Boxing in Madison in the '40s and '50s was more than a sport, it was a phenomenon! As an April 2000 article in the "Smithsonian Magazine" noted, "On the same night 11,000 people watched Joe Louis defend his professional heavyweight title against Johnny Paycheck in Chicago, more than 15,000 packed Wisconsin's cavernous Field House to see the Badger boxers take on the team from Washington State." Yet it wasn't too long after that extraordinary night that calls to end boxing as a collegiate sport began to be heard. Some thought the sport barbaric. When the end finally came, the UW was again in the middle of the turmoil. Madison was host to the 1960 NCAA tournament, and after one of the championship bouts a Badger boxer collapsed in the locker room; he went into a coma and died seven days later, on Easter Sunday. It was to be the last NCAA boxing tournament ever held.