Abstract
In this 2025 interview, Danny Wagner discusses his early life and his pathway to becoming the youngest black belt in karate in U.S history in 1975. He describes growing up in Buckeye and Mt. Pleasant, beginning martial arts at the age of four, and his educational experiences. Wagner discusses how he became a well-known figure in Cleveland, the impact of his father on his life, and is favorite parts of teaching youth martial arts. He ends the interview with a message for future generations.
Loading...
Interviewee
Wagner, Danny (interviewee)
Interviewer
Carubia, Ava (interviewer)
Project
Union-Miles
Date
7-14-2025
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
50 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Danny Wagner interview, 14 July 2025" (2025). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 483025.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1398
Transcript
Ava Carubia [00:00:00] Cool. We’re starting. Let me move my chair a little.
Danny Wagner [00:00:06] Good morning.
Ava Carubia [00:00:07] Good morning. So I have my script I read at the beginning of the interviews.
Danny Wagner [00:00:11] Okay.
Ava Carubia [00:00:11] Which is. Today is July 14, 2025. My name is Ava Carubia, and I’m here at Alexander Hamilton Rec Center interviewing Mr. Danny Wagner for the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today.
Danny Wagner [00:00:24] Oh, no problem. Look, at least somebody care about talking to me.
Ava Carubia [00:00:28] So just for the record, can you please state your name and the year you were born?
Danny Wagner [00:00:32] Okay. My name is Danny Wagner. My birthday is..1967.
Ava Carubia [00:00:39] And then where were you born?
Danny Wagner [00:00:40] Cleveland, Ohio.
Ava Carubia [00:00:41] Can you talk about the specific area you grew up in?
Danny Wagner [00:00:46] See, I was born in East Cleveland. That’s the other side of town. But we moved over on this side of town in like, 1970, I want to say. And the area I grew up in, it was at the time predominantly white and made my [unclear] was there. I grew up from there all my life.
[00:01:07] I’m 58 years old now. So I’ve been in this area for what, 55, 54 years.
Ava Carubia [00:01:17] And when you say this area, what exactly do you mean?
Danny Wagner [00:01:20] I mean, like, the Mount Pleasant Buckeye area. That’s where I grew up in.
Ava Carubia [00:01:26] And then. Can you just talk about your early life? Like, what did you do in the neighborhood as a young kid?
Danny Wagner [00:01:32] Man, as a young kid, I’m gonna say I had. And I know I had a beautiful life. My father made sure of that. I didn’t go through, like, some of the trials and tribulations that some of the kids had to go through because, you know, different parents, different strokes for different folks type thing. But, yeah, but my father made sure that we had everything going on as far as, you know, he made sure, by, as they say, hook a crook, that he’s gonna make sure his kids got, you know, provided for us.
[00:02:02] So I don’t. I mean, going into detail would be one of them things. You’ll be like, okay, stop talking. I mean, now, growing up as a kid, you know, I had all the skateboards, I had the mini bikes, the motorcycles. What else? I’m not gonna say all the brand name things because my father wasn’t materialistic like that.
[00:02:23] You know what I’m saying? But I had clothes, tennis shoes. I had the tennis shoes that when you go to school, kids be like, oh, where you get them from? And we used to get them from the cheapest place, the cheapest store, Giant Tiger, Uncle Bill’s and stuff. I just went for the different stuff.
[00:02:36] So when I walked out in there at school, I had it made, you know, and that was the early years that when I started martial arts at 4, going onto 5 in like 1972, you know what I’m saying? I started back then and they would think that, oh man, you got them kung fu shoes made and you did this and did that because you took karate, you know what I’m saying?
[00:02:57] So I had, you know, a beautiful upbringing.
Ava Carubia [00:03:00] What did your dad do?
Danny Wagner [00:03:01] He worked for US Steel. It was a big steel company coming up, I guess in the 50s, 60s and 70s and stuff like that. 80s, I think they changed the name of it in the last, what, 20, 25, 30 years. But like I said, he busted butt for us.
Ava Carubia [00:03:18] How many siblings did you have?
Danny Wagner [00:03:20] Oh man, let me think about this. 1, 2, 3, 4. I think it’s like six of them. One of them is deceased now, just got killed back in the 80s. But yeah, and it’s crazy because honestly speaking, I was the only one that grew up in a household with my father. Everybody else had their mothers to run to.
