Biography
FAMILY & EARLY LIFE
Hayes Edward Sanders was born March 24, 1930 in Los Angeles, CA. His father, Hays Sanders, hailed from Elysian Fields, TX and worked as a municipal garbage worker. His mother, Eva Cook Sanders, hailed from Pearsall County, TX, and was a stay-at-home mother. Ed Sanders was the oldest male child of the family.
Winifred Sanders (age 2) and Hayes Edward Sanders (age: infant)
His older sister, Winifred, born in 1928, died in a Scarlet Fever epidemic, in 1939. Before Winifred’s death, she was recognized as a talented child prodigy. As a child, Sanders was very large and physically strong. At age 12, he was recollected to be the size of a normal 18 year old.
Ed had three younger siblings – a brother, Donald Allen Sanders (born in 1932); a sister, Margaret Sanders (Battey) (born in 1935); and another brother, Joseph Stanley Sanders (born in 1942). Ed Sanders and his younger brother, Donald, collected coffee cans, filled them with cement and connected two of them with a steel bar to make a weight set for exercising. As "Big Ed" grew bigger, faster and stronger, he excelled in football and track and field at Jordan High School. Sanders was known as affable, gentlemanly and highly intelligent. But he was tough and was not to be messed with. Big Ed graduated from Jordan High School in 1948.
Jordan High School Football Team -Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders: Middle / Center #41
Jordan High School Senior Class 1948 - Hayse "Big Ed" Sanders: Bottom/Center
COMPTON COLLEGE SCHOLAR
Compton College After graduating from Jordan High School, Sanders attended Compton College, where he again excelled in football and a new sport, boxing. In 1950, at the National Junior College Boxing Championships in Ogden, Utah, the six-foot four-inch, 220 pound Sanders attracted the attention of Idaho State College boxing coach Dubby Holt and football coach Babe Caccia. "He had a good left hand, and for the big man that he was, he was a real orthodox, skilled boxer," Holt recalled.
Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders family home on Compton Avenue.
IDAHO STATE READY
Shortly thereafter, Sanders was awarded an athletic scholarship to Idaho State College (now Idaho State University) in Pocatello, Idaho, where he boxed and played football. - Idaho State University Sanders won the NCAA Junior Championship in 1949 and 1950. When Sanders arrived on campus he dominated the competition. In his first collegiate fight Sanders knocked out the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Champion. He also never lost a match in a dual meet while at ISU. He also was inducted into the Idaho State University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Idaho State University 1949 - Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders: Top / Center
Sanders met his future wife while attending school in Pocatello native Mary LaRue, who worked as a secretary in the athletic department. Sanders was introduced to LaRue by her brother Jake, who picked Sanders up at Pocatello’s Union Pacific train Station. “I was a student and was on the staff of the ISU athletic department,” LaRue said in an interview with her son Russell. “He was recruited to come here from Compton Junior College to box and play football, and that’s how I met him. We became friends over time and eventually became engaged. We grew on each other.”
Mary LaRue circa 1950s
NAVY MAN
After a little more than one year at Idaho State, Big Ed was drafted into the Army as part of the Korean War draft. Big Ed’s boxing coach, Dubby Holt, persuaded Ed to join the Navy instead. Ed joined the Navy in 1950 and immediately joined the U.S. Navy Boxing Team. 
Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders - Armed Forces iD Card
GOLD IN HELSINKI
Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders the first African American Olympic Heavyweight Champion and the first American to win gold in the division since 1904, returned to the United States a national hero. The combination of his tenacious fighting style, deep sense of assurance and humble demeanor attracted constant media attention. The City of Los Angeles named a day in his honor, and he was inundated with requests for his attendance at athletic, social and religious events.
After the Olympics, Sanders’ amateur status became a burden on his ability to provide for his wife and young son, Russell, who was born in 1953. Sanders’ Naval commitments took him to San Diego, where he trained with mentor and close friend Moose Detty. Sanders was transferred subsequently to Maryland and then Boston, where he rented a flat with his wife and son.
