Leonard Plude was the kind of athlete you didn’t want to tangle with, especially in a boxing ring. A seven-time letter winner at St. Matthew High, Plude was a fearsome lineman and linebacker in football, a rugged guard on the basketball court and a power-hitting catcher in baseball. Outside of school he was a long hitter in junior golf that once shot 77 with 14 one-putt greens.
But it was in the boxing ring that Plude built a reputation from Berston Field House to the South Pacific. A 5 foot 11, 190-pound heavyweight he had a 22-3 amateur record and won 16 of 17 fights while stationed with the U.S. Navy on Johnston Island during World War II.
If not for a leg injury suffered during the war, Plude might have built a professional career in the ring. While in a small boat in heavy seas, he was slammed into a gunwale and ruptured a quadriceps muscle Despite surgery, the leg was never the same.
“I was going to turn pro, but that leg was too much,” said Plude, now 81 and living in Swartz Creek. “I couldn’t go three rounds. I could fight if they stayed still, but I couldn’t move. It would just buckle and dump me right on my nose.” The injury undoubtedly saved the noses of a lot of other fighters. In his brief ring career, Plude developed a reputation as a hard-hitting heavyweight who usually won by knockout.
One time on Johnston Island, another serviceman issued a challenge to any of the 3,000 sailors and marines on the island to meet him in the ring. Plude answered the call. The fight lasted 22 seconds.
“They rang the bell, I turned around and there he was,” said Plude. “I threw a right hand and hit him right on the button, and he saw the birdies.” Jack Carso, who began a lifelong friendship with Plude when both were shipping out of Flint for the Navy, remembers a number of bouts in boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Base. He hit one guy under the heart and he was unconscious for 20 minutes,” Carso said. There was a professional middleweight there who told Leonard he should go pro.”
At Berston, trainer Lee Cavette asked Plude to spar three rounds with state Golden Gloves champion Richard Dicks, who had to travel to Detroit to train because no one around Flint could give him a competitive workout. Plude said he could go two rounds.
Afterwards, Dicks said, “Oh man, we don’t have to go to Detroit anymore,” Carso said.
Denied a career in the ring, Plude nonetheless stayed in the fight game for 40 years as a judge and state inspector. But he also kept his athletic career going by playing football with Flint semipro teams like the Falcons and the Blue Devils. The leg would hold up because he wasn’t required to make the same kind of quick moves necessary in boxing. “He was a tough player, one of those guys who played all the time, even when he was hurt.” said Jack Park, former Blue Devils quarterback. “He was a good man to have on your side. You remember Dick Butkus?’ asked halfback Joe Gregson. “That’s Leonard. When we needed yardage I’d just grab onto the back loop of his pants and follow him through. He’d mow them down.” Plude played in a lot in pain. He’s had at least 24 surgeries in his life including three sets of artificial knees.
Plude was a diver in the Navy anchoring buoys 50 feet under water without a diving suit. He had no trouble swimming with the giant sea eels and barracudas but meeting up with a 1,800-pound tiger shark changed his outlook. “That was the last time I dove” he said. “That thing was 12 feet long and you couldn’t reach around it.” After the war, Plude worked briefly for AC, but spent most of his life as a rigger moving heavy machinery for Ironworkers Local 25. He also owned Plude’s Bar, working two jobs to support his family of 12 children.
That’s the other side of Leonard Plude. The hard-punching boxer who put so many opponents on the canvas also put 10 of his children through college. Along the way he found time to help coach football at three Flint area high schools. “He was a tough guy, but inside he’s an old softy,” Carso said. “He was more like a brother to me. He really took good care of me.
My mother used to say, ” If I could have had another boy, that’s the kind of son I’d want.’
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