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A magical moment
with a champion

IT'S a great photograph. The young kids with the fast hands and the slick hair are all gathered around the big man with the strong jaw. He has leis around his neck, "EVERLAST" at his belt, and the corner of the ring at his back. His sweaty hair tumbles forward on his forehead without pretension.

He stands with his hands on the ropes and the guys all around him. He looks exactly like an old-time 1930s era boxer.

And he really does look a little bit like Russell Crowe.

This picture was snapped in 1937, and looks like it, has that feel. The youngsters were Hawaii's AAU boxing team, having just been to Boston for the national championships. The man was the heavyweight champion of the world, back in the days when that job was bigger than being President of the United States.

He had been, until just then, the ultimate underdog, with the kind of story that usually involves glass slippers and pumpkin cars. He's the guy we've heard so much about in these recent months via media blitz. He was the man from the movie, James J. Braddock.

He was the Cinderella Man.

Yes, that guy, the movie, the reel-life Russell Crowe, that Cinderella Man.

The Hawaii guys had all jumped up into the ring for the picture. They'd watched him work out, watched how the heavyweight champ of the world did his training, and now they were up there with him.

Some shuffled around him nervously. A couple stared at him, starry-eyed. One grinned widely, sunning himself in the moment of standing there at the shoulder of the heavyweight champ. Two of them stood formally, looking into the camera lens shyly; they figured this was what the moment called for them to do.

You could tell that every one of them was remembering this for all time. They'd tell all their friends about it, when they got back home days later after crossing the Pacific aboard the Mariposa.

They'd dressed for this grand occasion. The champ was sweaty, but they were perfect. Every hair was slicked back earnestly, held down for a 10-count by a roundhouse of pomade. They wore ties and suits. The seal of Hawaii emblazoned their blazers. They had handkerchiefs in their pockets.

Their trainer, Charlie Miller, was placing a second silk lei around the champion's neck.

This was after what you saw in the movie, when "Gentleman Jim" had come from nowhere to win it all, and stood, for that brief moment, on top of the world. This was when he was training for his first title defense -- against either Max Schmeling in New York or Joe Louis in Chicago.

But Hitler's infamy was hurting Schmeling's ability to schedule American opponents, and we now know that it was the Brown Bomber the Cinderella Man would face.

Braddock's was an inspirational story, but Louis would hold the title for more than a decade. The fairy tale ended in the eighth round with a hard Louis right.

"The champion was out of his head, mind and sense of direction as his manager and lifelong friend, Joe Gould, knelt to lift him to his feet," read one contemporary account.

"The fight itself was a thriller," the story continued. "Perhaps never before has a champion bowed from the picture more gamely."

But it was over.

Braddock would have one more fight, which he won, and then an exhibition, and he left the fight game for good.

(Actually, after the Louis fight, Braddock could afford to retire from boxing. Not only did Braddock get a huge payday for the Louis fight, but, according to PBS.org, his management got 10 percent of Louis' earnings for the next 10 years as part of the deal.)

But for that short time, his life was a Hollywood script. And for a brief moment, standing on the canvas around him, those Hawaii boys shared it, too.

They were young and strong and full of dreams. They'd been told anything was possible. Now -- next to the champ, this underdog who had defied all the odds -- perhaps for the first time they knew for sure that it was true.

There were other highlights on that 1937 mainland trip. They met Jack Dempsey, even, sat down and ate with him at his restaurant in New York. But you can see it in the pictures. They look happy to be there, they're honored, it's nice. But the magic just wasn't the same.

There was nothing like standing with the Cinderella Man.