Boxing is poorer after Bra Shorts’s untimely death
EASTERN Cape-born international boxing official Thabo Spampool spoke fondly yesterday of the departed accomplished trainer Balekile “Bra Shorts” Sam.
Sam helped to produce South Africa’s first female world boxing champion Noni “She Bee Stingin” Tenge, the IBF junior welterweight title holder. He died after a short illness last Friday at the age of 77. Sam lived in Mdantsane, but will be buried at Statterheim in the Eastern Cape, on Saturday.
Spampool – who serves as LieutenantColonel in the SA Army – said the boxing fraternity had lost a man of honour and a father.
“This man started honing the skills of fighters in the 1970’s at Modern Boys Boxing Club,” said Spampool. That gym was formed by Mzukisi Skweyiya at Nyameko Secondary School in Mdantsane, which was a stone throw away from Spampool’s family house.
Spampool was also an amateur boxer at the same gym.
“Sikweyiya was training at Golden Boxing Club. He advised those boxers to look for a manager. By then he had a promotion company called Modern,” said Spampool.
“After Mveleli Luzipho lost the SA junior flyweight to Jacob Matlala, in 1983, we left the gym with Bra Shorts and approached Mzimasi Mnguni to manage us under then newly formed Eyethu Boxing Club. Bra Shorts stayed at Eyethu until the 1990s.
“Bra Shorts would sit with you in your tough times until you were okay.”
Sam and Lennox Mpulampula guided Tenge to victories for both the IBF and WBF junior welterweight belts. Later, Sam and Luyanda Sovasi helped Tenge to capture the WBF junior middleweight strap which she defended in Durban in March.