Ex-Lightweight Kenny Vice Dies Following CTE Complications
Ex-lightweight boxer Kenny Vice (32-9-0, 26 KOs) has passed away at the age of 64 following “chronic traumatic encephalopathy” (CTE) complications.
Vice’s resume included losing to Julio Cesar Chavez in July 1989 via a third-round stoppage. He faced another big name four months later, getting disqualified against Livingstone Bramble, the former lightweight champion. Despite those setbacks, Vice had some significant victories.
In September 1990, he scored a huge upset over Jim McDonnell. Vice also defeated rising star Jackie Beard in April 1995. Prior to that, Vice grabbed the WBF belt at 140 pounds, beating Alvin Patten in January 1995. Outside of the ring, Vice carried the Olympic torch through Lafayette for the 1996 Atlanta Games. After his retirement, he opened a gym, dedicating his time to training.
“We want people to remember him as more than a champion. When Youngsville flooded, he helped neighbors pull their cars out of rising waters. His gym was a place where young men could escape the streets. Once, when one of the fighters was arrested, he went to the jail and slept there with him, so he wouldn’t have to be alone. The next morning, he brought him home and made him run laps around our pasture until he couldn’t go anymore. That person credits him for his sobriety today.
“When I think of him, I remember a husband sweeping the floor who would grab his wife’s hands as she was washing the dishes and slow dance with her to a song on the television, a father who rushed to Acadiana Park in his steel toe boots and torn up jeans to run three miles with his boys and the Comeaux Cross Country team, and the grandfather who sobbed as his first grandson was placed in his arms,” Courtney Vice Habetz (Vice’s daughter)