[00:03:38] My mother’s still alive and stuff like that. But you know, whatever the mitigating circumstances between them two, my boss said no, give me my son. So, I mean, I grew up with my dad, so.
Ava Carubia [00:03:48] Well, I want to talk about how you got started with martial arts ’cuz you just mentioned that. How did you get involved with that?
Danny Wagner [00:03:54] I know you’re too young, but it was a show that used to come on. I don’t know if it was on Fridays or Saturdays, but it was called Kung Fu. The star of the show was named David Carradine. This is before I seen Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee or anything. It was a show called Kung Fu.
[00:04:11] So I used to jump on the top of the bed, like, you know, just having fun. As a kid, my father would hit me, you know, try to hit me with pillows. I’d jump, flip on the bed and I oh, you act like that. You into this? Imma find a karate school. Just so happened, I want to say three streets away, a white guy named Grandmaster Ray Szuch (S z u c h) opened up a karate school a couple streets away.
[00:04:39] Riding around, there it is. That’s what started out was in 1972, 53 years later, hey, I’m messing with kids, still messing with it. And I trained, competed myself. I competed from the age, I want to say six, but see, when I started, there was no such thing as a peewee division. That means like my age bracket, my [unclear], six year old.
[00:05:06] They didn’t have to go. I had to fight the 8, 9, 10 year olds. So I mean, I held my own with them and stuff like that. But still, like I said, I started in 1972. That was at the age of, you know, four going on five, 1974, I got my black belt.
[00:05:25] And I was the first, youngest, youngest, you might want to record this part too. I was the first youngest ever black belt in the country at ’87. I mean, you can look, everybody can look it up. Somebody, people, oh man, you won, you won. But when they look at, oh, dude had you by a year or he had you by six months, stop playing in my face.
[00:05:48] But I was the youngest black belt in the country at the time. And like I said, 50, I’ve been doing it 53 years now. Got my own school going, you know, it’s thriving now, you know what I’m saying? So, I mean, we’ve been getting it, we’ve been having fun, We’ve been having fun.
Ava Carubia [00:06:11] Well, I want to go back. You said the neighborhood was predominantly white, like at first when you were growing up. How did that change over time?
Danny Wagner [00:06:20] I mean, you gotta look at it. I was a kid, so I really didn’t care about color. Like, nah, I don’t care. You can be a Martian, green, purple, pink, whatever, I don’t care. As long as you’re good people, you’re good people. That’s how I feel. But I mean, over the course of the years, you will see it to where when we move on the street.
[00:06:36] Say like if it’s guesstimation of 30 houses on the street, then every time you look up, white people are moving out, moving off the neighborhood change because you know, Black people started getting used to coming on this side of town, east side over here. I grew up actually on the street called Continental.
[00:06:53] That’s a couple of streets away from, we called it Woodhill park, but I think it’s Luke Easter now. Yeah, see that let you know I’m, I’m still old school, it’s Woodhill. But anyway, that area just, you know, started changing all that. You know, white people started moving out, all the blacks started moving in. So I mean, I really couldn’t tell.
[00:07:13] I mean, and honestly speaking, there weren’t that many white kids growing up on our street nowhere, you know what I’m saying? I had a best friend, that was a white kid, we did karate and everything together. He grew up a couple streets away from me, so I didn’t have no problem with nobody.
Ava Carubia [00:07:29] And what year would you say it was when I don’t know, maybe you noticed the neighborhood changing more in that way?
Danny Wagner [00:07:36] I want to say I started like, really, really paying attention to it when I was probably like in the eighth or ninth grade. So that was in the. You can tell my age. No, that was basically like in the late 70s, like 79, going into 80s, something like that. When you started seeing. I mean, because we had guy named Bill, white guy named Bill over there, Rudy.
[00:07:57] And there was a couple more, but they didn’t come out and walk up and down the street like build [unclear]. Those were the, like, most active, you know, white people that was in the neighborhood at that time, and they came and hung out. I mean, they would stop at my dad’s house, stop a couple houses down.
[00:08:12] They would sit on the porch, you know, and we were allowed to go down there and sit on his porch. And then back then, oh my God. Front yards, we had cherry trees. Grapes was hanging off people’s fences, but, you know, with vines and stuff, shoot. We was allowed to go in people’s backyards that had peaches and plums and what else?
[00:08:33] The pears and stuff like that. Oh, man, it changed it. We don’t have none of that these days.
