Even though Leroy Brown only boxed for a short time when he attended Excelsior High School and
came under the tutelage of T. K. Wint, a famous boxing coach back in the 1950s, who was a physical education instructor at the school, he seemed to have been born for the sport and fell in love with it immediately.

Brown has served the sport in every area possible, both in Jamaica and around the world since 1966 when he first became a member of the Jamaica Boxing Association.

Brown’s love for the sport developed further, when, while still at Excelsior he became a sports writer for the Jamaica Gleaner. He covered football, cricket and boxing, and his constant presence at boxing events, and coverage of the sport, led the president of the Jamaica Boxing Board at that time, Ivan Levy, to urge him to join the boxing association. 

He did, and in 1967, just one year after joining the association, he was elected to an administrative position, as honorary secretary of the Jamaica Boxing Board of Control, and this fuelled a love affair with the sport that has never stopped and never waned. 

Brown has held several positions on the boxing board, other than honorary secretary, now general secretary. 

“The only position that I have not held is that of treasurer,” he said. He has been a member of the executive, second vice president, first vice president and president. The longest-tenured position has been general secretary, a post he returned to in 2005 after being president from 2003 to 2005, and has held since then. 

He has also served on the technical as well as the administrative side of boxing worldwide and has qualified and worked as a judge and an International Technical Official (ITO) in amateur boxing. Brown became an AIBA judge, the first Jamaican to qualify back in 1971. The examinations that year were held during the Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia, and Brown passed with flying colours. He became an ITO in 2011, another first for a Jamaican, passing those examinations in Panama.

He was a judge at the Olympic Games in Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 and has worked as both a judge and an ITO at several Central American and Caribbean Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games and World Boxing Championships. He described these as terrific boxing experiences.

Brown was one of the technical officials at the first major world title fight in Jamaica, the ‘Sunshine Showdown’ which was staged at the National Stadium in Kingston on January 22, 1973 and featured Joseph “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier, the champion and George Foreman.

Frazier was dethroned by Foreman in what was then described as the upset of the year. Foreman knocked down the champion six times in two rounds before referee Arthur Mercante stopped the fight.  

The first world title fight on which Brown worked as a judge was the title defence of Simon Brown against George Vaca in Jamaica on July 16, 1988, in which Brown knocked out Vaca in three rounds.

He remembers judging a world title fight between Arturo Gatti and Tracy Harris Patterson at the famous Madison Square Garden in New York and the first world title fight in South Africa after apartheid ended, between John Molina and Jackie Gunguluza in 1992. Brown was also one of the judges for the world title fight between Evander Holyfield and Vaughn Bean in Atlanta, Georgia in 1988, which Holyfield won.

He progressed from being a judge and an ITO to being appointed a member of the AIBA Referees and Judges Commission in 2019, a major accolade for him and Jamaica, and one with tremendous responsibilities. 

Brown was unable to say which area of boxing has been the most satisfying for him. “Writing is high on the list because of my passion for it, and I have won National awards for Outstanding Sports Journalism in 1968 and 1974. It’s hard to say which area I prefer, as I enjoy them all. I get to serve the sport in so many ways. 

“When you work with a young boxer and see him progress and know you contributed to his success is a wonderful feeling. That is the best reward and makes it worthwhile. There are two boxers that I worked with very closely and they became world champions. They are Michael McCallum and Nicholas Walters, and I treasure those memories,” he continued. 

“Talent, temperament and discipline are some of the main ingredients necessary to become a champion. They are all required if one is to succeed,” he added.

He praised Wray and Nephew for their support of the sport which has spanned decades. 

“One of the biggest supporters of boxing over the years has been Wray and Nephew. They contributed long before they did the Contender series that gave us eight years of really good boxing, and had a lot of crowd appeal. The Fight Night Series is a good follow-up after the Contender. It’s a completely different package and it is a very good mix of amateurs and pros.”