Robert Leroy “Bobby” Bickle, born March 27, 1929, in Hoisington, Kansas, spent a few years of his childhood in Elkhart, Kansas, where he met Thane Baker. Baker recalls a fight in front of Elkhart High School, where Bickle took on and won against a larger opponent. Baker said Bickle was not afraid of anyone, and his fists struck “lightning fast.”
Between July 9-19, 1952, Thane Baker discovered Bobby Bickle in the Olympic Village where they spoke and posed for a photographer. Even though Bickle was older, he appeared younger and smaller next to Baker. Notice the spectators standing behind the fence and watching the Olympic participants in the Olympic Village.
By 1948, Bickle no longer lived in Elkhart and won the lightweight Golden Gloves competition in Kansas City. Bickle had lightweight victories in the 1951 Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions and Intercity Golden Gloves. In June 1952, Bickle won the Featherweight division of the Olympic Boxing Tryouts held at Kansas City Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. Featherweight boxers weighed less than 125 pounds, 10 ounces, 9 drams. In the Olympics, Bickle competed as a Lightweight, with a maximum weight of 132 pounds, 4 ounces, 7 drams.
Bickle won his first round but lost in the second round on points to the eventual gold medalist, A. Bolognesi, of Italy. Bickle told Baker he broke a hand during the Olympic competition.
In his chapter, “Boxing,” Donald Wood of Great Britain reported Americans won five of the ten boxing events in Helsinki. He also complained that multiple bells in different rings confused people, even on the third day of boxing. Wood felt “too many officials stopped boxing, when a quick word would have sufficed.” He complained the European judges, who far outnumbered non-European officials, “generally favour the aggressor in preference to the boxer.”
After the Olympics, Bickle turned professional and fought from October 1952 to October 1958 with forty victories, 28 by knockout, 11 losses with no knockouts, and 2 draws. Bickle, a military veteran, died in May 1974 of a heart attack while caring for a family member. “Hit That Bell, George; Everything Set for Golden Gloves Tourney: Strongest Field in Many Years on Opening Card Monday,” Hutchinson (KS) News, January 30, 1949, https://www.newspapers.com; BoxRec: Boxing’s Official Record Keeper, s.v. “Bobby Bickle,” last modified January 5, 2010, 23:25, https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Bobby_Bickle; Asa S. Bushnell, ed., United States 1952 Olympic Book, Quadrennial Report United States Olympic Committee: Games of the XVth Olympiad Helsinki, Finland July 19 to August 3, 1952, VI Olympic Winter Games Oslo, Norway February 14 to 25, 1952, 1st Pan American Games Buenos Aires, Argentina February 25 to March 8, 1951, (New York: United States Olympic Association, 1953), 158-160; Cecil Bear, ed., Official Report of the XVth Olympic Games, (London: World Sports, official publication of the British Olympic Association, August 1952), 46-48; BoxRec: Boxing’s Official Record Keeper, s.v. “Bobby Bickle,” accessed April 7, 2020, https://boxrec.com/en/proboxer/32439; Olympedia, OlyMADMen, ed. s.v. “Robert Leroy “Bobby” Bickle,” accessed June 21, 2022, http://www.olympedia.org/athletes/8619; J. J. Maloney, “Bob Bickle Champion of Courage,” Kansas City (MO) Times, May 29, 1974, https://www.newspapers.com.