Ava Carubia [00:08:39] Yeah, what else was the neighborhood like? Like what would y’ all do outside
Danny Wagner [00:08:44] All that kids stuff. When I say kids that we run over down the street playing chase, hide and seek, any bounce. Kickball, football. Ah, man, water balloon fights. See, back then we didn’t have water guns because our parents didn’t allow us to play with guns. But yeah, I mean, we did the normal kids stuff.
[00:09:03] I mean, every now and again, rang doorbells and ran and stuff like that. You know what I’m saying? We just did fun stuff as kids. I mean, it was. I don’t know about nobody else’s neighborhood, but we stuck together in ours. Especially off street, Continental. We stuck together.
Ava Carubia [00:09:19] And where did you go to elementary school?
Danny Wagner [00:09:21] I went to Harvey Rice. This is the old Harvey Rice. I don’t know if you know anything about Buckeye. Well, Buckeye right there on the corner, you have that Rally’s that’s sitting on the corner. Rally’s across the street, that big building that was not there, all that. The big building next door to that, they got the.
[00:09:41] The blood bank thing and stuff like that. Only thing that was there that’s still there now is. And I’m pretty sure you guys. Well, she probably know, but you probably never pay attention to it is Harvey Rice Library. That’s an old Monument. That’s grandfathered in, that’s a historical building. From that Harvey Rice Library on up.
[00:09:58] It Was Harvey Rice school right there. It looked like. You ever seen Thor or what is it called? Hercules and the Legion of Doom, where it look like Castle Grayskull. That’s what those Harvey Rice look like. And man, that’s when school went from kindergarten to sixth grade. It was beautiful. Kindergarten, sixth grade. Then once you go where the Harvey Rice at.
[00:10:21] Now you got Metro. From Metro all the way to the gas station. It was a lead plaza right there. One of the first black owned that I know as a kid by going to Harvey Rice and you know, being as a kid, My father went there every weekend, Saturday, Friday and Saturday. Black owned donut shop.
[00:10:39] It was no Dunkin Donuts, no. What else is another spot you go get donuts like Starbucks and all that. It was none of that. So you got this Black guy that every, you know, morning, 4:00 in the morning, he cooking his own donuts. And it was, he was, he was sold out by 9:30, 10 o’.
[00:10:55] Clock. So he had line out there at 6 o’ clock when he opened up the doors, you know what I’m saying? Because that’s when everybody was going to work, going back and forth, man, this crime that, I mean all that went, you know, dissipated, went down. However the case may be, the crime we never heard of, children being abducted, the sex trafficking junk of these kids, just snatching kids up, the murders, the senseless murders, all the gang stuff, man, you heard nothing about that.
[00:11:21] Because families stuck together. And I mean, it was here. When I say families, I don’t know if I’m jumping ahead of your questions, but when I say family stuck together from Harvey Rice to Continental, you had Buckeye, then you had Harvey, then you had Honeydale, then you had Forrest, then you had Parkview.
[00:11:45] So it’s six streets before I got home, right? So if I did anything disrespectful or curse somebody out or something like that, I was allowed to get my butt whooped. No, seriously. And then by the time I got home, you would have been and called my father. Hey, Mr. Wagner. I just had to pop little Danny upside his head because he did something stupid or said something smart out his mouth that I’m pretty sure and I know damn well that you wouldn’t allow when I get home.
[00:12:11] Hey, kid, how you doing? Hey, Pastor. What? What was that for? Yeah, Mr. Jones told me he had a pop Ms. Ms. Smith he had to pop your kid in the mouth. Oh. But nowadays, oh my God, you can’t even say nothing to the kids. Like cut that out because they running home now the parents say don’t say nothing to my kids.
[00:12:28] I just saved your kids life. So what? Let them die and I’ll bring them back. I mean, that’s how, I mean, serious. That’s how times done changed. And like I said at the time, Harvey Rice went from zero to six. So that’s six years of being in one school, you know what I’m saying?
[00:12:45] And it was like a big family because unless you started kindergarten over, everybody started kindergarten together. We rock with each other until your parents moved out the neighborhood. From zero to six. So that’s six years. And then it didn’t. It made it a little easier because hey, that’s Danny Wagner. That’s the one they do karate.
