DON AND LORRAINE:
A LOVE STORY

By Michael Swann

Promoters Don and Lorraine Chargin, boxing’s Golden Couple, are so joined at the hip after 46 years of marriage that it is difficult to think of one without giving thought to the other. In an industry in which the word love is often associated with greed, the two have operated as a team, demonstrating an unmistakable ardor for the game and each other based on a single doctrine - mutual respect.

Don, now 78 years old, received his second’s license in 1945 and promoted his first show at the age of 23, featuring former world bantamweight champion Manuel Ortiz and Eddie Chavez in the main event. Now after 61 years in the business, Don has promoted over 3000 fights and over 40 world champions have appeared on his cards.

From the late 1950’s to the early 1960’s Chargin was the matchmaker for Jimmy Dundee at the Oakland Auditorium. Then he was the matchmaker at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1964 to 1984, working for the legendary promoter, Aileen Eaton.

“But even then we had our own boxing club,” Don recalled. “Sacramento was always a great city for us. In fact, I was so busy at the Olympic and Lorraine would go up [to Sacramento] and do it all on her own.”

Lorraine’s voice was detectable in the background and Chargin completes the thought with more than a small measure of pride in his voice.

“Yeah, and she used to steal fighters from me, too.”

During his years with Eaton at the Olympic, they put on some 1000 fight cards, one fight card a week, earning him the nickname “War a Week Chargin,” for the memorable battles that took place there. While it was commonplace for weekly cards to be held across the country in the 40’s and 50’s, by the 70’s and 80’s the Olympic cards were becoming more and more unique as a weekly attraction that produced top-flight competition as interest in boxing began to decline.

But Chargin was, and is, an artist at matching quality opponents that produced crowd pleasing fights.

Finally the great ride came to an end.

“Aileen was very, very ill, and she felt she couldn’t do it anyone,” Don recalled. “The L.A. Athletic Club that owned the Olympic wanted to sell the building. They wanted to sell to Aileen, but she felt she wasn’t up to it. So someone else bought the building and part of the agreement was I had to stay for two years with the new people, and it was the longest two years of my life.

“I was so used to working with Aileen who was one of a kind that it was hard to be associated with anyone else. She paid us real good, gave us a percent of the business, and it was a great working arrangement.”

Eaton died in 1987, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002, the only female member of the hall.

“It’s a shame that they put her in after she died,” Don said. “She would have been so proud.”

Lorraine adds, “If she was alive today she would be the foremost boxing promoter. She had a mind like a steel trap. She was a lady no matter what you ever heard of her. She was tough, but she was fair, and she was very caring. She and Don together were just so amazing to be around.”

Starting in the 1980’s, the Chargins continued to promote in Sacramento, including champions Tony Lopez, Loreta Garza, and Willie Jorin. In 2002, Oscar De La Hoya named Don to serve as Senior Consultant.

Don Chargin was inducted into the International Hall of Fame in 2001. He was honored, but he had always hoped that Lorraine would be inducted with him.

He says now that, “I have so much respect for the Hall of Fame and that would be the capper if she had a plaque next to mine. Nobody knows more than I do what she’s been to boxing.”

In Don’s induction speech to the IBHOF, he concluded his remarks by recognizing Lorraine:

“Everyone knows that I’m a terrible, terrible details person. I love to make the matches. But my wife Lorraine does all the work. She does everything. I’m not saying anything that everybody doesn’t know. She’s been doing this for 40 years and I think we have a great, great, team. I wish Lorraine would stand up…”

The couple was honored jointly by the Boxing Writer’s Association of America in 2001 when they were presented with the James J. Walker Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

Lorraine says that she was so thrilled to see Don get inducted in the Hall of Fame that she didn’t even think of herself at the time. Conversely, when they received the Walker award from the BWAA, Don kept saying, “I’m so happy for you,” and she would reply, “Goofy, you’re getting it as well.”

“Actually, Don has been my biggest booster,” Lorraine said. “I feel that he should be given honors and he feels the same way.”

Lorraine says that she feels complimented by the support for her induction in the Hall of Fame:

“I get kinda nervous about it. I never felt there was a glass ceiling for me. So I think it’ll happen, because people in boxing know that I’ve always been side by side with Don in the trenches.”

Lorraine says she does the “grunt work,” the not so glamorous part. I get to wear the black hat and he gets to wear the white hat.”

Don disagrees, saying, “She doesn’t do the grunt work. She does 99.9% of everything.”

Don Chargin is well known as one of boxing’s good guys, something that can occasionally cause Lorraine considerable consternation.

“It’s terrible - for all the years I’ve been doing this, I have less problems with other people,” Lorraine sighs. “He sort of takes everyone else’s side and I try to run it like it’s a business. Anymore, I can see him in front of a building giving away tickets to an event - baseball, football, anything! The idea is when you have a show you must sell tickets.”

