Jack Sheehan remembers how fighter Gerry Cooney showed us all something on a losing night in a Las Vegas ring

Sunday, March 12, 2006 | 7:25 a.m.

It was an early summer night, one of those June evenings in Las Vegas when the weather gods trick you into thinking that mid-August has arrived early, and if it's this damn hot already, how in blazes will we survive the real heat to come.

Tickets for seats like mine were going for $1,500. When I looked around at those seated behind me, in a section priced lower than mine, I saw a galaxy of stars that you might find on Oscar night. Johnny Carson was four rows behind me, and just in front of him were Michael Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Bo Derek, still basking in her newfound fame from the movie "10."

I wondered during the preliminary bouts whether I shouldn't just turn my chair around and stare at Bo. All the other guys in our section seemed more interested in her than the brawling flyweights from Tijuana.

The event was being held outside, at Caesars Palace, and while the mercury registered over 100 degrees, the heat index in the boxing ring under the blistering glare of television lights was approaching 115.

The whole world was watching and the electricity in the air when the fighters were introduced and made their grand entrances - the Caucasian fighter to the pulsing beat of the theme from "Rocky," and the black fighter to the R&B anthem "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now," by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes - was so highly charged that I felt like throwing a jab or two myself.

I mention the race of the fighters only because it had been underscored in the buildup to the bout. The unofficial billing was the Black Champion against the Great White Hope, and it's fair to say that the crowd was evenly divided by ethnic origin in their loyalties.

In Las Vegas, where extravagant events and once-in-a-lifetime experiences are promised about every 20 minutes somewhere along the Strip, choosing one particular evening as the most exciting in your career is a challenge. But when asked by an old friend from Oregon the other day to pick one that stood out above all the rest, I was able to do so without blinking.

My favorite night - dismissing from consideration all those personal moments that would not be appropriate for this column - occurred on that evening of June 11, 1982. The event I refer to was the long-anticipated heavyweight boxing match between Larry Holmes, who had held the crown for seven years, and a handsome and likeable Irishman from New York named Gerry Cooney.

What made the night so special for me is that I had scored this desirable front-row seat, by virtue of doing a cover story on Cooney for a national magazine. Even though I was offered over $5,000 for my ticket the afternoon of the fight, I wasn't tempted to give it up.

The card originally had been scheduled for March 15, and it turned out that the promoters had every reason to "Beware the Ides of March," because in January Cooney suffered a shoulder injury in a sparring session with a pug named Walter Santemore, thus delaying the bout by three months.

The fight opened with Holmes favored at around 10-1, but the betting public's affection for Cooney, and the fact that he had beaten three "name" opponents, Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, and Ken Norton, with early-round knockouts in the previous two years, soon brought the betting odds down to 7 to 1. The Irishman had a punch, that was certain, but did he have the legs and the ring savvy to handle the veteran Holmes?

In my prior interview with Cooney, he had shown so much grit and optimism that even a short-armed guy like myself was persuaded to reach deep into my pocket and pull out a hundred bucks to bet on him.

The fight went 13 rounds with intense flurries delivered by both fighters and very little wrapping up in long clinches, although that certainly had to be a temptation considering the heat. Twice, Cooney's punches landed well below Holmes' belt, almost resulting in a disqualification, but finally, at the end of Round 13, after a hugely courageous attempt by his fighter to knock out the champ, Cooney's trainer, Victor Valle, threw in the towel. His man had given his all, but the tank was empty.

I hurried from my seat to get a good spot in the Caesars' press room to hear Cooney's thoughts about his heroic effort, and was shocked to be one of just three reporters in place when the beaten challenger, his shoulders hunched in exhaustion, shuffled in and took a seat in front of the microphone.

His ruggedly handsome face had been turned into a bruised and bloody palette of pain. And as he began to apologize for letting down all his fans and friends, he broke down in tears. As Gerry kept apologizing over and over for not delivering the heavyweight crown, I found myself tearing up. I had never before, and have never since, seen an athlete express such raw emotion.

I thought back to what Cooney had told me in the interview weeks before: "Two weeks after my father died (in 1975) it hit me - things I wanted to say to him and never did, things I wanted to do with him again. I realized why he made me train six days a week, every week. He wanted me to be better than him. He wanted me to have what he never had."

As the former club fighter was struggling to choke out the words, my only thought was to provide some consolation for the brave effort he had made:

"Don't you think your father and friends are proud of you tonight?" I asked.

Gerry Cooney buried his face in his hands for a long moment before answering. "Yeah, I suppose," he said. "But I still feel like I failed them. I wanted to bring them the crown."

That moment is as fresh to me as yesterday.