[00:13:05] That’s the one that’s in the newspapers, the magazine and so forth and so on. You get what I’m saying? So, I mean, I had the bigger kids like walking me home from school. Hey, I walk with Danny and stuff. I mean, not puffing myself up, but that’s how it was. I mean, celebrities, celebrity these days, these days they want you to kiss their butt, man.
[00:13:21] I was celebrity and I didn’t even know. No, serious. I just had big kids and I had friends that cared about me. You know what I’m saying? That we rock with each other. You get what I’m saying? Sorry about that. But like I said, it’s like, wow. Wow.
Ava Carubia [00:13:42] What was that donut shop called?
Danny Wagner [00:13:44] I could not tell you if my life saved. I swear I did. I just remember this, man. Even days that we were going to school, if we got there in time because you know, we had to be at school like 8 o’, clock. So if we got there, it might be four or five donuts.
[00:13:59] Because he know, hey, Jay, coming in. I’m gonna hold these two donuts to the side. And back then donuts were what? 15, 20 cent. And they like what they $2 or better now. Like, dude, like we had it, we had it made. Compared to you guys coming up.
Ava Carubia [00:14:16] How was your martial arts career changing as you got older?
Danny Wagner [00:14:22] You know what I’mma say? I mean, it started changing when like, damn, the same guys you looked up to started disliking me because of the publicity. You get what I’m saying? But other than that, I mean, it changed because you know, it started getting watered down. Like now if you certain karate schools, they don’t go to tournaments.
[00:14:50] They don’t really teach their kids how to fight. It’s a money game to them right now. And I’m sticking to a tradition. I want my kids to fight. As you coming in as a parent or you coming in as a parent, you bringing kids and you paying the money. I want to see where my money going to.
[00:15:07] Oh, my kid going to a tournament. Oh yeah, bet. But when you start making statements like we ain’t got nothing to prove or we have in house tournaments like you might have two, three karate schools, but you bring all your kids together which practice with each other on a regular. And you just had him compete and fight for medals and stuff like that.
[00:15:25] That’s bull crap. That is. That’s why I affiliate our school with going to either participate or spectate at, you know, these different venues that these people be having for tournaments. Because I want our name to stay out there. And course of years I’ve had some little girls that rock when I say they rock.
[00:15:46] And they little Black kids, too. Which I’m not, you know, playing the race card, but majority of the tournaments are white. You might get one tournament out the year, the other one, I don’t even count. But one tournament out the year. It’s called King of the Ring, it’s in November, it’s a Black tournament, the Black guy that host it.
[00:16:02] But man, all these other tournaments, they be looking like, did the little girls come this time, did that little boy come this time, did that grown man come? You know what I’m saying? But I mean it has changed for the worse.
Ava Carubia [00:16:17] Can you talk a little more about just your experience being so young and doing martial arts like were you involved intournaments? Can you just talk through that?
Danny Wagner [00:16:26] I’m gonna say that again. I started when I was 4, going on 5. I always had to fight the older kids because they didn’t have a peewee division. And over the course of the years they started picking up like, hold on, we got this little kid right here, man, I always fight these eight, nine, ten years.
[00:16:43] Even though he whooping ass sometimes, but he’s still, you know, getting his thing in to where we got to start looking at maybe more kids would join because if we had a division that accommodated them. So I mean, even with that coming up, I always fought the ones I was older than me. Even when I turned 16, I had to go to black belt men’s division because really.
[00:17:04] And I and I had some adversaries. Oh man, Tommy. Tommy is a white kid. I don’t remember his last name, but most respect to him because he always, it was back and forth. So I had Trinell Foreman, Cleo Mitchell, David Brown. If I missed anybody that was in our age group and stuff like that, Ronnie Knight, Clifford Ford, rest in peace to him.
[00:17:27] But if I miss anybody around my age and stuff, that we always fought and got it in. Not saying they beat me all the time, but if we got it in, it’s still the way I. Sorry. Next time, you know, bring it to me. Hey, man, you forgot me. But I mean, outside, even when I went to grown ups, the grown ups used to be like, dude, I finally got you up here to get your butt down.
[00:17:49] Now all that newspaper, magazines, Ebony, Jet, Ebony Junior. Right On. Black Belt Magazine, who’s your credit? All the newspapers in the city and stuff like that. That’s. We’re gonna see if that really works. And I kind of. Man, a lot of them are still mad after a lot of them. And I’m gonna say 53 years later.
