The gloves are off
January 04, 2011There are those who drift through life without making much of a mark wherever they go. And there are others who leave a trail of vapours behind them. Derek McKenna is of the latter breed. As an 18-year-old just out of school, he left Kilkerley for New York in 1985 - "a good friend of mine, Gilbert Regan from Hackballscross, who had come out a year or so before me encouraged me to come." Even by then, though, McKenna had left his mark at home, representing the Louth minors in Gaelic football and winning All-Ireland amateur boxing titles.
Boxing and football were his twin loves, but as he was donning the gloves for the Irish team, he was given an ultimatum. "I was still playing with the Louth minors when I was boxing for Ireland," says Derek, "but they told me I had to choose one or the other. They were paying my expenses to go up to Dublin every weekend to train and they didn't want me to get hurt playing football, so they said either I boxed or I played football. I sort of agreed to it, but I liked the football and I didn't want to give it up, so I still played a bit on the side."
Football and boxing would continue to play a significant role in his life after swapping rural Ireland for the concrete jungle of New York City. "Things had been going well with boxing, I was just after winning the Irish title, but I decided I got what I wanted, so I'd go to America and see what it was like. It took me a few months to settle in but I started playing football out here and then started training with the boxing team at the famous Gleason's gym in Manhattan."
It was during his time at Gleason's, one of the most storied institutions in American sport, that Derek McKenna rubbed shoulders with some of boxing's most iconic figures and came within an errant nail of contesting the final of the Golden Gloves, the American amateur boxing championships.
"I was training with 'Gentleman' Gerry Cooney, with Seamus McDonagh who went on to fight Evander Holyfield. Mike Tyson was training there at the time too. It was an honor to train in the gym with those guys. All those boxers were really nice guys."
Just as he had done in the amateurs on this side of the Atlantic, Derek was quickly making a name on the New York boxing scene, and reached the final of the Golden Gloves in 1992 by beating the pre-tournament favourite in the semis. However, he was denied the chance to etch his name forever in the history of the American amateur championship.
"I didn't pass the medical before the fight," he says. "They're very strict over here, they test you for drugs and do a complete physical exam before you get in the ring. I was working as a carpenter at the time, and unfortunately at work on the day of the final, I stood on a nail right on the front of my foot, just where you dance on your toes, so I didn't pass the medical. It was a real shame. There were a lot of Irish supporters in Madison Square Gardens for the final who came from all over the US. Americans love the Irish."
The list of Golden Gloves winners reads like a roll call of the greatest boxers in history. Joe Louis, Cassius Clay, Tyson, De La Hoya, Roy Jones. Is the way his own bid for immortality unfolded a lingering regret? "No, I just pass it off," he says, matter-of-factly. "You don't want to be sitting home all day waiting for the fight so I went to work, and it just happened the way it did. No regrets."
Neither does he have any regrets about the subsequent decision to turn down an offer to go pro. "I was getting a good offer, they were going to sponsor me, pay me so much per week, but I didn't really want it. I was good enough with my hands, but mentally, going pro is a big commitment. It just wasn't for me. My only real regret in life is that living away from home I haven't spent a much time as I would have liked with my mother, a truly remarkable woman from Kilkerley who single-handedly raised 11 of us after my father died when I was only ten years old."
His boxing career wound down after that but he still spars, alongside Juan LaPorte, the Puerto Rican who held a World featherweight title in the '80s and fought the biggest names in the division at the time, from Eusebio Pedrosa to Julio Cesar Chavez to Ireland's own Barry McGuigan. Sparring and running - "I try to get in about 20 miles a week," he says - keeps him fit enough to maintain a key place for two clubs in the New York football championship. Now 43, he still lines out at midfield for intermediate side Astoria Gaels, the club he joined soon after he moved to New York, as well as playing junior championship football for Celtics, a side consisting predominantly of second-generation Irish-Americans. Most footballers in their 40s are hanging in there, making up the numbers, but you couldn't say that about Derek McKenna - he was named New York GAA Player of the Year three years ago, when he was also included at midfield on the New York All-Star XV.
With all those athletic pursuits, and two successful businesses to run - he's a VP of his own design and consultancy firm as well as the owner of the Pulpit bar and restaurant in Queens - it's a wonder Derek McKenna has any time at all for family life but it's abundantly clear that he is proud of his wife Deirdre and four daughters. "Deirdre has a Masters in Finance and worked for Smith Barney in Manhattans Famous Wall Street. In recent years she has focused on our children and has been a dedicated stay-at-home mom and wife as well as an enthusiastic supporter on the sidelines at many football games. She's from an Irish-American background; both her parents are from Co. Kerry. She's the only girl in house of brothers who are proud New York police detectives and military reservists, lawyers and accountants. My oldest girl, Mary, is 18 and she was just accepted into of the top five universities in America, Cornell University in Upstate New York. We also have 14-year-old twins, Sarah and Claire, who attend a NYC high school for performance arts, and 12-year-old Julia who loves soccer and sports just like her dad."
Derek might be outnumbered five to one by girls at home but when it comes to keeping tabs on the fortunes of the Louth team on summer Sunday mornings, he's not short of company: his younger brother Nigel, who works as an accountant for finance firm Blackstone Group, also lives in New York and is a committed marathon runner who wore his Louth jersey for his first marathon and competed again on Sunday November 7th with a friend from Kilkerley. The brothers are up early whenever Louth have a big game to play. "We sometimes watch the games at my bar, The Pulpit, but usually we go where the crowd is so we were all in a place called the Irish Rover, also in Astoria, Queens. For the 2010 Meath game, we were all celebrating before the final whistle. There were two or three Meath lads in the bar and they were congratulating us, but it wasn't to be. It was very frustrating, but I do believe that the Wee County is coming. Our time will shine yet."
Derek took over The Pulpit establishment in 2003 but his primary business is Elite Interiors Systems, Inc, where he works alongside company President Mark McMorrow, whose family originally hails from Counties Leitrim and Cavan.
Based in NYC, Elite Interiors specializes in drywall and carpentry interior work, focusing mainly on hospital construction and health care spaces, covering everything from intensive care units and operating rooms to bone-marrow floors and designing and constructing new hospitals from the ground up. With a large staff of carpenters, Elite Interiors works in the five boroughs of New York and the extended tri-state area.
"We also build universities and offices and residential spaces but 70 per cent of our work is medical work," says Derek. "Due t o the current economic climate in New York and all over the world the private sector is almost dead. There are no new buildings going up for private investors. The only construction work being done now is Government work, hospitals and universities, so luckily for us we're still busy."
This article was supported by the following companies:
Tish Consultants, Ltd
Walker Construction & Development, Inc
Elite Interiors Systems, Inc
Castleview
NEVCO Contracting, Inc
MED-TEK, Contracting
Gotham Drywall Incorporated
The Cull Family Fine Wood Flooring
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