The 2020 class of the UW Athletic Hall of Fame has been selected and new members will be announced from June 15 - 26. Visit UWBadgers.com each day to celebrate each new member of this distinguished and historic class of Badgers!
BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — The yellowed 8x5-inch index card was tucked inside an old file drawer, which in turn was hidden behind a dusty box in a windowless storage room on the second floor of Kellner Hall.
It shined a light — perhaps the first beam of attention — on the life and times of Richard Bartman.
The University of Wisconsin Sports News Service collected biography cards for all its student-athletes back in the 1950s. In addition to their dates of birth, home addresses and telephone numbers, the bios asked for religious affiliations, wife's maiden names, war service records, courses enrolled in, current addresses, hobbies or superstitions as well as their high school athletic record.
The card for Bartman, posted Feb. 16, 1956, was compiled in serviceable penmanship with a blue ink pen. He was 20. He attended West Division High School in Milwaukee. His campus address was 724 W. Dayton. He was not married. His eyes were blue and his hair brown. He wrote that he was Catholic.
Bartman had four entries on his high school athletic record. He played tailback in football and forward in basketball as a freshman and a sophomore. He also won two state Golden Gloves boxing titles as a 126-pounder in the novice division in 1953 and as a 126-pounder in the open division in '54.
Little did Bartman know as he filled out the card is that he would soon become the toast of Madison and embark on a fulfilling career.
Two months after the card was filed, Bartman won the NCAA title at 139 pounds to help the Badgers claim their eighth and final national championship in boxing.
A boxing match at the UW Field House drew huge crowds in the historic building.
That achievement, coupled with a long career as a boxing referee and a supporter of inner-city youth boxing programs, is why Bartman will be inducted posthumously in the University of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame as a Heritage nominee in September.
Bartman was 77 when he died from complications due to Alzheimer's Disease in 2013. He left a lot of memories and a compelling legacy. Boxing wasn't just in Bartman's blood. It was his blood.
"He dedicated his life to boxing in the state of Wisconsin," his only son, Richard Jr., said.
The elder Bartman is one of 31 men to win an NCAA individual title for the Badgers from 1936 to '60. He prevailed in three bouts in the 1956 national meet to become the only Wisconsin boxer to win a crown at 139 pounds.
Twenty-five years after winning his national crown on the floor of the UW Field House, Bartman was added to the school's boxing Wall of Fame, which is located inside that facility.
The Badgers were once a collegiate boxing powerhouse, winning NCAA championships in 1939, '42, '43, '47, '48, '52, '54 and '56 while packing the Field House with crowds that regularly topped 10,000 spectators. Idaho and San Jose State were next on the list with three titles apiece.
The NCAA discontinued the sport in 1960 after UW fighter Charlie Mohr died of a brain hemorrhage following a national tournament bout.
The elder Bartman participated in the 1956 U.S. Olympic Trials, then embarked on a pro career that lasted only six bouts. He retired with a 4-1-1 record — three wins by knockout — due to a badly broken nose. That didn't deter him from staying involved in the sport he began to embrace as a grade-schooler.
Bartman officiated 110 professional bouts — men and women — in his heyday from 1981 to 2006. Most of the fights took place in Wisconsin, from Baraboo to Bowler, Cudahy to Green Bay, Janesville to Racine and Kenosha. There were some in Florida as well.
Bartman officiated three world championship bouts involving Madison fighter Eric Morel as well as primetime bouts featuring Earnie Shaver and Aaron Pryor.
Bob Lynch is a long-time, highly respected Madison boxing instructor who knew Bartman as a fighter at UW and as a ring official. He has fond memories of Bartman in both roles.
"He'd stand in toe-to-toe with anyone," Lynch said, noting that Bartman's strength was his quickness. "He was an expert at footwork."
Lynch helped train Morel, a 1996 U.S. Olympian and World Boxing Association flyweight champion, so he got to see how Bartman managed an elite-level bout more than once.
"He handled things as well as any referee I've worked with," Lynch said.
Starting in 1984, Bartman was a major proponent of the Baby Joe Gans Foundation, which provides scholarships and funding for inner-city kids interested in boxing. The program is named for Gans, who was the first African-American to win a world boxing title in the 20th century.
Richard Jr. said his father was very proud of his involvement in the sweet science. In fact, he lived a life that embraced its tactics and training.
The family home in suburban Milwaukee had a heavy bag and a speed bag in the basement as well as a collection of boxing gloves.
"We had fights in our backyard all the time," Richard Jr. said. "Guys would come over and box. That's what we did."
Richard Jr. said he tried boxing in high school, but his father, an avid golfer who spent 35 years working in the finance business, told him to focus on football and wrestling because they provided more opportunities to excel.
Richard Jr. said his father would get out of bed in the morning and immediately do 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups. Then he'd run two to three miles and throw in 30 minutes of jump rope for good measure. When Bartman began to spend time in Florida, he found a gym where he spent hours pounding away on a heavy bag. He did all this well into his 60s.
"He was a nut about working out," his son said. "He was phenomenal."
Gallery: (6-24-2020) 2020 Hall of Fame: Dick Bartman
Richard Jr., now 62, said he attended the Golden Gloves boxing tournament in the state every year to watch his father work. He said he's still trying to track down film of his father as a fighter.
Richard Sr. began boxing when he was 12. Why?
"He said he was too small to play football and too small to play basketball," his son said. "'I was getting my ass kicked on the playground.'"
Richard Jr. said it was difficult for him and his sister, Rhonda, to watch such a robust presence succumb to Alzheimer's.
"He was a tough man. He was a fair man. He was a gentleman," Richard Jr. said of his father. "He always told us to treat people with respect and they'll come back to you."
2020 UW Athletic Hall of Fame
- Aaron Gibson, Football
- Carla MacLeod, Women's Hockey
- Ted Kellner, Special Service
- Jackie Zoch, Women's Rowing
- Mike Wilkinson, Men's Basketball
- John Byce, Men's Hockey and Baseball
- Tom Burke, Football
- Jessie Stomski, Women's Basketball
- Dick Bartman, Boxing
- Jeff Braun, Men's Track and Field
- Bo Ryan, Men's Basketball
