Olympic boxer Carroll Morgan dies
Whiteside, Richmond County, native represented Canada at 1972 Munich Games
Olympic heavyweight boxer Carroll Morgan has died at age 70.
The Whiteside, Richmond County, native passed away immediately after suffering a massive heart attack at home in Halifax on Wednesday night, his son Joe told the Cape Breton Post.
He said he considered his father “my biggest hero, my role model.”
“It’s a very big blow to us,” he said of his brother Bradley and mother Marlene. “Me and my father were best friends.”
Despite growing up in rural Cape Breton where there were no organized sports, Morgan went on to a distinguished athletic career.
He made the St. Francis Xavier University X-Men football squad as a walk-on and helped lead the team to its first-ever national title in 1966. While attending university, roommate and future Canadian featherweight champion Francis (Rocky) MacDougall of Sydney convinced him to take up boxing, and the heavyweight began training in Sydney under coach John Cechetto.
Over the next 20 years, Morgan never lost a fight to another Canadian as he collected seven provincial, four Atlantic and three Canadian titles. He was also the Eastern Canadian and North American champion. However, his biggest in-ring accomplishment came in 1972 when he represented Canada at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, West Germany, where he placed fourth.
A school teacher in Halifax, Morgan was eventually forced to hang up the gloves for good in 1988 when he tore a muscle while sparring, but still continued to coach both boxing and football.
Morgan was inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, and he’s a member of the Nova Scotia Sports Heritage Hall of Fame as a member of the 1966 X-Men team and as a boxer.
Earlier this month, he was inducted into the Cape Breton Sports Hall of Fame and was joined by many family and friends for the dinner and induction ceremony at Centre 200 in Sydney.
Mackie MacIntyre of the Cape Breton Sports Hall of Fame said Morgan was in good spirits during the June 1 event.
“He enjoyed the night. He had a great night, he had a lot of family and friends there — they had over 35 people attending with him,” MacIntyre said, adding that Morgan’s accomplishments made him stand out even among other hall of fame careers.
“We all have the hockey teams and the baseball teams and the other teams that go on to win Maritimes and Atlantic or Canadian championships, but to have an individual who’s on the world stage, it’s incredible.”
Funeral arrangements were still being made for Morgan as of press time.