Derek Cole
DOCTOR
By Kristin Harmel (BSJ ’01)
THE
FIGHT
FEATURE
Doctor-turned-artist Ferdie Pacheco’s (BSP ’51) best-known work was “The Greatest.”
24 SPRING 2005
He is a painter as colorful as his stunning artwork, a doctor who worked with equal enthusiasm for immigrants who had nothing and champion boxers who had it all, a writer and orator whose stories make him one of Florida’s greatest living legends. He’s 76 years old, but you’d swear from his stories that he’d lived many lifetimes, and you’d swear from his youthful enthusiasm that he was in the springtime of his life. And perhaps he is. After achieving fame as Muhammad Ali’s “fight doctor” for 17 years, reforming the world of fight medicine, working as a boxing commentator and analyst for CBS, NBC and Showtime, penning numerous non-fiction and fiction books and painting many galleries full of Ybor City-inspired artwork, Ferdie Pacheco (BSP ’51) shows no signs of slowing down.
Paintings by Ferdie Pacheco
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“Of the five colleges I went to, I had the most fun at the University of Florida,” he says. “I sure had a good time there.”
Man of the People
5th Street Gym
“He has something to do every day and he uses every minute for something constructive, even though he had a stroke two years ago,” says his wife of 33 years, Luisita, a noted flamenco dancer. “He is on a fast track now. It’s like he is in a race and can’t wait for the finish line until he has done what he needs to do before it ends.”
Many Talents This painter/doctor/pharmacist/commentator/ writer/orator is about to release his autobiography (“Blood in My Coffee”), has self-published his latest novel (“Who Killed Patton,” a historical murder mystery), is launching his own TV show and continues to paint, which he says he will do until the day he dies. Pacheco’s story begins in 1927 in Tampa’s Ybor City, where he was born into a family with deep ancestral roots in Spain. His father was a pharmacist; his grandfather was a cultured consul from Spain who read the Encyclopedia Britannica for fun, listened to opera music and took young Ferdie on monthly trips to the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. “In Ybor, people picked oranges and grapefruits 26 SPRING 2005
but we didn’t know about art,” he says. “My grandfather explained the differences between the painters and explained the shadows and the techniques. From the time I was little, I was drawing. Those museum trips did, in a sense, inspire me, but I thought I could never paint like that.” When he was 13, Pacheco went to work at his father’s drugstore. “That’s when I learned about medicine and the attitudes I have as a doctor,” he says. “I learned from my father how to take care of emergencies and how to take care of people. I learned medicine from him.” Pacheco’s father wanted him to be a doctor, and Pacheco, who had equal enthusiasm for medicine and art by the time he finished 12th grade at Tampa’s Thomas Jefferson High School, decided to do just that. Through 12 years of ups and downs, he put himself through undergraduate, pharmacy and medical schools, oftentimes supporting himself through cartooning and writing factoids for medical magazines. He had stints at the University of Tampa, the University of Tennessee and Springhill College in Mobile, Ala., before landing at UF for three years, then he put himself through medical school at the University of Miami.
After leaving medical school, Pacheco entered into a period of his life that he remains proudest of today: he opened a clinic in the impoverished Miami neighborhood of Overtown and went about offering free medical care to the poorest of the poor as well as the first wave of new immigrants from Cuba. By the time he left private practice in 1980, he had had 13 attempts made on his life, and Overtown was infested with crack dealers. But he’d made a difference in a struggling community for two decades. “I spent 20 years in the ghetto giving free medicine to indigent people, 20 years where it was F-R-E-E, free,” he says proudly. “People told me I was a fool, that I could make so much money if I wanted to, but it was great. It was like, that’s what I had gone to all the trouble for. It was so joyous, so happy. I wouldn’t charge anybody.” He did, however, manage to stay in business — and make a thriving income — by specializing in worker’s compensation cases, where insurance companies would pay for him to treat injured laborers to avoid litigation. “Inside of one year, I bought a house here, a new Cadillac and a new Chevrolet for my wife,” says Pacheco, who still lives in Miami. “I had everything I needed.” It was that financial freedom that allowed him the opportunity to offer free medical care to boxers at the then-fledgling Fifth Street Gym in Miami, a decision that would change his life.
