Marc Leduc
Boxing

Shortly after winning the silver medal in boxing for Canada at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona and the gold medal at the North American International Boxing Tournament, Toronto's Mark Leduc publicly announced his gayness to the media. Since then he has been a tireless advocate for the lesbian and gay communities. He has appeared in the Gemini award winning documentary on lesbians and gays in sport "For the Love of the Game", and the CBC’s parallel documentary "The Last Closet," among other media appearances

 From Chris Jones of the Ontario National Post 22 June 1999:

Mark Leduc was never a flashy boxer. He was a good technician. Leduc knew how to land a clean punch, and he knew how to prevent his opponent from doing the same. He didn't throw rapid combinations, and he didn't command much attention; he quietly, deliberately, fought his fight.

Leduc now works in the film industry. Fittingly, he doesn't act. He doesn't occupy the spotlight. Instead, he builds sets and assembles stages. He's currently working in an abandoned General Electric factory, where he has built a replica of a Brooklyn townhouse for an American television series, and a plywood bedroom for its teenaged hero. 

Leduc was not a hero, at least not until 1992, when he won a silver medal for Canada at the Olympics in Barcelona. Before that singular accomplishment, he was only a tough kid. To his close friends, he was a hard man who happened to be gay. By the time he was 12 years old, Leduc was certain of only two things: his sexuality and his deep love of boxing. A friend invited him along to a gym in Toronto's east end, and it didn't take long before he was hooked.

It was, in hindsight, a way for an unsettled teen to compensate. "People don't really equate being a fighter with being gay," he says. "I guess I did use it as a mask." A few years later, Leduc found himself hooked on other vices. One of six children -- he has a twin sister; his lone brother died a couple of years ago in a car wreck -- Leduc left home when his parents separated. He figures he was about 15 years old when he went to live on the streets. Like boxing, rebellion served to cloak what was a difficult reality.

"I was a problem kid," he says. "I think a lot of it snowballed from not dealing with my sexuality, not accepting it. Socially, you're just not accepted. And as an adolescent, you don't feel like a man if you're gay." He soon embarked on a life of petty crime and hollow bravado, scraping together enough coin to feed his cocaine and speed habits. Leduc exchanged boxing for needles. For about three years during his late teens, his life was without direction. "You make choices at that age, and sometimes they're wrong," Leduc says wistfully. "You're just becoming a young man."

And a young Leduc then went to prison. He robbed a jewelry store at gunpoint. He had been told by an accomplice that it was an insurance scam: The owner wanted the place jacked, Leduc's buddy explained, and hired them as thugs to make it look real. Leduc grabbed the gold and gems, passed them over, pocketed a cash fee, and was picked up by the police a few weeks later. He was sentenced to over six years in prison, to be served at Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. 

Collins Bay is not a happy place. It is a place where bad men are locked away for a long time. It is, however, the place where Leduc began to turn things around. He began to box again. It filled the time in the day, and it gave an aimless life purpose. "I think if I didn't have sport, I wouldn't be here today," he says. "I'd be dead." While other inmates manufactured shivs, Leduc fashioned homemade boxing gloves. He cut the sleeves off a parka, stuffed them with foam, wrapped them around his hands and held them together with shoelaces he wound around his wrists. "They were perfect," he says proudly. There was also a heavy bag in the weight pit, and no shortage of sparring partners in the yard.

After about 18 months inside, a guard named Harry took a shine to Leduc, and tried to secure him day passes so he could train in a real gym. The first application was rejected by the warden, but Leduc was ultimately awarded 72 hours a month in the outside world. For Leduc, the outside world consisted largely of Kingston's amateur boxing club. He used his "free" time sparingly: an hour to train here, a couple of hours to train there, a few more hours for a fight. He began to acquire a smart amateur record. By the time he hung up the headgear, he had won 184 bouts, and lost only 26.

The 1984 Olympics came and went while Leduc languished in prison. He was released in time for the 1988 Summer Games trials, but failed to earn a spot on the team that was to go to South Korea. Montreal's Howard Grant -- a known quantity, whereas Leduc had appeared on the scene suddenly -- was Canada's representative at 140 pounds. Leduc decided to stick with the game for another four years. After winning both the national championship, and the gold medal at a preliminary international meet, Leduc was on his way to Barcelona. It would prove to be an interesting trip. 

Before the Olympics, Leduc was considered an outside shot to get past the first round. He would not, it was almost universally agreed, win a medal. He was the oldest fighter in the entire tournament -- he would not reveal his age at the time, but he was 30 years old -- and his plodding style earned him few fans. "Let's put it this way," says Adrian Teodorescu, Leduc's Olympic coach. "All the great minds before the Olympics, they ranked Mark last." But Leduc advanced to the gold-medal match.

Just before the finals, however, Leduc developed tendonitis in his left shoulder. Though he is a southpaw, he fought right-handed, and relied heavily on the left jab. He also had a mosquito bite on his leg, and it became infected. Leduc dunked himself in a hot tub to cut weight, but so had hundreds of boxers and wrestlers before him. The water was dirty. The bite had to be lanced, and Leduc was struck by fevers and chills. His roommates, including fellow fighter Billy Irwin -- he knew Leduc was gay, but most of the team did not -- said Leduc actually looked green. He lost to Hector Vinent of Cuba, 11-1. The silver medal now resides in a sock drawer.

