Norvel Lee

Norvel Lee first came to boxing prominence in 1948 when he lost in the finals of the Olympic trials to heavyweight Jay Lambert. Lee went to London with the Olympic team but did not compete. In the interim between Olympics he won the AAU championship in 1950 and 1951 and won a bronze medal in the heavyweight class at the 1951 Pan American Games. He won the New York and Chicago Golden Gloves titles in both 1950 and 1951.

At the 1952 Olympic trials Lee again lost in the finals of the heavyweight division against Eddie Sanders. However, Lee was small for a heavyweight and the teams coaches felt he could make the light-heavyweight limit and asked him to do so. He managed to lose the weight and outshone Chuck Spieser in training, so Lee was entered in the light-heavyweight division. Not only did he win the gold medal, but Lee won the Val Barker Trophy, the award given at the Olympics to the best boxer in any division. At the 1955 Pan American Games he also won the bronze medal in the heavyweight class.

During World War II, Lee was selected in 1943 as a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen but served only on a ground crew because of a speech defect. He later attended Howard University and joined the ROTC Program, eventually becoming a lieutenant-colonel. He eventually earned a masters’ degree in education from Federal City College (now the University of District Columbia) and an ABD from Catholic University.

Lee’s career began as an educator and counselor with the Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons. He eventually held multiple administrative and managerial positions, including Director of Education for the District of Columbia (DC) Youth Center, DC Department of Corrections; Director of Training, DC Department of Public Welfare - Title V Training Program; Deputy Project Director, The Institute of Computer Technology; Director of Counseling Education, The Federal City College; Coordinator of Adult and Community Education, Baltimore City Department of Education where he served as Chairman of the Mayor’s Manpower Advisory Council, Assistant Superintendent of Personnel, Assistant Superintendent of Adult and Community Education, and Coordinator; Manpower Skills Center. In addition, Lee was Director of Equal Employment Opportunity, Federal Emergency Management Agency; and Radiological Protection Officer and Emergency Operations Officer for the DC Office of Emergency Preparedness. He retired after 36 years of government service in 1991.

Between the two Olympics, Lee made headlines of a different sort. In late 1948, in his hometown of Covington, Virginia, years before Rosa Parks, Lee became one of the first Blacks to defy the law which required Blacks to sit in a separate section of local buses. Lee was arrested and fined but appealed the ruling. Though he did not win that fight, he appealed again with NAACP support and won the case in the Virginia State Supreme Court on 7 September 1949. The years have proven him a winner – in all ways.