Trainer
“Sugar J” Dead at 56 Gerald Wilson, known to most as “Sugar J,” died last week at the age of 56. Wilson died after being struck by a car at a bus stop in Detroit after an SUV ran a red light striking another vehicle, which then plowed into the bus stop at Schaeffer and Schoolcraft where it hit the long-time boxing coach. Wilson boxed as an amateur, as did his other six brothers, and his father before them. He started at the age of eight at Detroit’s Chippewa Parks & Recreation Center, which was renamed the Sheldon Johnson Rec Center before being closed by the city because of budget cuts some four years ago. He was a two time state and Golden Gloves champ, according to his brother Glenn Wilson, a coach at M*A*S*H Gym. At the time of his death, Wilson was a coach at The Fight Club in Waterford. Before the death of his father four years ago, Wilson would spend all winter hunting with him, remembered Glenn. And he loved coaching. “He was a big Joe Louis fan,” Glenn Wilson said. “He wanted to teach all the young guys about Louis.” Services
for the coach will be Tuesday at 10:30 am at Hartford Memorial Baptist
Church, 17800 James Couzens, Detroit. Burial will be in Redford.
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