Courtesy of the Penn State University Archives
him for three rounds, finally caught him
and knocked him out of the ring. The
crowd jumped so much that the floor actually shook."
Soose was so dominant in '37 that intercollegiate boxing officials passed a
rule before his junior year prohibiting
Golden Gloves participants from competing in college matches. So Soose
turned pro and in 1941 won the middleweight championship before moving
up to light heavyweight and retiring in
1942 with a 34-6-1 record, including 13
knockouts. In 2009, Soose was inducted
into the International Boxing Hall of
Fame.
A decade earlier, Steve Hamas made it
to the brink of the world heavyweight
championship. Hamas is one of Penn State's
most overlooked outstanding athletes. The
12 letters he earned in five sports – boxing,
football, basketball, track and lacrosse –
remain a school record, and only one other
athlete has earned letters in five sports
(Rowan "Tubby" Crawford in 1943-44).
Hamas, who grew up in Passaic, N.J.,
had never boxed before, but in his first
season in 1927 he won the national heavy-
SWEET SCIENCE Boxing events like
this one from 1935 used to fill Rec
Hall. In the 1920s and '30s, boxing
was more popular than any other
sport on Penn State's campus, including football.
weight title, and then he did it again as a
senior. "[He] was the best college heavyweight the ring ever saw," wrote sports
editor Joe Williams of the New York WorldTelegram years later.
Hamas wanted to go to medical school
but couldn't afford it and turned to professional boxing in 1930 as a way to raise