[00:18:10] You see, I put emphasis on that. 53 years later, these dudes are still mad at me. They still holding some type of animosity. Dude, it was my time. Bruce Lee had his time. Chuck Norris had his time. Michael Jordan had his time Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, whoever else that. You get what I’m saying?
[00:18:34] They had their time in their sports era. Muhammad Ali, the greatest of all time, had a chance to meet him, you know what I’m saying? So it’s like, why are you mad? Because I showed up and showed out in my era, and they still mad to this day. I don’t care. I really don’t.
[00:18:55] Because I’m like Bill Cosby, the proof is in the pudding. And see, you might want to really know this one. See, my thing is this. Don’t be mad because my accolades aren’t there. Mine are there. Mine is in the Black Caucus of 1974. ’75. At the time, the Congressional caucus that represented Cleveland was Carl Stokes.
[00:19:24] He talked about me for two minutes in front of all of the Black congressmen in Chicago. So mine is etched in stone. When I stopped, I had 515 trophies. And I tell them all, the ones that want to talk, bring yours to the table. I dig mine out the backyard. I don’t. I shouldn’t have to go against.
[00:19:49] Because you saying that, no, don’t go to his school and train. Because he don’t know. If I ain’t know nothing, how the hell did I last from age 5 to age 18 when I really stopped competing? So you figured from 5 to 18, what’s that, 15 years? And I accumulated 515 trophies. Not saying I’ve never been beat because, yeah, I did get really tapped.
[00:20:08] I. I got my butt whooped. So just imagine if I never lost, it would have probably been a thousand something trophies, you know what I’m saying? I done been around guys that, you know, my peers. Grandmaster Cook, Ray Szuch, we looking at Ken Ferguson that you spoke about. Guy named Bill Wallace. Superfood Wallace. Joe Lewis, which was a professional kickboxer.
[00:20:35] Billy Blanks, that’s the one that made the Tae Bo tapes. And I think I grew up around them dudes. Chuck Norris, I grew up around these dudes. Was trying to emulate Spider Kennedy. Who else? There’s so many. Believe me, sorry, if I, if I forgot your name, I apologize. Bruce Ledger, it was one, his name was.
[00:21:00] He was out of Chicago. His name is Everett Eddie. Everett Monster Man Eddie. This dude was like 6’3, 260 pounds. Hands is about this damn whack. I used to beat his A-double S. And I mean, I’m putting emphasis on this dude. I mean we used to go out of town. I mean look, it got so good with it.
[00:21:26] My father really loved. My father was living vicariously through my life because he grew up in the orphanage and stuff like that, went to the military at an early age, Vietnam and all that type of stuff. But my father’s living vicariously through my life as far as, hey, listen, you keep on whooping butt.
[00:21:46] I keep on getting different females from state to state. And we. No, no, no. And then, and then, then we gain friends and allies. We went to Chicago, you know, have to get a hotel here and there. No, Everett Eddie, like I said, was the man in Chicago at the time, rest in peace to him, come stay at my house.
[00:22:03] We go to Philadelphia. Come stay at my house. We go anywhere in some of these cities and states and stuff like that. Come stay at my house. So I mean nowadays, I don’t know, hotels cost 2, $300 for a night. Back then it was probably 30, 40 bucks. And you got a swimming pool, you know what I’m saying?
[00:22:21] So it done changed a whole heck of a lot.
Ava Carubia [00:22:26] And then where did you go to junior high and high school?
Danny Wagner [00:22:29] I went to Gallagher Junior High School. That was on the west side. The high school I went to was John Hay. And man, it was somewhat traumatizing because where I stayed at on Continental, is a way. It’s a, A junior high school. But at that time, coming up in the 70s, going into.
[00:22:48] They was busing us. So imagine you got to get on the bus to go to the west side. So okay, cool. All of us always grouped up and we got on the yellow school bus and rolled over there. But after that, you know, John Hay. I mean, Gallagher was like a family thing because once we got over there, you know, all of the quote unquote black kids, we hung out together with some of the Hispanics that was over there and stuff like that.
[00:23:09] We never really had any issues when they said that, oh, man, y’ all gonna go over there, y’ all gonna get in trouble, y’ all going to fight every day and stuff like that. Not saying it was never no trouble, but at the same time, it was less trouble than what people thought it was going to be by us going over.
[00:23:22] Now, any other junior high school, I can’t speak on, but I know when we went to Gallagher, oh man, we had a blast. And then in what, ’83, when I went to John Hayes, started going to John Hayes, that’s all the neighborhood kids plus some, you know what I’m saying? So it’s like we just played summer league football.
