Not bad for a farm boy from Wisconsin, a high school wrestler and then professional boxer who faced some of the best in the world without a lick of fear in his bones.
Not bad, Rocky Sekorski.
You did just fine, you and your steely edge, a natural defense developed to pick off the taunts and insults as a youngster in rural Edgar, Wisconsin. You were the first ever
to advance from that school to the state wrestling tournament.
“He did it at a time when there was just one class in the state and he was from one of the smallest schools around,’’said his coach Mark Lacke “He was very aggressive and stubborn. You couldn’t count him out of any match.’’
He was a self-described farm boy who “didn’t know a lick about fighting but wasn’t afraid of anybody.
He resented the taunts about his German- Polish heritage and responded the way he had seen his father react to such indignities. The bullies soon discovered it was not in their self interest to hurl those insults.
If Sekorski sometimes seems akin to a junk yard Pit bull, it is not without good reason. He’s been throwing scrap iron around the dismantled bodies of automobiles most of his
adult life. He’s worked in scrap yards, owned scrap yards and just generally developed a persona that reflects that part of his livelihood.
At an early point in his boxing career, Sekorski took a few looks across the ring at his opponent in the opposite corner and decided - regardless of who it was- that the other fellow was just a man, too.
“I never feared anybody,’’he said.
No, he didn’t even though there were plenty of people who would have left most human beings trembling – George Foreman, Leon Spinks, Michael Dokes, Adilson Rodriques, Jimmy Young...
Sekorski fought them all. In fact, he stopped Spinks, in the sixth round of their scheduled 10 round fight, the same Spinks who earlier had surprised an unprepared Muhammad Ali to win the heavyweight crown by decision, and earlier had won an Olympic Gold Medal.
Fighters such as Foreman and Marvin Camel stopped Sekorski but he was not knocked out in 37 professional fights.
Ask what made him want to box as a professional and his answer is simple and direct. “I got more into boxing for the fame,’’ Sekorski said. “I was tired of being called a dumb Pollock. I wanted to prove something to those people.’’
Of course, that also provided access to none other than Hall of Fame trainer Joe Daszkiewicz, who told Sekorski: “I’m a Pollock, you’re a Pollock. We need to stick together.’’
That they did, although Sekorski was convinced at first that Daszkiewicz was part of the mob. “I thought he was a gangster,’’he recalled. “Then I find out that he’s this loving, family man who was nuts about boxing.’’
Joe’s son Chuck had this to say about Sekorski: “He was a road warrior, willing to go anyplace in the world to fight in the other guy’s back- yard. He was tough and willing.’’
Sekorski won the Upper Midwest Golden Gloves heavyweight championship in 1980, inaugurating the recognition he so craved.
“I was never a fancy fighter,’’he said. “In wrestling I learned two moves and it was the same with boxing. Scott LeDoux taught me the kidney punch followed by a right hand to the head and that was what I used.’’
Sekorski broke from Daszkiewicz at one point and regrets that decision to this day. “I never should have left him,’’ he said. “He was there for me as if I was family. I always called him and Chuck the gangsters of boxing.’’
And now the boxing world is calling Sekorski a member of the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