Though he contemplated retirement afterward, Leduc embarked on an ill-advised pro career. He was too old, and his style was tailor-made for points, not knockouts. "He wasn't a banger," says Teodorescu. "I didn't want him to turn pro." Leduc won his first pro fight a few months after the Olympics, when he trounced "Jazzy" Jeff Williams at Kingston's Memorial Centre. (The city where Leduc was once incarcerated had awarded him its key.) But a year after he beat Andy Wong in 1993 to win the Canadian super lightweight title, Leduc retired. When he made the announcement, he also went public with his sexuality.

The Kingston Whig-Standard ran a supportive editorial a week later -- the newspaper said Leduc "once again displayed the courage that brought him to the top of his sport" -- but the news wasn't especially welcomed in the fight community. It is a brawny culture. Lennox Lewis, Leduc's former teammate and the WBC heavyweight champion, has long been rumoured to be gay, a suggestion based almost entirely on his affinity for chess. Fighters aren't supposed to be intellectuals. They're supposed to be killers. 

But boxing's machismo is only one reason why Leduc didn't come out earlier. "It's a personal thing," he says. "It's irrelevant to your job description. Do you want to be respected as an athlete, or as a gay athlete? "I'm perfectly willing to earn respect," he continues. "And I think all youth, especially gay youth, should earn it, too. Their sexuality should never be at the forefront of who they are. I have mixed feelings about [athletes] who come out. Who cares? I don't care. You're an athlete first." Still, Leduc felt it was important to go public with a private
concern -- but only after his life in boxing was finished. "I see a lot of young, frustrated Mark Leducs out there," says the genuine article. "They're trying to find themselves, and they really don't know who to turn to. I think if they hear my story, it may help them avoid the mistakes I
made."

And this weekend, Leduc will finally come out from behind the scenes. He won't play a supporting role. He will be the centre of attention. Along with Savoy Howe, a provincial women's boxing medallist, Leduc will be the Grand Marshall of Toronto's Gay Pride Day parade. Hundreds of thousands of celebrants will see the pair wave from a convertible at the head of the line. "It's to salute those athletes who serve as role models to youth," says David Clark, the co-chair of Toronto's Pride Week Committee. "Let's break this open. It may be changing, but sports is still shrouded in this kind of macho image. That's still the perception. There's still a lot of hurdles to overcome."

Leduc appreciates the message -- and he understands his value as a breaker of stereotypes -- but he also expects a good time. "I did it once before," he says, referring to the day he led Kingston's Santa Claus Parade. The contrast leads to laughter: Santa Claus was not accompanied by the motorcycle gang Dykes on Bikes. "No," says Leduc with a smile. "But it's a pretty big do up there. Seriously. It's important."

From Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun,September 12, 1994:

It takes an awful lot of courage to step into a boxing ring and even more to step out of the closet - especially if you do both in public. Mark Leduc has such courage.

The Olympic boxing hero decided yesterday that it was time to retire from professional boxing and, at the same time, admit to the world that he is a homosexual. `I wanted to do it myself, rather than always hear people spreading rumors about me,'' Leduc said last night. ``It's a big relief.'' 

In a candid interview with the Sun, Leduc also said that he wants to help shatter the stereotype of homosexuals as ``sissies'' and to show that homosexual athletes can be positive role models for young people. 

"I've earned respect in every one of my 200 amateur fights,'' said Leduc, who won a light-welterweight silver medal for Canada at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. 

"`And not only am I a boxer, I'm a champion boxer.''

Leduc, 31, added that he was finally being true to himself by stepping out, especially since he is studying social work and addiction counselling at George Brown College and plans to make a career out of helping people. 

He said he doesn't want there to be any misconceptions about who he is and what he is all about. And that goes for his business as well. Leduc, who recently opened the Tony Unitas gym in Toronto, wants all his Boxersize clients and amateur fighters who train at the east-end facility to know what he is.  

When asked if he feels that `coming out' will ultimately hurt business, Leduc replied: ``People are always going to have their opinions (about homosexuals). Only time will tell.'' 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Leduc has decided to stand up for his convictions. As a young man, and against all odds, the Toronto native found the courage to turn his life around after spending a good portion of his young adult life inside Collins Bay Penitentiary.  But while inside prison, Leduc found boxing, stuck with it, and surprised everyone by eventually making the national team. His dedication was rewarded with a silver medal in Barcelona. 

He denied, however, that his homosexuality has anything to do with being sent to the pen as a young man.  "I knew when I was 15 that I was a homosexual,'' Leduc said. "In all my time there, I never had sex in prison.''

Often times, one of the most difficult decisions for a pro boxer to make is to come to the realization that he is finished. After only six pro bouts (and five victories), Leduc had no trouble doing just that yesterday.  "Boxing is a very serious sport, a young man's sport,'' he said.  "Over the next two years, if I keep getting punched, I don't think there would be much of a future for me.''