But Pacheco wasn’t just Ali’s doctor — he was a friend and a trusted adviser. And he cared about the fighter so much that he made the decision to leave his side — and all the fame and glory that came with it — in 1977, when he felt that boxing was doing Ali irreparable physical harm. “I thought boxing was causing him to have brain damage, and I wanted him not to develop the brain damage that he has developed,” Pacheco says. “I had watched him disintegrate over 15 years.” So Pacheco, who had never accepted a dime for his medical services, advised Ali to stop fighting before he permanently damaged himself. “That’s why I was able to tell Ali to quit,” he says. “I could have made a million dollars off them, but I never wanted to.” But Ali refused — so Pacheco felt he had no choice. He left the life of a fight doctor. “Ali tells me all the time now, ‘You were the only one who was right,’” Pacheco says. Says Pacheco’s wife, Luisita, “He knew [Ali] was being damaged and told him to quit, because he was a physician first and a cornerman second. He could not stay and watch this happen.”
“To be with Ali was the highlight of my life. It was a wonderful experience. Championship fighting is like nothing else.” — Ferdie Pacheco
Muhammad Ali
“The Greatest” Part “I did the same thing in boxing, offered free medical care, and took care of the 5th Street Gym boxers for nothing,” he says. “And we ended up having 12 world champions.” The most famous was Muhammad Ali. And Pacheco is perhaps best-known for being the fight doctor for the man who many consider the greatest boxer of all time. “Ali has been a very big thing in my life,” he says. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to work with him. To be with Ali was the highlight of my life. It was a wonderful experience. Championship fighting is like nothing else.” UF TODAY 27
Malaga Restaurant
“Every painting has a story, and every story has a sense of humor. I use humor to defray all kinds of serious things.” — Ferdie Pacheco
In his time by Ali’s side — and at the side of other boxers — Pacheco managed to affect major changes in the way fight medicine works, something for which he is still very proud. Among the changes he brought about which are now standard in boxing: ambulances at the boxing rings, a fourth set of ropes in the ring for safety, combat-experienced medical personnel at the fights and gloves that attach the thumb to the fist so it can’t poke another fighter’s eye out. “I am proud that he stands up for what is right,” Luisita says. “He was the first doctor to get safety measures for boxers on TV and the first one to have ambulances at each boxing match in case of an emergency. A boxer had died in his arms because the doctor was getting a hot dog and wasn’t in attendance. Ferdie at the time was working as a commentator.” After leaving his career as Ali’s fight doctor, Pacheco transitioned almost immediately into a role as a boxing commentator for the networks and then for Showtime. Now he focuses almost exclusively on his writing and his unmistakable paintings, which sell for thousands of dollars across the world.
The Colorful Life “It is semi-realistic, colorist, fauvist and Cubaninfluenced,” says Pacheco. “The idea is I do a kind of cartoon, that the paintings have a good design. I
paint stories. Every painting has a story, and every story has a sense of humor. I use humor to defray all kinds of serious things. “I have developed my style,” he says. “People can come in and say, ‘That’s a Pacheco.’ You have to be in there, regardless of what kind of art it is. It took a long time to find myself, but I’m in there.” His fans would agree. He has sold Civil War paintings for $40,000 apiece and fight paintings for upwards of $15,000. He has painted everything from Muhammad Ali to George W. Bush to his native Ybor City neighborhood to Miami Cuban exiles to colorful self-portraits. “He is a colorful, artistic character with broad strokes of humor, fine lines of positive thinking,” Luisita says. “His palette is full of knowledge. He is an articulate storyteller and sesquipedalian. He has integrity and is kind-hearted. He is very well read and reads everyday. He knows his history, whether it be art, World War II, the Civil War or Shakespeare. He could be a history professor. He has beautiful penmanship. He loves to write with a Montblanc pen and does everyday in his diary. He has fascinating volumes of his life. He is like a computer with much data inside and ready every day to spurt it out. He is a dreamer, who makes dreams come true, and he is a wonderful narrative painter. “He paints and draws like he talks: very fast,” she says. “He never quits.” u To see more of Ferdie Pacheco's original art, visit www.ferdiepacheco.com
28 SPRING 2005
Miami Beach Auditorium | Fight Night
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