Weighing In - Part 4

Bobby Hunter

Bobby Hunter's story is unusual.  In 1967, at the age of 16, in Charleston, South Carolina, he got into an argument and stuck a knife into a man who later died.  Bobby was sentenced to 18 years in prison for manslaughter.

Hunter was small but scrappy.  In prison, he was mentored by a prison guard and taught how to box.  What's unusual about that?  Well, he was so good at boxing that, with the warden's permission, the guard took him to compete in boxing matches outside the prison.  By 1971 he had won the national flyweight championship.

LIFE photographer Ralph Morse took these photos of Hunter in January, 1972.  None of them were published in the magazine.  Hunter was 21 years old and was considered a shoo-in for the American team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.  The idea of having a convict on the Olympic team was controversial, though.

Here's Bobby Hunter weighing in.  His mentor arranged fights for him anywhere he could, so this was undoubtedly not an official title fight, hence the casual atmosphere.

This isn't an official weigh-in, just checking his weight.  But the photo is a bit dark.

Through the magic of Photoshop, we can brighten the photo.  Now we get to see how Hunter measures up in more ways than one.

Unexpectedly, Bobby Hunter lost in the Olympic qualifying trials, so he never joined the Olympic team.  However, the next year, 1973, he was paroled and got out of prison.  He had a short boxing career, and we then lose sight of him.  But his moment of fame was captured by these photos as the convict who could have been an Olympic contender.