Boxer Marvin Camel still wears his world champion belt. (Kurt Wilson/Missoulian)

It’s been more than three decades, but in all that time, no one in Montana has managed to do what Marvin Camel did: Win a world boxing title.

Camel fought in the 1970s and ’80s as a cruiserweight, a class between light heavyweight and heavyweight. Things were different then. Famed boxing promoter Don King saw no problem with letting out an on-mic war whoop when Camel – who is Salish, from Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation – entered the ring in one of his title bouts, Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin writes here.

Thirty years later, Camel still revels in his accomplishments – even if few in the state remember them.

“Anybody can do what I’ve done,” Camel says, “but in reality, nobody has. I often ask myself, ‘Why me? Why was I chosen to be the first cruiserweight champion of the world?’ I come from a town of 1,500 people, Ronan, Montana, and I’ve won two world titles. There are towns, there are states, there are countries with millions of people that have never won a world championship.”

He wants to share his love of the sport with people in his home. Although Camel has retired to Florida, his brother Ken, also a former professional boxer, wants to start a youth boxing club on the reservation.

Marvin Camel wants to help him with that goal.

“Kenny can give them the ups and downs, the ins and outs,” Camel says, “but there’s one little step he’s got to take that he hasn’t, and I have. He can’t teach them to become a world champion, but I can.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Flathead Indian Reservation, International Boxing Federation Cruiserweight Championship, Ken Camel, Marvin Camel, Native American news, World Boxing Council, World Cruiserweight Champion