Richard "Dickie" Joseph Cole

Richard "Dickie" Joseph Cole, age 89, of Dallas, Texas, passed away on Saturday, July 18, 2020. "Dickie" was born February 22, 1931, in Dallas, Texas. Due to the pandemic a private family service will be held.

Dickie Cole had two loves in life: family and boxing. There never seemed to be time for much else – and that was fine. Dickie Cole didn’t need anything else.

Unending love for family and for boxing was more than enough to fill up a self-described wonderful life.

Richard "Dickie" Joseph Cole passed away on Saturday, July 18, 2020. He was an absolute giant in Texas boxing and enduring family man who was married to wife Jo Ann for 69 years. He was 89.

So many people in boxing and in local sports knew Dickie through his lifetime attachment to his sport. He was a colorful storyteller, a friend and mentor to many and an opinionated straight shooter when it came to the business of boxing. And even though boxing inevitably touched everyone in the Cole family, wife Jo Ann and their two daughters and two sons knew the other side of him, too: as the man who loved holding court at Campisi’s, loved dressing up as Santa Claus or dressing up for Halloween, and as a lovable rascal who enjoyed winding up his friends.

“He was such a giving person,” said Jo Ann, who married Dickie in 1950. "Now, he may get mad at you … but as one of the inspectors in Texas once said, ‘If he doesn’t get mad at you, he doesn’t love ya.’ That was Dickie’s life. He loved people. He loved his family growing up. He loved all of us. He loved me the most, and he told me all the time. He always said, the only thing you ever need to say about me is that I’ve had a wonderful life.”

Dickie was born in 1931 into a boxing family. His older brother Buddy was a promising amateur before a war-related detour took life in another direction. Their father Frenchy helped start Golden Gloves in Texas. Dickie won Texas high school boxing titles in the early 1950s and attended North Texas State on a boxing scholarship. He became a referee in the early 1960s, first in Golden Gloves and later professionally. But he generated his larger legacy in Texas boxing during three decades as a firm-but-fair official helping to oversee and promote the sport.

He served as president of the North American Boxing Federation and Ratings Chairman for the World Boxing Council. His massive influence in Texas grew from his role as head of Combat Sports Regulation for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), a position he held for more than 20 years starting in 1993. That made him instrumental in bringing fights to Texas - smaller shows as well as major boxing events headlined by some of the biggest names.

“Dickie always had the welcome mat out for the promoters to come to Texas,” longtime friend and fellow national boxing official Duane Ford said. “He could always figure out a way to be within the rules and still get those big fights to Texas. Texas boxing flourished with him at the helm.”

Boxing is a tough sport, of course, full of tough people. Dickie was no different. Because he was a boxer and a storyteller and a giant in an industry full of tough folks, it was easy to see Dickie as an inflexible, irascible authority figure, but he absolutely had another side.

First, he had a soft spot for the underdog. Son Laurence, himself a well-known boxing referee, said his dad would help anybody, but that Dickie especially watched over the people who needed a little more help.

For instance, Laurence remembers the young man just out of prison who desperately wanted to box; Dickie got him a fight. Or the wheelchair-bound man with cerebral palsy who had been frustrated in his ambition of becoming a judge; Dickie mentored him and steered him through the process. “That kid was so grateful, because nobody else was going to do anything for him,” Laurence said.

One instance of Dickie’s support was even historically significant. In the mid-1960s Dickie went to bat importantly for a young boxer named Cassius Greene, who was black. At the time, black boxers weren’t allowed into the Golden Gloves; Dickie made it happen.

The stories of young boxers or people got a little push from Dickie go one and on. And not just in boxing.

Dickie was among the founding members of the Dallas All Sports Association. He organized spaghetti dinner fund raisers for numerous organizations. He started a youth basketball league that operated out of Dallas’ historic Fair Park. But it always came back to boxing. Dickie became a referee in the early 1960s; a lifetime of mentorship started soon thereafter.

“He liked it when guys came to him and asked for help,” Laurence said. “If you were arrogant, and you already thought you knew it all, he wasn’t as interested, because he could already see the mistakes they were going to make. But if you came to him the right way, he’d give away the store for you.”

Craig Hubble counts himself among that large legion of boxing officials who got a start through Dickie’s guidance and mentorship. Hubble talked about Texas’ lofty status as a boxing state, long brimming with talented fighters, abundant fan support and high-quality gyms. He said it was hard to overestimate how much of that was thanks to Dickie’s diligent work and his skill at networking through the years. That seemed especially true when it came to getting those big, headline-making fights into Texas.

Dickie worked with some of the giants in boxing promotion, legends such as Don King, Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya. But Dickie loved and looked out for the little guy, too.

“If you had a small, club show, where you probably weren’t going to make any money, he was gonna work with you and treat you just the same,” Hubble said. “If you were working with him, you were working with him, and he would go out of his way to help everybody. He was such a great source of information, of help, of guidance … whatever you needed.”

Even then, Hubble said, while Dickie poured so much of himself into boxing, family always got equal billing. “If you wanted to see Dickie at his very, very best, well, you had to see him at a fight, where he was running things and hollering at people - but he also had his grandkids there and he was loving on them and doting on them at the same time!”

Ford, the longtime boxing judge and Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame member, traveled the globe with Dickie as an official. He said Dickie was never afraid to speak his mind on any subject, especially when it came to creating accountability for boxing officials’ actions and scoring. “Yeah, he would ruffle some feathers sometimes,” said Ford, who is now president of the North American Boxing Federation. “But I didn’t know him to be wrong too many times.”

Dickie wanted to get things right – and you might find yourself on the business end of his wrath if you messed up. But once he set you straight, he’d get right back on your side. And probably invite you for dinner that night.

There were always dinners. Or sometimes dinners and drinks. And Dickie understood the value of getting people together and forming tight bonds socially through the boxing circles. “In boxing, we’re a family,” Ford said. “We take care of one another. We have fun together as a family. Dickie and a few others set the standard. And it’s still carried out today.”

Dickie took care of his boxing family. But he took even better care of his real family.

Dickie Cole is survived by his wife Jo Ann Cole; daughter Jo Ann Cole; daughter Beth Cole Lougee and husband David Lougee; son Richard Cole and wife Susie Cole; son Laurence Cole; grandsons Clayton Lougee and wife Lindsay; great granddaughter Laila; grandsons Shane Cole, Tyler Cole, Sam Cole, and Max Cole; brother George Patrick Cole; in-laws Jack and Gwen Patton and numerous nieces and nephews and wayward souls.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in "Dickie's" memory may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, P.O. Box 1000 Dept. 142, Memphis, Tennessee 38148 US or at www.stjude.org. Click on Ways to Give, then Memorials and Dedications, then Search for an Existing Fund, enter Dickie Cole, or click Donate Now and note his name In Dedicate My Donation.