Bill Speltz 406mtsports.com/The Missoulian
MISSOULA — Marvin Camel is 73 years old and his days as a world champion boxer are long gone, but he's still as rugged a man as a climber scales the Mission Mountains that embrace his hometown of Ronan.
“I'm not dead yet,” he joked in an interview with 406 MT Sports last week. “I'm still in the sun, mowing grass and pruning trees, eight hours a day.”
“When you retire, you sit back and watch TV. Death begins that day. Right now I'm outside watching a 25-foot palm tree that has to be pruned. I plan to keep doing that until I die. If it kills me, so be it. I'm doing what I want to do.”
Camel, who will fly from his current home in central Florida to Las Vegas next month to be inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, serves as a reminder to all Montanans that you don't need privilege to be a world-class athlete.
Anyone else reading this…
It's becoming that way. Most of the Olympians who will compete for the United States in Paris later this month didn't have the kind of upbringing that Camel had, chopping down and selling wood to support a large family with 13 children.
Marvin has the same tough mind and body as always, and he's never lost the fighting spirit that made him a three-sport standout at Ronan High School in the 1960s, and he continues to believe in the not-so-secret weapon that has served him well all his life: winning with physical superiority.
“Ronan isn't as flat as it is here in Florida,” he said with a laugh. “When I was a kid I used to run right behind my house. I'd run up hills and mountains. I'd go to Swan Lake and Swartz Lake and then come back and run again.”
“It's tough in the winter because you slip and fall, but I always put on my football shoes and run. I thank God for giving me the energy and the will to do something that's never been done before in Montana.”
What Camel did was set himself up to become the greatest professional boxer in Montana history, at a time when the sport of boxing was much more popular than it is today.
In 1980, he won the World Boxing Council cruiserweight title by defeating Mate Parlov of Yugoslavia at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, with Howard Cosell on commentary and Joe Louis in attendance, and in 1983 he became the first International Boxing Federation champion.
“When I stepped in the ring, my instinct was to punch the guy and run,” said Marvin, who moved to Missoula as a young man to train at Montana Music Rentals and finished his professional career with a record of 45-17 with 21 knockouts. “I'm a boxer. I had 300 amateur fights and quite a few pro fights, but I'm not in the ring to get punched. I'm in the ring to punch.”
Either way, Camel was involved in a number of bloody fights and won the WBC belt at a relatively advanced age (29 years old). The tall southpaw fought in 13 states and seven foreign countries, but he never rested on his laurels.
In 2015, Helena author Brian D’Ambrosio completed a book about Camel, “Warrior in the Ring: The Life of Marvin Camel, Native American World Champion Boxer.” The humble Camel was the pride of many in his heyday, and perhaps we all need a refresher on the impact he had on the Treasure State and beyond.
“The Las Vegas boxing world has recognized some of the biggest fighters, Leonard and Tyson, and now I get to be in the same place as them,” he said of the Hall of Fame induction. “I think I've had more fights in Las Vegas than they have (21).”
“One thing about fighting in Las Vegas, for me, my first three fights I was on a Greyhound bus from Missoula to Las Vegas. But in Vegas, they treated me like a king and I got to be their fighter, even though I'm from Montana.”
One of 13 children raised by full-blooded Pend Dreille athlete Alice Nenemey Camel and Henry Campbell, an African-American who served in the Navy and took the name Camel in rejection of Southern prejudice, Marvin is truly one of a kind. He probably deserves to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his groundbreaking success, but that's a story for another day.
Now Marvin and his wife are looking forward to an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas, where the former champion will receive his handsome Hall of Fame ring, and Marvin plans to help support the trip for his Montana relatives by covering the costs of their induction on Aug. 10.
Marvin, we haven't seen much of you in Western Montana lately, but rest assured, your home state is very proud of you.
“I'll never forget Ronan,” he said Friday, his voice hoarse from a day spent on a lawnmower in 100-degree heat, “because that's where I grew up.”
Note: Marvin's brother, Ken Camel, is also scheduled to attend the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame ceremony. Ken runs a boxing gym in Pablo and helped Marvin recover his WBC and IBF title belts that were stolen about 35 years ago. The missing belts were found in the back of a car at a Missoula scrap metal yard in 2020.
Bill Speltz is the Missoulian's sports editor. Email Bill at email address.
