Since boxing is big business in the Silver State, the recent appointment of Reno businessman Theodore Day to the Nevada Athletic Commission by Gov. Kenny Guinn may seem like a smart move. If nothing else, Day is a damn good — and damn important — financial wheeler and dealer.
In addition to serving as chairman of the Dacole Company, a private investment firm, he sits on the board of directors of several corporations and organizations, including the power company Sierra Pacific Resources and the nonprofit advocacy group Nevada Taxpayers Association. Because of Day’s standing not only in the business community, but also in the community at large, Guinn spokesman Keith Munro can’t say enough good things about the guy, calling him “a successful man in his 50s,” “a well respected man” and “successful, business-wise.”
But some in the boxing world measure what it takes to be a successful commissioner differently.
During his nearly three-decade-long career in boxing, Dr. Flip Homansky has garnered high praise from colleagues — especially when it comes to making the sport safer. For example, knowing that, in his words, “boxing is a true blood sport,” Homansky helped introduce mandatory HIV testing for fighters, assisting in the creation of a system in which those who did test positive were offered counseling. Back when pugilists pounded each other with gloves stuffed only with horse hair, he worked to standardize how gloves were produced, advocating they be padded with foam cells, which reduces the likelihood of serious head trauma. And when it came to steroid use — one of many safety issues he feels still hasn’t been properly addressed — Homansky pushed for rigorous testing.
The list goes on.
Which is why some are questioning the qualifications — and the motives — behind Day’s appointment to replace Homansky, whose term was up.
For starters, Day isn’t well-known in boxing circles. “This guy Day, I don’t know who he is,” says Jacob “Stitch” Duran, a boxing cutman who’s patched up fighters in between rounds in Las Vegas for the last 10 years. “What’s he going to do? Does he get a ticket and sit ringside at the fights?”
Homansky was a bit more diplomatic — perhaps because of his position as vice president of the American Association of Boxing Commissions — when discussing Day’s boxing resume, even if he did echo Duran’s sentiments. “I’m not going to comment specifically on his [Day’s] appointment,” says Homansky. “I don’t know him. I never met him. He’s never been in the same boxing circles I’ve been in.”
But Day has run in the same political circles as Guinn, a fellow Republican. While he may not be a medical expert, Day is a major contributor to the Republican party on a state and national level. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington D.C.-based research group, Day contributed $140,000 to Republican candidates and organizations during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles. In 1998, for example, he donated $10,000 to the Republican National Committee, while in 1999 and 2000 he ponied up $25,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
That’s not all.
Heightening suspicion that Day’s appointment to the commission was an act of cronyism and not a decision made with the best interests of the sport in mind are his substantial donations to Guinn’s 2002 gubernatorial coffers. To be fair, Homansky and the individual he replaced, Lorenzo Fertitta, whose family owns Station Casinos, both dropped coins in Guinn’s piggy bank — Homansky donated a total of $1,500, while Fertitta donated $2,500 — but not nearly as much as Day, who contributed $2,500 in November 2001 and $7,250 a month later.
But Munro says political donations do not a commissioner make. “Normally, the governor has a two-term limit, and he always likes to get new people involved,” he says.
For his part, Day says he accepted the job for a “very simple” reason: When the governor asks you to do something, you do it. As for the appearance of impropriety, it’s media fiction. “That’s what you guys would like to make it out to be,” he says.
Still, in a year that saw two fighters suffer career-ending brain injuries and two others die from head trauma, those who’ve toiled in the sport’s trenches trying to make it safer aren’t necessarily encouraged by Day’s appointment. “If you got this guy giving all this money to the governor, and he gets appointed, is that called a favor?” says Duran, who’s so frustrated by the lack of movement on a number of issues in boxing, including safety, that he’s producing a documentary on the subject.
Again, Homansky chooses his words more carefully.
“The key is not necessarily what the commissioners do for a living, but that they understand that boxing is more a sport than a business, and that in a regulatory capacity the main concern is safety,” he says. “People care about baseball because they care about records, and they wonder why there should be an asterisk by Barry Bonds. What people tend to forget is we’re not talking about asterisks in boxing. We’re talking about people’s lives.”
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