The "A New Story About A Lancaster Hero" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a comment posted on a story I had written a few years ago about Leo Houck, one of Lancaster's best boxers whose career consisted of an estimated 203 fights from 1902 to 1922.  

Monument located in Buchanan's Park in
Lancaster, PA which features Leo Houck.

The writer of the comment was Greg Hauck whose grandfather was Edward Hauck and one of Leo's brothers.  Greg has been a friend of my oldest son, Derek, since the two played baseball together starting in elementary school.  Greg told me that after reading my story, he has  finally found out why his last name and his grandfather's last name are spelled different that Leo's last name, even though they are all blood relatives.  In my blog story I told about one of Leo Hauck's promoters who misspelled Leo's last name on a poster, so Leo decided to continue using Houck instead of his given name of Hauck.  And, since my post a few years ago, I have found a new book about Houck's life and boxing career that was recently published by author Randy Swope, a Lebanon County, Pennsylvania native and Navy veteran who has taken up writing as a hobby after retiring from a lengthy career working for the United States Department of Defense.  

New book by Randy Swope about the
history of Lancaster boxer Leo Houck.

Seems that writing a book on a boxing hero is perfect for someone who worked in defense all their life. He decided to write a bit more about some of Houck's most important fights in his life.  Told of Leo beating Harry Lewis in front of 10,000 people in Paris, France in a fight called the "world middleweight championship."  The next year Houck also beat George Chip who at the time was called the "middleweight champion."  OK, what gives?  Why wasn't Houck crowned Middleweight Championship after beating Lewis?  Seems that Lewis was actually the welterweight champ in Europe and not middleweight.  Also found out that to be declared the champion at any weight, you had to knock out the guy and not just beat him.  Randy also wrote that Houck's managers had trouble lining up big fights, since Leo didn't like to travel long distances; plus Leo enjoyed other sports as well as boxing.  Leo enjoyed playing football and semi-pro baseball.  

Boxing Champion Leo Houck.

He didn't have to be a superstar or a champ.  He just loved playing whatever game came along.  One little known fact about Leo was that he was Penn State's boxing coach for many years and produced many winning teams and boxers with winning careers.  Ed Hauck, Leo's son, later wrote to Joe Paterno after Paterno had been hired as an assistant football coach, to see if Joe knew anything about Leo he could share with him.  Joe responded with a letter that said, "When I came here, I actually had to fill Leo Houck's shoes.  Think about that."  I guess nothing else was needed to be said about how good a boxer and coach Leo Houck really was.  If you are a sports fan you may enjoy Randy's book titled "Leo Houck - A Biography of Boxing's Uncrowned Middle Weight Champion."  And, the Foreword is written by Greg Hauck's Grandfather, Edward Hauck.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.