Howard Davis Jr., a boxer from Long Island who in 1976 won an Olympic gold medal and also received the Val Barker Trophy, awarded to the most outstanding Olympic fighter, over his teammates and fellow gold medalists Michael and Leon Spinks and Sugar Ray Leonard, died on Wednesday. He was 59.
The cause was lung cancer, according to an announcement on Facebook by the Howard Davis Jr. Foundation, which raises money to fight cancer. The foundation did not say where he died.
Davis, who was a lightweight for most of his career and had a blistering left jab, was only 20 and was in mourning at the 1976 Games in Montreal.