Lee brings 50 years of experience to boxing

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

The newest member of the Hawai'i State Boxing Commission will be anything but a rookie.

Bobby Lee, who has spent more than 50 of his 84 years with the commission in some capacity, has been confirmed to the group yet again as a commissioner and will be seated as the newest addition to the five-member group.

"I have to tell people it isn't that I'm so smart, it is just that I'm outliving my peers," Lee said.

Lee has served as a referee, judge, inspector, chief inspector, executive secretary, commissioner and chairman in a career that began upon his discharge from the Army in 1947. Recently, Lee served as an adviser to the commission.

Under the 5-year-old federal Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, Lee is relinquishing his posts in outside boxing bodies. Lee, who is a past president of the World Boxing Association, has been serving as vice president of the World Boxing Council and an executive officer of the North American Boxing Federation, and Orient and Pacific Boxing Federation.

Lee made national headlines in 1981 when he was summoned from retirement as commission executive secretary by then-Gov. George Ariyoshi to lead the fight and cast the deciding vote in denying the aging Ali a boxing license in Hawai'i.

The then 38-year-old Ali was eventually licensed in the Bahamas where he fought — and lost to Trevor Berbick — in his final bout. Soon after, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Harold Smith, who was also known as Ross Fields, and who was to have co-promoted the bout, was declared a federal fugitive soon after for his part in a $21 million bank swindle. Smith was eventually arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Lee's nephew, Willes K. Lee, a retired Army colonel, is the commission's chairman.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.