Mosely III, Fleming J.

Fleming J. Mosely III – (1987)

 

Fleming J. Mosely III

Fleming Mosely III could easily have been a loser. He was born poor and black in a family where his father labored in the steel mills and coal mines around Pittsburgh.

Success comes hard with that kind of beginning.

Today, he’s one of the first black administrators in Lorain Public Schools and one of the few in Ohio.

Fleming Mosely started winning early. Sports was his bag — excelling in high school in football, track and boxing. He won a work scholarship to California State Teachers College in Pennsylvania.

He had to keep up his grades, as well as make first string on the football team to keep the scholarship.

Fleming Mosely played all four years as a guard on the California State team. In his last three years he made Small College All-America.

Fresh out of college, Fleming joined the Army and served in Germany. He was discharged into the reserve in 1962 and went back to Pennsylvania to see a girl named Emily.

“We met in Clarion (Pa.),” he recalled. “We went up there to play their team — they were undefeated. We tied them and knocked them out.”

Fleming’s team won a moral victory and Emily, a student at Clarion State Teachers College he met in the dining hall after the game. She became his wife in June of 1962, four months after he was discharged.

Fleming went back to campus to seek a teaching job. A Lorain school recruiter gave him a contract as a sixth grade teacher and assistant coach starting in 1963. Dr. Mosely is now principal of Lincoln Elementary School.

As an amateur boxer, Fleming Mosely was a real winner. He was heavyweight champion of Pittsburgh for two years, Cleveland for three years, and Toledo for two years. He fought former heavyweight champion of the world Joe Frazier before Frazier turned professional.

“It was close,” says Fleming, “although that may be a biased opinion.”

“But I really think I was working with him for 2½ rounds. (Then) he caught me trying to put him away.”