Lorraine who has alternately been called “Dragon Lady,” [she hates that term] and “Boxing Mom.” One writer said that she was a Dragon Lady to fighters and the media, and a Boxing Mom to fighters and the media. In all cases, however, she is very protective of Don.

“I can be very soft and very caring, but if someone does something to Don I can be a “Dragon Lady,” she explains. “He’s a guy’s guy but he’s a very nice man, so when I see people who think because he’s easy going it makes him less than other promoters who are much more vocal, then I get crazy.”

Lorraine described the story of how she and Don met, evidence that not much has changed despite the passage of years:

“My boss introduced us. He said, ‘I want you to meet my best friend.’ I disliked my boss so much that I said, ‘If he’s a friend of yours he must be a pig.’

“He [Don] was just the nicest guy, and each time I saw him I said, ‘What a really nice man.’ He invited my roommate and myself to a fight. I said, ‘Fine, I’ll come but I’ll buy my own tickets. Why should I take tickets from you?’ And I still feel that way.”

THE GOLDEN BOY YEARS

“They have a very young, but very capable staff there,” Don says admiringly of his new employer. “In four years it’s amazing what they’ve learned. In the beginning I helped the matchmaker out, but now he doesn’t need much help. I’m just on call all the time for them.

“They’re a coming organization. I wish I was in it when I was a lot younger. Their CEO [Richard Schaeffer] is so sharp, and here’s a guy that four years ago had been to a few fights, but that’s it. And I give Oscar credit for having the brains to pick him and ask him to run his company.

“Oscar is learning, you’d be surprised. Every once in a while, he’ll call and ask about the styles [of fighters]. He’s not just a figurehead for that company. Oscar knows what the fighter goes through.”

DON’S FAVORITE PEOPLE

“Aileen Eaton would be at the top. Also, Russell Peltz, [the Philadelphia promoter who Chargin says he most respects as a promoter]. I’m a great admirer of Teddy Atlas. Dean Chance -wow, what a great ballplayer. Jack McCoy, a manager who passed away who was my best friend - he had five world champions that he started from scratch. And Dan and Kathy Duva - I worked very closely with Dan before he died. He was one of my closest friends and we did many, many shows together, and I have a lot of respect for Kathy.”

BEST MEMORIES

“There’s certain fights when I look back,” said Don. “There’s nothing better than to start a kid out and then have him win a world title. You can sit there and you won’t say anything to anyone else, but that’s one time you can pat yourself on the back and say job well done.”

DISAPPOINTMENTS:

“Loreta Garza was probably the nicest kid we ever promoted, and he did win a world title [WBA jr. welterweight]. And when he lost his title to Edwin Rosario, we were crushed. He was such a nice kid that they didn’t tell us he went in with bad, bad flu and didn’t want to disappoint us by pulling out of the fight.”

“WE MAKE LISTS”

When Don Chargin said that he had a list of the five sharpest people that he had ever met in his life, it figured to be fascinating, but who would have expected this diverse group? (Not listed in any particular order.)

“Aileen Eaton, Richard Schaeffer, Roy Cohn [yes, the lawyer] - we were going to do an Archie Moore fight together at Candlestick [Park, in San Francisco]. The fight fell through, but we got to know each other and he was just so bright. Howard Hughes - I worked for him for 14 months. He was just so ahead of his time. He had this idea for pay per view baseball. He had this huge warehouse with all this equipment in it and needed someone to watch it. He paid me $750 a week. Jerry Perenchio - [The billionaire CEO of Univision, he co-promoted Ali-Frazier I, and promoted the Battle of the Sexes Tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.] - He hired me to help with the promotion of the second fight with George Foreman and Joe Frazier.”

THE BAD GUYS

During the entire interview, not a single negative statement was made about the sport or anybody in it. Don explained his point of view this way:

“We have always operated on the basis that you get one bite at the apple. If we do business with somebody and they’re not above board, we just don’t go back.

“In the thousands of fights I’ve been involved in, I’ve never seen one that I could actually say was fixed.”

FINAL THOUGHTS:

“For years, my wife and I had a pattern that after our fights, especially those in Northern California, we would jump in the car and stop in some small town along the coast. The whole time we were talking about the fight the night before, whatever fighter we used the night before, and how far do you really think we can take him? That’s how we ended up here in Cambria [California]. We kept going to these small towns and when we hit this town we knew that was it.

“I tried to put on the best fights that could be made. We’re far from being rich. We’re comfortable. We’ve had a great 46 year marriage and there’s no regrets from either of us.”

The couple may have no regrets, but to give this love story the happy ending that it deserves, Lorraine Chargin should have her rightful place in the Hall of Fame, side by side with Don, as always.