Five Menominee athletes recognized for their fighting prowess and coaching young boxers will now be remembered among the best Indigenous athletes in the country.
Alex “Askie” Askenette Sr., Llewelyn Boyd, Jim Caldwell, Jonathan “JJ” Corn and Rodger Ponfil Jr. are among the 2026 inductees of the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame banquet will be held May 30 at the Oneida Hotel and Conference Center in Green Bay.
By honoring and celebrating the journey of these individuals, the hope is their stories may inspire future generations to follow their dreams in athletics.
Individual banquet tickets cost $50 each. Children 8 and older will be admitted for $30.
Send check or money order made payable to Empowered Youth Initiative Directives, Dan Ninham, P.O. Box 652, Red Lake, MN, 56671, or via PayPal with the code coach.danninham@midco.net.
The deadline to purchase banquet tickets is noon May 15.
Here’s a look at the careers of these inductees, courtesy of the Native American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame website.
Alex “Askie” Askenette
Alex Askenette was born March 19, 1922. The Askenette name was a very old Menominee name meaning “Survivor, the only one left.”
He was the Golden Gloves champion at Haskell, Kansas, in 1939 and at Emporia, Kansas, in 1941. In 1947, he was the Golden Gloves champion in Marshfield.
Soon after, he became the coach of the Menominee boxers. A number of his boxers have been inducted into the NAIAHF including his son, Louie, and Lew Boyd and Jim Caldwell. For 10 years, Askenette worked with the Menominee police and coached highly successful Menominee boxers, ending in 1967.
Askenette was also a national leader in boxing circles. A bid was accomplished for a berth in the 1974 National AAU for an all-Indian National Championship. He was appointed the regional director of the National Indian Activities Association that coordinated the program. He was also a commissioner with the AAU.
Lew Boyd
Working out of the backyard of the legendary boxing coach Alex Askenette on the Menominee Indian Reservation, Boyd started his amateur boxing career as a 112-pound flyweight in 1965.
From 1966-70, Boyd won his first open division Wisconsin Golden Gloves boxing championship in the featherweight (126 pound) division, later in the junior welterweight (139 pound) division and 147-pound division earning trips to respective national tournaments.
In 1970, he won the International Boxing League box-off in the 147-pound division. In 1973, Boyd retired from boxing competition with a 76-6 record and began training youths for competition.
In 1984, Boyd landed a spot on the U.S. State Department’s seven-man African coaching delegation. Under the auspices of the U.S. Information Agency, Boyd was chosen to assist six other U.S. coaches and boxing planners to establish coaches and training camps in Lagos, Nigeria, and Nairobi, Kenya.
With their sights on the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the seven-man U.S. coaches delegation trained 32 African nations for the 1984 Games. A break in games coverage saw Howard Cosell narrate a special segment on the African coaches and training camps held earlier that year.
Upon his return from the African tour, Boyd signed contracts with the United States Sports Academy out of Mobile, Alabama, for 1984 and 1985. The Island of Borneo in Southeast Asia was Boyd’s first destination, and he began training members of the Brunei Darussalam boxing squad.
Honored to meet and shake hands with the Sultan of Brunei, Boyd was later selected as head coach of the Brunei Olympic Boxing Team. Within six months, Boyd would become a member of the Nation of Brunei Olympic Committee.
With assistance by the Nation of Brunei military, Brunei boxers won one silver medal and one bronze in the 1985 Southeast Asian Independence Games. Upon conclusion of the games, Boyd would be voted by Brunei coaching peers as one of two coaches to receive the Brunei Cannon Award as the Most Promising Coach Award. In 1985, he also participated in Operation Gold training camps in Baguio, Philippines, and assisted in training amateur boxers in Bangkok and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Jim Caldwell
Jim Caldwell won a gold medal at the 1961 National AAU boxing finals in the 139-pound division in Pocatello, Idaho. He joined the U.S. team on a European tour to compete against outstanding amateur boxers. He boxed in England, Ireland and Scotland. At 21, he compiled a 32-6 amateur record against top national competition.