[00:23:39] We were just at the park playing football, playing basketball, playing baseball, you know what I’m saying? So it was again, that neighborhood thing that we stayed together. I came out in 1985. Now I’m telling my age.
Ava Carubia [00:23:52] What was the public opinion of busing? Did you know what parents thought about it?
Danny Wagner [00:23:59] Oh, man, you really got to go to. If you really want to know the public opinion, you have to do your research when it comes to just Blacks integrating into white schools. So you had to go back to like the 50s and 60s and stuff like that to really. I mean, because we didn’t look at it no different as kids.
[00:24:19] Did our parents put up a thing, you know, a little fight and stuff like that. Cuz we got a school at the end of the corner. I’m pretty sure my dad probably was like, but then, you know, hey, we. We’re not gonna stop him for getting education because they got to go somewhere else.
[00:24:31] And hopefully, you know, instead of being in the neighborhood all day BSing around, maybe you might go to this white school and learn something a little better than what you might learn in the Black neighborhood school. So, I mean, I really don’t know because my father never said, I don’t want you to go over there to the west side.
[00:24:46] No, go over there, do what you’re supposed to do, get your education, come on back home.
Ava Carubia [00:24:51] And then through junior high and high school, how again was your martial arts career changing?
Danny Wagner [00:24:57] You know what? It changed because now here comes the football. Instead of running up and down the street, playing over in the park with just friends, now you got football to where it’s actually a team you can go join. So that kind of, like, I had to do both. Karate was my main sport, but football is one of the ones I had a passion for.
[00:25:20] So, hey, go do it. Baseball, go do it. Like I said, my father lived vicariously through me as far as doing martial arts. Because I’m gonna be honest, when I got to high school and stuff like that, here come the little girls and everybody knowing your name. Oh, that’s Danny, he live in the neighborhood.
[00:25:36] He do karate. And I’m gonna let it be known. Before there was a. Come on, I gotta let this be known. Before it was that commercial. I wanna be like Mike, Cleveland was saying, I want to be like Danny because of martial arts. And I’m not puffing myself up. But you, every time you turn around, you see my face or something like that in the magazine or in the newspaper, stuff like that.
[00:25:57] A whole lot of kids got attracted to going to do martial arts coming up in the 70s and 80s, you know what I’m saying? So I had all of the attention, which I didn’t want outside in school. Oh, I’m talking out, you know, now. Now I have no problem with because I’m a grown man.
[00:26:12] But in school, I was shy. “Hey. No. Yes.” You know what I’m saying? That type of person. But at the same time, the reason I was like that, because everybody’s like, hey, I know you. Hey, come on, let’s go do this. Hey, let’s go do that. And I wasn’t, you know, into all that.
[00:26:28] But like I said, it changed a lot. Like I said, I live vicariously. My father lived vicariously through me because as I got older, I really didn’t like it. But at the same time, my daddy said, go do it. And at the time, you pay more attention and respected your parents the way they do now.
[00:26:45] These days, if a kid tell them, well, I don’t want to do this no more. The kids, the parents be like, okay, no, back then, once you start something, you’re gonna finish this, and you’re good at it, but we’re gonna see how far you excel with. So like I said, I didn’t. I would stop going to practice because I was going to football.
[00:27:01] Here come the little girls. And my father said, hey, it’s a tournament next month. Okay, time to go back to practice. You know what I’m saying? So again, I don’t give a crap. I’m [unclear] the hell out of my father. And whatever he said do, because it was never nothing that he was gonna put me in harm’s way or bad towards me as his son, I did.
[00:27:26] So at 18, I had a choice to really, like, hey, I’m on my way out of high school, go to college. He wouldn’t let me go to military. I can say that much. But, yeah, like I said, it changed a whole lot from junior high to high school to, you know, just really shutting down for a while.
Ava Carubia [00:27:47] And then after high school, were you still doing the same?
Danny Wagner [00:27:51] I was active as far as training, and every now and again, I would test my skills. Let me go this tournament. Let me see what type of people out here now and going there. Not trained in three months, but train two weeks ago in there, still whoop people’s asses. And the same people that you done whooped on before, when they see you, they like, where you been?
