“Sugar” Ray Seales (b. 1952) was born St. Croix and moved to Tacoma, Washington, in 1965. He trained in the Tacoma Boys Club amateur boxing program under coach Joe Clough and had an amateur boxing record of 338 wins and 12 losses. He was the National AAU light welterweight champion in 1971, the National Golden Gloves champion in 1972, and he won the gold medal in the lightweight division in the 1972 Summer Olympics. Seales fought professionally in the late 1970s and early 1980s until a serious eye injury during a fight led him to retire. Seales later worked with autistic students at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, where he was praised for his rapport with the students and his kind and gentle demeanor. After retiring from Lincoln in 2004, Seales moved to Indianapolis and worked as a boxing coach for several years before returning to Tacoma in 2023.

Here, Ray Seales helps a Lincoln High School student with his breakfast.

Caption information source: “Documentary recounts boxer’s story” by Mark Ambrogi, Current website, retrieved at https://www.youarecurrent.com/2024/07/18/documentary-recounts-boxers-story