RIP - Dr. Julian E. Compton

[jofre]

Dr. Compton was a long time member of IBRO. He and I had just exchanged emails hours before his passing. This is a complete shock! May he rest in peace!


Dr. Julian E. Compton Dr. Julian E. Compton, 70, of Tallahassee, died Thursday, April 1, 2010. He was born on February 29, 1940 and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. He received a B.A. in Religion from Georgetown College, an M.S.T. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an M.A. in English and Ph.D. in Modern Humanities from Florida State University. He was a humanities professor at Florida A&M University for 39 years before retiring in 2007. He was committed to teaching his students to think critically and to appreciate arts and ideas. He traveled extensively, visiting five continents. He was published in poetry, data analysis, and many aspects of Modern and Post Modern Culture. Dr. Compton co-authored The World Champion Boxing Quiz and was a contributor to All Sports Digest, Boxing Illustrated, and Table Top Sports. He conducted computer statistical analysis of sports and co-authored the book, Computer Sports Matchups, in 1981. He also invented the computer game Data Boxing. In addition to his wife, Lan, he is survived by a sister, Carol Keith, of Reston, VA; son and daughter-in-law, Julian E. (Woody) Compton and Kim Harris of Gainesville; Daughter and Son-in-law, Lynn and Chris Chapman of Birmingham, AL, and 2 grandchildren. A visitation will be held Monday, April 5, from 6-8pm EST at Culley's MeadowWood Timberlane Road Chapel. Private family services will be held. Memorial Contributions may be made to Doctors Without Borders.

[Rob Morris]

Very sad and shocking news this, RIP.

[bear]

Very sad news

[jofre]

Bear, I had just communicated with him less than 3 hours before he died. He had just responded to an inquiry sent to IBRO. A real shock!

[IceTea]

Rip

[shane6969]

R.i.p

[bear]

Originally Posted by jofre

Bear, I had just communicated with him less than 3 hours before he died. He had just responded to an inquiry sent to IBRO. A real shock!

Wow.

[professordp]

That is really sad! He was a pioneer along with the Trunzos in the efforts to accurately sim boxing. I remember owning an early version of Data Boxing (1977 or 78) and will never forget that for Patterson facing Liston he had devised a special rating that virtually ensured that Sonny would take Floyd out in the first round in every match you simulated between the two

His game (and approach) was somewhat different than the Trunzos in that he was really focused upon statisitical reproduction of results to the point he based his ratings upon watching fight films and counting punches whereas the Trunzo game (TBCB) is pretty much based upon figtht outcomes.

Personally, I found that with historical matchups, Data Boxing was highly accurate, but the Trunzo product offered you many more fighters since TBCB isn't based upon punch counting that went into Dr. Compton's product.

Still, I never saw Data Boxing as a competitor to the Trunzo game. Dr. Compton took an alternative approach to simulating professional boxing, and there was ample room for Data Boxing and TBCB to coexist.

We can only hope that someone will pick up Dr. Compton's standard and continue to produce Data Boxing.

[bdennis2]

DR DataBox as he was known on his All Time Heavyweight thread Dr.Julian E. Compton was a personal friend and special friend he was 3yrs older than me grew up a little more 100 miles from me. I talked to him 2 weeks ago by phone he was looking foward to the coming summer he was going to South America the only continent that he had not been to.

At 12:38am eastern time April 1 he posted updated ratings for Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins.

Rest in Peace my dear friend.

Billy T.Dennis

[Rob Morris]

Originally Posted by professordp

That is really sad! He was a pioneer along with the Trunzos in the efforts to accurately sim boxing. I remember owning an early version of Data Boxing (1977 or 78) and will never forget that for Patterson facing Liston he had devised a special rating that virtually ensured that Sonny would take Floyd out in the first round in every match you simulated between the two

His game (and approach) was somewhat different than the Trunzos in that he was really focused upon statisitical reproduction of results to the point he based his ratings upon watching fight films and counting punches whereas the Trunzo game (TBCB) is pretty much based upon figtht outcomes.

Personally, I found that with historical matchups, Data Boxing was highly accurate, but the Trunzo product offered you many more fighters since TBCB isn't based upon punch counting that went into Dr. Compton's product.

Still, I never saw Data Boxing as a competitor to the Trunzo game. Dr. Compton took an alternative approach to simulating professional boxing, and there was ample room for Data Boxing and TBCB to coexist.

We can only hope that someone will pick up Dr. Compton's standard and continue to produce Data Boxing.

Downey Games picked up the rights to Data Boxing a few years ago. Curiously there is nothing about Dr Compton's sad death on their site.

[professordp]

Originally Posted by Rob Morris

Downey Games picked up the rights to Data Boxing a few years ago. Curiously there is nothing about Dr Compton's sad death on their site.

Thanks! That's something I knew and should have mentioned. You just wonder if there's anyone there who has Dr. Compton's dedication and capacity for critical thinking at the helm. He was certainly one of a kind!

[bdennis2]

As for as i know Jeff Downey has the right to sell DataBoxing Dr.Compton still had full control of the game.

[CONN CHRIS]

70 seems so young.

Very sad news indeed.

[professordp]

Originally Posted by bdennis2

As for as i know Jeff Downey has the right to sell DataBoxing Dr.Compton still had full control of the game.

I have some of Jeff's games--most of them play pretty quick. I noticed that he is only selling the pc version of Data Boxing. Is the board game now a thing of the past? I think my original copy of DB went out with my old copies of Rolling Stone when I moved in the late 1970s. Oh the things we toss out!

[Jersey-Jim]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

70 seems so young.

Very sad news indeed.

I agree. With so many people living well into their 80's and beyond, you hold out the chance of that happening for everyone you known (including yourself). Chuck Norris is 70 (as an example). He's still very fit. He may not be hopping over the hoods of cars, but that's another thing altogether.

You have to admire the people that create these games. So much goes into it, and it's not like they're becoming multi-millionaires from a single title (most anyway). They just have a passion for the niche they make the game for. And then, other people like us spend countless hours playing and thinking about the little "worlds" we create within the game.

I love state of the art graphics and am amazed by how far they've come in the last decade (not to mention decade before that). But for me, nothing beats the concept of being able to statistically recreate an individual's or teams performance and replay it - factoring in a variety of different scenarios.

[JDF]

This is sad news indeed. I was an early devotee of Data Boxing and had some communications with Dr. Compton about the game. I was thinking about him recently and wondering whether he still taught or had retired. He was one of my favourite people around the ring and made a lot of my memories come alive with numbers on cards.

[Bogie]

Rip