Uganda mourns the passing of boxing coach Dick Katende

The month of August started brightly with sunshine, but for the boxing
fraternity, it soon became gloomy with the news that legendary coach
Dick ‘Tiger’ Katende had passed on.

The veteran coach reportedly died in the early hours of the day
3am. According to his wife, he left her watching television to go to
use the bathroom in the middle of the night and never returned.

Katende’s wife was concerned about him and went to check on him, only to find the veteran coach lying in a pool of blood.

The medical reports indicated that the coach might have slipped and hit his head on the hard surface, leaving him with a broken skull.

Born in 1959, Dick Katende started boxing in 1971 for Kampala City
Council boxing club. He rose to become a national middleweight
champion and later took over from Cuban-born Lazaros Jimenez as
national coach in 1992, at the end of his boxing career.

However, he had started coaching in 1985 and helped the national team,
“ the bombers” to win two gold medals at the 1990 Commonwealth games in
Auckland.

Katende also coached the Olympic teams of 2000 and 2004 before finally
taking a break in 2007. He was summoned back to the ring, coaching
Mike Sekabembe and Fazil Juma Kaggwa to bronze medals at Commonwealth
games in Glasgow in 2014.
 

Featured Photo: Courtesy of The investigator