said

his son, Bill. “He was raised right in the midst of it and

would take a streetcar from Minneapolis to St. Paul.

That’s how he learned, watching the greats, asking

them questions.’’

Kane studied the craft intently, as a youngster awed by

the men who showed him how to sidestep a punch and

deliver one of his own, how to avoid taking punishment

while delivering it himself. Above all, he learned what

he would consider in his later years, his teaching years,

to be the best weapon in a fighter’s arsenal – the jab,

a tool that could make a moderate fighter into a good

fighter, a good fighter into an exceptional fighter.

Earl Kane, manager and trainer, joins his son, Bill, in

the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame, the first father-son

tandem to be so honored. If you already detected a

difference in the way they spell their last names, Kane

versus Kaehn, there is an explanation, something that

would have happened only in earlier eras of journalism.

It seems that Earl as a young boxer woke up one morning

to see his name spelled “Kane” instead of “Kaehn”

in the Minneapolis newspaper. When Earl pointed

out the misspelling to the writer, Hall of Fame inductee

George Barton, he was told to live with it, that

henceforth it would be spelled that way because

it made more sense.

Years later, when Bill was fighting in the amateur ranks

St. Paul columnist and Hall of Fame inductee Don Riley

called him and told him he was spelling his name

incorrectly. Thereafter Bill went by the last name

“Kaehn,’’ the correct spelling all along.

“Dad always went by Kane when it pertained to

boxing,’’ said Bill, who always went by Kaehn.

Although Bill is honored to see his father join him

in the Hall of Fame, he is uneasy with the way it

occurred. “I’m sure happy that he made it,’’ he said.

“I think he’s looking down on us and smiling. But

it came out of order. He should have been first,

before me.’’

Yet, there is not the slightest doubt that he belongs

among other inductees, among his fellow Minnesotans

for whom boxing was a labor of love.

Bill learned at his father’s knee and recalls many of

those lessons 80 years later.

There was the time, for example, when the two of

them were in the East watching fighters train and

overhead bystanders referring to the Earl Kane style. “A

jab with a straight right hand and a lot of movement, ‘’

Bill recalled. “He was always safety first.’’

All trainers and fighters have moments in their careers

that they replay over and over again in their minds

as the years roll past. The sport is filled with what ifs,

could have beens and if onlys.

There was one remarkable example for Kane that

might fit all such categories and it occurred with his

young fighter Jackie Sharkey. Bill Kaehn recalled the

story. It is first instructive to recall that Earl Kane’s

forte was the left jab. “It’s the greatest weapon you

have, ‘’ he always said. “A left jab followed by a

straight right hand.’’

The event being recounted here took place on New

Year’s Day 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sharkey was

matched against reigning world featherweight

champion Freddie Miller. “My dad noticed that Miller

had a lazy left jab and told Sharkey to watch for it and

counter with a straight right hand over the top, He did

just that and stretched Miller.’’

Kane and his young fighter promptly left the ring and

were nearly to the dressing room when they were

called back. (Don’t forget the bout was in Miller’s

hometown and the year was 1934). Miller’s seconds

had revived him, thus the fight was resumed and he

out-boxed Sharkey the rest of the way to retain his

world title.

“He had just won the world title but it didn’t turn out

that way,’’ Bill Kaehn said.

Sharkey and the Flanagan brothers were Kane’s

best known fighters. Glen Flanagan was quoted in a

Minneapolis Daily American story on July 25, 1968 with

the following statement: Kane “is the greatest of them

all. If anyone can teach a kid to fight, it would have to

be Earl Kane.

Bill Kaehn recalled how Sharkey might have missed

the opportunity to box entirely if his father had listened

to his mother, who was from a boxing family herself.

“Sharkey was this little Western Union kid who delivered

a telegram to our house and my dad took a liking

to him. ‘You’re wasting your time with that skinny little

kid,’ my mother told him. But dad worked with him

and he had a great career.’’

A career in which he had a 40-38-13 record with

10 knockouts. In addition he had another 50 fights

decided by what was then called newspaper decision,

recording a 31-12-7 record. A great career with a single

what could have been.

“Sharkey was laying for him,’’ Bill recalled “and he

landed the punch right on Miller’s chin. He was

stretched on his back, spread eagle. My dad put the

robe on Sharkey and they returned to the dressing

room.’’

Thus, it can be said that Earl Kane, for the briefest

of times, minutes only, did in fact have a world

champion in his stable. If there are questions about

what transpired on that particular occasion, there are

non whatsoever about Earl Kane’s much deserved

place in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.