Truman State University Athletics

Janks Morton came to the university in 1959 from Robert Taft High School after a distinguished athletic career there. He was a two-way end and fullback, as well as a kick returner for the Bulldogs, helping them win two MIAA titles and the 1961 Mineral Water Bowl game. He was selected for the 1962 All-MIAA first team. During his college days, he sparred frequently with Ken Norton, another Bulldog athlete and later a heavyweight boxing champion. Mr. Morton said he first took up boxing at the age of eight. After his graduation in 1963 with a B.S. degree, he was briefly with the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League and with the now defunct semipro Toronto Rifles. He returned to his hometown of Cincinnati to enter the insurance business and then moved to Maryland as an independent broker, designing a program for civil service employees. By the time he quit the insurance business in 1981 he had 83 employees and 390,000 clients nation-wide. It was when he moved to Maryland and the Washington, D.C. area that he met Sugar Ray Leonard. He became his trainer and the primary personality behind Leonard's meteoric rise to boxing fame. Mr. Morton has trained six world champions, and at the time of his induction, was handing Donovan Razor Ruddock. Mr. Morton is a member of the Robert Taft High School Hall of Fame.