Two Coatesville, PA. boxers are dealing with injuries from boxing mentally. Former IBF Featherweight champion Calvin ‘Silky Smooth’ Grove and once-beaten heavyweight Jimmy Clark are both in Nursing facilities suffering from Dementia.

Grove is at the Phoenix Center in Phoenixville, PA, and though his appearance is good considering he is about forty pounds heavier, while his memory of his past career is void. I was told he cannot go to a restroom alone in fear he would be looking to leave the facility without knowing where he was going, per former assistant trainer Claude Mangum.

In his early professional days, Grove was in the camp of trainer John Traitz and assistant trainer Mangum in Pottstown, PA. Eventually Grove moved onto Texas under Josephine Abercrombie’s Houston Boxing Promotions.

Grove won the IBF Featherweight championship in France defeating champion Antonio ‘Tonito’ Rivera, 17-4-1, of Puerto Rico by stoppage in four rounds.

In Grove’s second defense, he went to Mexico against Mexico’s Jorge Paez, 25-2-1, with a record of 32-0 with Paez, winning a majority decision and winning the title from Grove.

Two fights later in their rematch again in Mexico, Grove was stopped in the eleventh round. In his next fight he won the IBF USBA Super Featherweight title defeating Anthony English, in Moscow, Russia. Two more wins and he was stopped by Bernard ‘The B.T. Express’ Taylor, 40-2-2, in eleven rounds, while ahead by majority decision, in New York.

Grove won his next three fights before losing to club fighter Bryant Paden, 14-7-3, in eight rounds at the legendary Blue Horizon in Philadelphia. Next, he defeated Regillio Tuur, 28-1-1, by split decision winning the USA New York State title.

Next, Grove lost to WBC World Super Feather champion Azumah ‘The Professor’ Nelson, 34-2-1, by decision in Nevada. He came back well winning his next five fights including over former IBF Featherweight champion Troy Dorsey, 12-6-4, at the Blue Horizon.

Grove in his next two fights stopped former 3- division world champion Jeff Fenech, 26-1-1, in Australia. Again ‘Down Under’ he defeated former Australian and Commonwealth champion Lester Ellis, 35-3, by split decision. Also, he beat WBC Continental champion Pete Taliaferro, 24-1, by split decision, in Mississippi.

Grove ended his career going 2-5 stopped four times. First in a WBC World Lightweight title fight by Miguel Angel Gonzalez, 34-0. Then by WBA Intercontinental champion Angel ‘El Diablo’ Manfredy, 12-2-1, IBF Super Featherweight champion Arturo ‘Thunder’ Gatti, 27-1 and in his final fight to IBF and WBC Light Welterweight champion Russia born living in Australia Kostya ‘Thunder from Down Under’ Tszyu, 19-1, by first round knockout. He ended his career at 49-10, being stopped seven times. Why, especially late in his career, was he put in with several IBHOF inductees?

Those seven stoppages took their toll ending in 1998. His memory was gone about his past boxing career when I talked with him.

Heavyweight Jimmy Clark, in the amateurs in 1975, lost to future world champion Michael Dokes for the AAU title. In 1976 he lost to future world champion John Tate in the Golden Gloves. In 1977 he defeated Russia’s Igor Vysotsky in a Russian-USA Dual Meet Competition. That same year in the semi-final he defeated future world champion Tony ‘TNT’ Tubbs and future world champion Greg Page for the National Golden Gloves title.

In 1978 he lost to 3-time Olympic Gold Medalist Cuban Teofilo Stevenson, once in Cuba and twice in the USA.

In the pro’s Clark had a 18-1 record with 16 stoppages. He was 16-0 at the time when he lost to Reggie Gross, 15-3, in nine rounds in Scranton, PA. His aunt whom he was close to passed away two weeks before the fight and he refused to pull out of the fight but mentally was carrying a heavy burden. After two wins he ended with a no contest against Kimmuel Odum, 9-2, in 1989.

Clark said trainer Angelo Dundee was involved with him for several fights.

Clark is in the Towne Manor East facility in Norristown, PA. He mentioned numerous Philly fighters of the past, but a half dozen times he asked if I knew Duke Dugent who ran the 23rd PAL in Philadelphia. In our second meeting I brought him a picture of Dugent, myself and Philly’s ‘Gypsy’ Joe Harris whom I was trying to get re-instated after being discovered with a blind eye. His face lit up seeing Dugent.

Both Grove and Clark residents from the same town of Coatesville are in the 13th round of their lives suffering from injuries due to boxing.