Emanuel Steward, earnest yet easygoing, proved rough and tough wasn't the only way to win in boxing.
With a twinkle in his eyes, a smile on his face and a soothing voice, Steward developed unique bonds in and out of the ring with a long line of champions that included Thomas Hearns, Lennox Lewis, Oscar De La Hoya and Vladimir Klitschko.
Steward, owner of the Kronk Gym in Detroit and an International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer, died on Thursday. He was 68. His executive assistant, Victoria Kirton, said Steward died at a Chicago hospital. She didn't disclose the cause of death.
"It is not often that a person in any line of work gets a chance to work with a legend, well I was privileged enough to work with one for almost a decade," Klitschko said.
Steward, whose father was a coal miner and mother was a seamstress, was born in West Virginia. He got boxing gloves as a Christmas present at the age of 8, the start of what would become a long career in the sweet science.
Steward, at the age of 18, won the national Golden Gloves tournament as a bantamweight. Instead of trying to make it as a professional , he went to work for Detroit Edison and in 1971 accepted a part-time position as head coach — for US$35 per week — at the Kronk Recreation Centre.
A dynasty was born.