He won four straight district Golden Gloves championships on the state level. He participated in the national Golden Gloves finals for three years and was a silver medalist in 1961.
Caldwell began boxing at aged 17 for the Menominee Boxing Club under the tutelage of 2026 NAIAHF inductee Alex Askenette Sr. He was named outstanding novice boxer at the 1958 Fond du Lac district Golden Gloves, outstanding fighter at the 1960 Rockford (Illinois) tournament and winner of the Barney Rose sportsmanship trophy at the 1961 national Golden Gloves tournament.
JJ Corn
Jonathan “JJ” Corn is a retired boxer from the Menominee Nation.
Corn began his boxing career fighting on Joe Swedes’ Neopit-Keshena boxing team from 1987-91 until joining the Army. Corn’s early titles included being the 1988 Michigan Silver Gloves champion at 95 pounds, 1990 Wisconsin Golden Gloves 132-pound champ, 132-pound National Indian champ and Upper Midwest Jr. Gloves 132-pound champion.
After basic training in 1992 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Corn was sent to Fort Carson, Colorado, and in 1993 was given the opportunity to compete for the post championship. He won at 156 pounds and won a spot to compete for the All Army title. He dropped down in weight and fought at welterweight 147 pounds and went to Fort Huachuca (Arizona) in January 1994, where he won three fights to take home the All Army award.
The Army team went to Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, Virginia, to compete for the Armed Forces title. The Army team swept the Armed Forces tournament and went 12-0, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished before or since.
The Army team went to the U.S. championships, made it to the semifinals and received a No. 5 ranking with USA boxing. That ranking earned them a spot to fight internationally and compete in the U.S. Olympic Festival.
He also boxed that April in Dublin, Ireland, in a USA vs. Ireland dual meet.
In 1994, he competed in the U.S. Olympic Festival in St Louis, Missouri, and in the Military Olympics in November 1994 in Tunis, Tunisia. Corn finished his amateur career with 12 amateur titles — including the 1988 Michigan Silver Gloves 95 pounds, 1990 Wisconsin Golden Gloves 132 pounds, 1990 National Indian Champion 132 pounds, 1990 Upper Midwest Jr. Gloves, 1993 Fort Carson Post 165 pounds, 1994 All Army Champ 147 pounds, 1994 Armed Forces 147 pounds, 1994 Olympic Festival bronze medalist, 1995 Colorado Golden Gloves 147 pounds and 1995 North American Indigenous Games gold medal 147 pounds.
He finished his amateur career with a record of 106-12.
As a professional, Corn won the WAA World Title, the USA Mid-American Light Heavyweight title, the Midwest Light Heavyweight title and fought for the WBO World Middleweight title, IBF International Middleweight title and the IBA International Jr. Middleweight title.
Rodger Ponfil Jr.
Rodger Ponfil Jr. started boxing at age 15, and in his first year won the Wisconsin State Junior Olympic Championship. In 1977, at age 16, he won a National Indian Activities Association (NIAA) championship at Carson City, Nevada.
The following year, Ponfil won the Wisconsin State AAU Title in the 112-pound Open Division. Also in 1978, he won the NIAA 112-pound national title defeating Orvis Flying Horse of Oklahoma.
After the 1978 NIAA title bout, he flew to Biloxi, Mississippi, and won four bouts in the National AAU championship, then lost a disputed decision to Mike Felde of Missoula, Montana. During the tournament, Ponfil defeated Jerome Coffee, the defending 112-pound champion and No. 1 ranked boxer in the country. He also defeated Greg Richardson, a national Golden Gloves and AAU champion.
Ponfil was named to the All American Team and was ranked No. 2 in the nation in his weight division.
While emerging as a national class boxer, the International Selection Committee assigned him to the 1978-79 USA International Team that competed against European, South American, African and Asian teams in a series of televised bouts.
JJ Corn
Rodger Ponfil Jr.
Jim Caldwell
Lew Boyd
