ZAHIR “Z-MAN” RAHEEM was wearing a pink sports jacket and a smile as he moved swiftly across the stage to accept his Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame plaque. Many in attendance had not seen him since he retired in 2014. Gone was the spindly boxer of years past, replaced by a fit man of 45 who has moved on geographically but has not forgotten his roots.
There was always something ethereal about Raheem, a skinny boxer with a pencil-thin moustache. Now you see him, now you don’t, which was reflected in his slippery defensive style. As a child, he resembled Dickens’ Artful Dodger, working the streets in search of sustenance, but it hadn’t always been that way.
“I lived next to a park and my dad would take me down there,” said Raheem. “We would walk the dog. I enjoyed life and always had a good time. Down the street, at Ninth and Tioga, was a horse stable. I’d go down there, take care of them and ride them.
“When my life turned upside down, I wanted to be at the gym”
“It was great, but one day my dad didn’t come home for almost three days. My mother didn’t understand it. One day he came home and then they both disappeared. They came back and they were on crack cocaine. After that, we lost everything.”
For a spell,