As a Navy man, Sanders was prevented from boxing professionally, so he continued to box in the amateur ranks.
Sanders reentered the 1953 Gold Gloves Tournament and fought future World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston in the 1953 Chicago Golden Gloves Championship fight. Sanders entered the fight with a broken thumb, which hampered what was still considered a good performance. Liston emerged victorious, though witnesses at the fight accused Liston of clutching Sanders illegally, and still others in the audience felt Sanders won the fight. Sanders was invited again to the Intercity Golden Gloves Tournament but turned down the opportunity due to the thumb injury.
Sanders ended his amateur career with a record of 43 wins and only 4 losses.
USA Boxing Team Leaving Helsinki, Finland - Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders Bottom Right
A CHAMPION AWARDED & RECOGNIZED
Sanders turned pro in February 1953, suspiciously acting as his own manager to satisfy Naval requirements. Sanders’ IBC advisors, Truman Gibson, Nuno Cam, Sam Silverman, Frankie Carbo and Johnny Dundee, were all allegedly connected to the boxing underworld - strange bedfellows for a man like Sanders, but perhaps unavoidable for success in boxing in Boston 1953–54. Sanders’ first pro fight took place on March 8, 1954 against Sonny Nichols, with Sanders winning in a first-round TKO. Sanders won his next two fights by knockout before being stunned in a five-round decision loss to Willie Wilson. In private correspondence to Detty, a shocked and saddened Sanders confided that he felt he lacked adequate trades and sparring partners other than highly regarded local heavyweight Willie James. Sanders also complained about intense shoulder pain, and mentioned in letters that it had been x-rayed.
Sanders won a May 22, 1954 bout against Jack Flood and then avenged his earlier loss to Willie Wilson later that summer in August 1954, winning an eight-round decision.
On June 17, 1954, Sanders attended the Rocky Marciano-Ezzard Charles fight in New York as a guest of the International Boxing Council, which courted Sanders heavily. Earlier that same day, Sanders attended a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves and witnessed Jackie Robinson hit two home runs.
On October 5, 1954, Sanders fought to a draw with Bert Whitehurst. Sanders and Whitehurst fought a rematch only three weeks later on October 26, 1954, with Sanders winning a ten-round unanimous decision. Concluding a turbulent year, Sanders fought eight professional fights within only nine months, losing two fights in close decisions.
Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders Accepts an Award / Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders Cartoon Strip
HUSBAND, FATHER & FAMILY MAN
While attending Idaho State, Sanders fell in love with Pocatellan Mary LaRue, who was then a secretary at Idaho State's athletic department. She later became his wife and the mother of his child Russell Sanders (seen image below). Outside of the ring, Sanders was known as affable, gentlemanly and highly intelligent.
On May 26, 2012, Sanders' son Russell presided over his posthumous induction into the Compton Community College Athletics Hall of Fame, under the category of boxing. He also was inducted into the Idaho State University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Hayes "Big Ed" Sanders and Mary with son Russell Sanders in Boston, Massachusetts.
TRAGEDY STRIKES
On Saturday, December 11, 1954, Sanders fought his sparring partner Willie James, the New England Heavyweight Champion at Boston Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. The fight was his last. James was a highly regarded heavyweight who in February 1954 had performed well in sparring matches against Sanders. Sanders, who had complained previously of headaches and had his shoulder X-rayed just a few weeks prior, was uncharacteristically listless in the opinion of some observers.
James and Sanders traded heavy blows for ten rounds. In the eleventh round, Sanders appeared "tired", in James’ estimation, and was felled by a simple punch combination. Sanders dropped to the canvas and lost consciousness immediately, breathing laboriously while lying on his side. Ring personnel carried him out of the ring by stretcher.
Sanders never regained consciousness and died after a long surgery to relieve pressure on the brain. The coroner concluded that Sanders likely aggravated a previous injury. Doctors and trainers concluded Sanders probably suffered a prior injury that was aggravated in the James fight. Sanders was laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California, after a 21-gun military salute.