Inducted on November 11, 2010
HONOREE HENRY HASCUP
The Uncrowned King of Sports Information
Henry Hascup is known as the uncrowned king of sports information. Sport writers from all over the country have called his home for sport information. He is currently the President and Historian, since the mid-1980s, of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, as well as the New Jersey Diamond Gloves. He is also the current President of the New Jersey Association of USA Boxing. Henry is the Historian of many other sporting organizations throughout the area, including Ring #25 and most recently, the Boxing Writers Association of America, plus he is on the Board of Directors of Ring #8 in New York.
He has MC’d many sporting functions throughout the local area and has ring announced boxing shows on ESPN, Madison Square Garden Network, Atlantic City, Westchester County Center in White Plains, Monticello Raceway, Hanover Marriott in Whippany, Iona College, Schuetzen Park, North Bergen, the Area in Philadelphia, etc.
He is also one of the editors on BoxRec, which is the largest record keeping site in boxing and he has corrected over 200 world championship-boxing records for the Ring Record Book and over 1,000 records in all. Plus, he is a voting member on both the Modern and Old-timers Committee for the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Henry was also the President of the North Jersey Majors-Met League, which is the best amateur baseball league in the state of New Jersey and one of the best leagues in the country.
You can find his name on several dozen sport web sites, either answering sport questions or as a trivia checker for many others. All you got to do is “Google” his name.
His home in Lodi, New Jersey contains over 12,000 sport magazines and over 2,500 sport books. He owns every issue of The Sporting News since the early 1960s and he has a lot of other ones that go back to the early 1950s. He has all the record books, guides, registers, handbooks, almanacs, encyclopedias, etc., on all sports. He has material as far back as 1886. He has also done a lot of research by going through microfilms and old newspapers.
The 62 year old has been doing sports trivia since he was a kid. A local newspaper, which is called The Bergen Record had a sports trivia question that they gave out every week for over 20 years (it stopped in 1991) and Henry answered correctly far more than anyone else and very seldom missed. He once answered 138 weeks in a row without missing. He has won over 1,000 sport trivia contests throughout the area and also throughout the country and that’s even before he came on the Internet.
Among the contests he won are the New York Daily News, the Sporting News, Sports Magazine, the Paterson Evening News, The Bergen Record, as well as several other local papers and he has won several radio contests including WFAN.
He was a member of the Society for American Baseball Research Association, the Pro and College Football Researchers Associations, the Basketball Research Organization and a charter member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO).
Since he has been the President of the NJ Boxing Hall of Fame, he has given well over 200 eulogies for former boxing people, including Tippy Larkin, Paul Cavaliere, Joey Giardello, Rocky Castellani and Arturo Gatti. At the end of his talk, he rings the bell, not 10 times, BUT 9. He feels if we ring it 10 times, that would mean that they would no longer be with us, BUT a small part of them will live on. They will live on through their family,
friends and fans.
Henry, who was a supervisor for PSE&G, was also a single parent of 4 kids who lived with him in his household along with a large husky dog. If you were at the Diamond Gloves Dinner (which he MC’d) in September of 1988, you know that he asked his very lovely girlfriend Joyce to be his wife in front of over 250 people, and on March 12, 1989 they were married. You might ask what does Joyce have in common with Henry. Well, she also was a single parent of 4 kids and a large husky dog that all lived with her. So all of them lived under the same roof, some people called them the Brady Bunch but they say Eight is Enough.
They now have been married for over 20 years and he gives her most of the credit for supporting him over those years. No one will ever know all she does. Henry has stated many times that if it wasn’t for her, he couldn’t do the things he does, and he wouldn’t be standing here tonight.
Henry Hascup (born October 8, 1948, Paterson, New Jersey) is a noted boxing historian and ring announcer [1], who is famous as the man called upon to give the eulogy at the funeral of hundreds of deceased boxers, calling on his historical expertise in the field of boxing to tell their families the story of the boxer’s life in the ring.
