Clarence Hill -Bermuda’s First Olympic Medalist

from Bermuda Sports Journal Issue #10

Sports Medicine with Dr. Jeffery MacLeod

Clarence Hill was born on June 26, 1951, he is the second of three children born to Hillgrove and Ruth Hill and grew up in the Parson’s Road area and attended Central School. When his mother and father divorced, his mother moved to Jones Village in Warwick and transferred to Heron Bay School. His father married Rita Gavin, a U.S. citizen and took his three children with them to live in New Jersey. Rita had four children of her own and Clarence’s troubled life began. Clarence said his father treated his stepchildren as if they were his, and his own children like stepchildren. His siblings, Rupert and Rosemary, adjusted to it, but Clarence struggled with it and ran away from home, skipped school, and wondered the streets of New Jersey until he came across a YMCA gym. The boxing caught his eye and he stopped to watch, when the coach asked if he would like to try his hands in the ring. He took to it really good and started training until the school truancy officer caught up to him. Clarence was taken before the courts and placed in a juvenile home for the next three years. At age 17, he was taken back to court to determine the next course of action, Clarence mentioned to the judge that his mother was in Bermuda and asked if they could send him to her, and the courts obliged. Once he had arrived back in Bermuda, he struggled to adjust, his mother had moved to Dockyard in the far western end of Bermuda, he had no friends and no idea what he wanted to do, only that he liked boxing. Clarence would take the bus to Hamilton where he met Stanley Trim and Sammy Wilson at Pembroke Youth Center. They would continue to develop his boxing skills and entered Clarence in amateur boxing events Clarence would win all of his fights as there were only two or three heavyweight boxers in Bermuda and a few expat policemen willing to fight him. As he progressed, fighters had to be brought in from the United States. The Bermuda Government Department of Youth and Sports approached Clarence with the idea of representing Bermuda at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, he accepted the offer and along with Stanley, started to prepare for the games. Clarence received a bye in the round of 32, in the round of 16, he defeated Parviz Badpa (Iran) by knockout. In the quarterfinal, he defeated Rudy Gauwe (Belgium) by decision, 5-0 to secure the bronze medal. Clarence said he won the semifinal fight against Mircea Şimon (Romania), but the decision was given to Simon by decision of 0-5 and he was awarded the bronze medal. If Clarence had won the fight, he would be up against Cuba’s Teófilo Stevenson for the gold medal. Some say Clarence threw the silver medal fight because he was afraid of Stevenson. Clarence says differently, but regardless of who is right, Clarence accomplished something no one had done before, he won the first Olympic medal in the history of Bermuda, a bronze medal as a Heavyweight boxer.

Clarence is the first athlete from Bermuda to win an Olympic medal in any sport. You would think that he would come home to a hero’s welcome, as he exited the plane and walked across the tarmac, only his mother and Sammy Wilson were there to greet him. No one else, not one Government Official or boxing fan. As he reminisced about that day, he became emotional, he is still hurt that his accomplishment is minimized as nothing. There were promises that the government would build a boxing facility in his honor, we are now in the year 2022, and the facility is yet to break ground. After Montreal, Hill remained an amateur boxer and was hoping to compete at the next Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980, but that dream was shattered when Bermuda was one of the countries to boycotted the Games. To make matters worse, his mother passed in 1983 and left him homeless. Clarence rented a room in North Hamilton and struggled with depression. His landlord offered him a rock glass with foil for his depression and that first hit of the pipe, hooked him on crack cocaine. The craving for the escape from the depression put him on a trail of stealing, robbery, breaking and entering to feed the addiction. It was during this time that he was dating a young girl, who was also a single mother with a new-born baby and would sometimes stay at her

house in Somerset. On one occasion, a two-pound package of marijuana was delivered to her house, and he was asked to deliver it to a location in Hamilton, but the police arrived at the house, and he took the rap for the package and received an 18-month jail term. In an attempt to pull his life together, Clarence turned his attention back into boxing, turned pro, entered the United States through Canada, settled in Lynchburg, Virginia, and married U. S. citizen, Robin Logan. He defeated British club fighter David Fry in England on April 14, 1980. He won his first twelve fights and took on a fight against Tony Tubbs at the University of New Mexico in August 1982 but lost by unanimous decision. The earning from the fight afforded him the ability to purchase a home in Virginia. Clarence decided to return to Bermuda to stage his next fight for his Bermuda fans, a decision that he would live to regret. After the fight, he was stopped at the airport because of the drug conviction. He lost his marriage, house and was plunged back into the pit of struggle as he started using drugs again to combat his depression. Clarence Hill’s last fight was in 1986, and his professional boxing record ended with 19 wins (16 by knockout), three losses and a draw.

Today at age 70, he is the father of two children, son Jamaka Gibbons and daughter Takahia Simmons, on November 9th, 2006, Clarence married Connie Smith and finds his peace at the First Church of God on the North Shore.

In 2005, Clarence Hill was inducted into the Bermuda Sports Hall of Fame.