Early life
After some time in Foster Homes, Hascup moved back with his real parents where he attended Passaic County Tech High School in Paterson, New Jersey. A championship caliber runner with a tall, slender frame, He won the 1966 state tech cross country championship. He worked as a supervisor at Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) for 37 years until retirement. Hascup is married with eight children and 15 grandchildren.
A real-life Mike Brady of The Brady Bunch
Hascup was a single parent with four children and a dog, and in a scene worthy of the late actor Robert Reed, who played Mike Brady (The Brady Bunch) on the television series ‘The Brady Bunch’, Hascup met and married another single parent, his wife Joyce, with four children and a dog. The married couple then took in another two children, to complete a Cinderella human interest story of a real life ‘Brady Bunch’ household. “We had eight children, four of hers, four of mine, and we even took in two other kids, so we (my wife Joyce and I) ended up with ten kids, two dogs, and us two!” [2]
Contributions to boxing
Henry Hascup’s contributions to the sport of boxing are too numerous to list. His most noteworthy endeavors to date, which continue to advance the sport of boxing, include: President of the New Jersey Diamond Gloves competition for the past 26 years (Amateur Golden Gloves) President of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame for 28 Years President for the forth year of the New Jersey Association of USA Boxing, which oversees amateur boxing Contributing editor of Boxrec online, dealing with ring records of professional boxers and officials Charter member of the International Boxing Research Organization International Boxing Hall of Fame Modern Committee and Old Timer’s committee member Regional supervisor for the International Boxing Association Boxing historian for Ring 8, the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame and the Boxing Writer’s Association of America Board member with the AAIB Serving as Master of Ceremonies for many sporting events in the Metropolitan New York-New Jersey region [3]
Career as announcer of over 900 amateur and professional bouts, and the famed 9 count
Hascup has served as ring announcer for over eight hundred amateur and professional bouts, most frequently in New York State, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He is known for the 9 count (rather than the traditional 10 count ringing of the bell) for fallen boxers. As for why Hascup rings a 9 count for fallen boxers and luiminaries (instead of the traditional 10 count) instead of 10 count, according to Hascup, “A small part of them (the departed fighter) will stay with the family and friends, and help to perpetuate and live on the memory of that fighter, a small part of them to the next generation. The 10 count is final, the 9 count is not. [4]
Charitable endeavors, and the man of boxing eulogies
Through his work with the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, Hascup’s ongoing charitable endeavors help out down and out boxers financially, as well as his paying for funeral processions and tombstones of departed fighters. “Through the efforts of our New Jersey Hall of Fame board members, we personally visit ex-fighters in need, help them, bring them groceries, call them, and let them know somebody cares, so they (the boxers) are not forgotten,” explained Hascup. Incredibly, Hascup has done well over 200 eulogies for departed boxers, trainers and luminaries known to the sport, including such well known names as Emile Griffith, Gil Clancy, Howie Albert, Arturo Gatti, Joey Giardello, Tippy Larkin, Rocky Castellini, Joe Miceli, Paul Cavalier and Johnny Colon. [5]
Role as boxing and sports historian
Known as ‘the uncrowned king of sports information’, sports writers from all over the world call Hascup at home to verify sports information as factual. [6] A trivia expert of all sports, Hascup’s collection of rare boxing books, magazines, gloves and memorabilia goes back hundreds of years, to the 1800’s. His collection includes over 10,000 sports magazines and 2000 sports books. [7] It provides an invaluable resource when the time comes to research a fighter before: presenting an award or recognition; writing a biography telling about a fighter’s accomplishments and achievements in the ring; and most importantly-at the required moment when Hascup’s presence is needed to deliver a departed boxer’s eulogy.
References
http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Ken/Hissner-010614-New.htm
http://www.saddoboxing.com/18563-henry-hascup.html
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/hascup-king-of-the-hall-1.929874