[00:28:13] I ain’t seen you in the last couple years. But why are you here? Oh, I brought my bag, I’m competing. Dang. Again. Like I said, I done get my butt whooped. I have no problem with saying that. And this guy is going back to Ken Ferguson, right? He has students. I swear to this day, even the ones that I grew up around, that’s older than me.
[00:28:31] I’m glad we never had to fight. I’m glad. Was I scared? No. But I was glad I never had to fight, you know what I’m saying? Because to this day, most of us are still, you know, cool with each other. We check on each other on the regular and stuff like that. But I’m glad I never had to fight.
[00:28:47] Then we had to really see who was who. Kevin.
Ava Carubia [00:28:51] So can you talk more just about the Cleveland scene in particular with martial arts? Like, was it focused in certain neighborhoods? Was it just all throughout the city?
Danny Wagner [00:29:00] No, actually, it was throughout the city. When I say it was more like. Now I’m gonna say it’s more commercialized these days because anybody is just taking money to give you different belts and stuff. Stuff, man. Back then, you have to. You have to. We had tournaments that basically set the precedent of other states coming in and messing with us.
[00:29:21] When I say that, I’m saying, to where? Excuse me, I’m saying, to where? It was the one that was on the west side corner, Lorain. I want to say it’s called Lakewood Junior on the right. And that was every month. Everybody from around the country came in. Everybody in the Cleveland scene that was part of martial arts came there.
[00:29:41] That’s. That was basically who’s doing karate. So all the schools that saying nowadays we don’t have nothing to prove or I don’t take my kids. We just do in house tournaments and stuff like that. No, everybody came from everywhere. Chicago. That’s how I met a lot of people then they had one that was down and I don’t know if she remembers this, but it was a dome down there for Cleveland State’s gym.
[00:30:05] You remember that thick metal dome that they have the rise. Anyway, it was a tournament called Four Seasons. That’s when everybody came, everybody in the city that was part of martial arts, whether it was taekwondo, regular karate, issin-ryu, shogun. Back then we didn’t have an MMA, you know what I’m saying? But it was MMA stuff, basically practice once you got, you know, it was full contact with certain divisions.
[00:30:30] But, man, the Cleveland Senior martial arts was back then was way better than the commercialized schools these days, way better.
Ava Carubia [00:30:41] So after participating, when did you decide you wanted to teach?
Danny Wagner [00:30:50] When I started really like going to different schools just to see what they had had to offer. Me knowing, you know, what I’ve done and where I’ve been and stuff like that. That’s when I was like, well, hold on, man, why don’t you just go ahead and see if you can get a place that would allow you to be in there and show them how it’s supposed to be done.
[00:31:09] I mean, because I done been to schools on the west side. I done been to schools, where I got put out because of when I’m standing there and they. Who are you? What have you done? What is your? Have you ever did martial arts? I tinker with it a little bit. Where did you tinker with it for?
[00:31:31] I was the first, you know, black belt kid in the country back in 1974. Ah wasn’t no such thing. Heard of, huh? Well, I, I went to a school one time and just in there just to look around. Tall dude, I guess I’m putting right here. Why don’t you spar one of my kids?
[00:31:51] One of your kids? Put no kid in front of me. We here. Why don’t you spar one of my white belt grown ups, man. Stop playing in my face, dude. I’m telling you, I am a black belt. Been a black belt longer than you have. Because you can’t go back to the 70s with this saying that you got your black belt.
[00:32:07] You still a kid in this. I don’t care how old you are. And dude was like, well, here, spar one of this. Why? I want you. You the man that’s teaching this class. And it was a white karate school. So now the white parents are sitting back there like, hey, Sensei, whatever. You know the name is Sensei Smith Jones, whatever.
[00:32:29] I mean, but you get what I’m saying now we got this guy that’s coming off the street that’s calling you out. Put up a. Shut up. Got put out. I’d have been to other schools to where they throwing out my instructor’s name. Yeah, Master Ray Szuch. And hold on. Like I did with Kevin.
[00:32:51] Master Ray Szuch. You talking about this guy right here? Hey, how you doing? Hey, kid. I’m good. Doing good, sir. How are you? Hey, I’m standing here. Oh, he’s a piece of shit. He’s a nobody. Hang up. Get out. You know what I’m saying? So it’s like I’d have been put out of schools.
[00:33:07] I done went to schools that I was basically trying to. Trying to see where I fit in with them. I don’t need them to fit in with me. I want to see because [unclear] is going. I’m gonna make sure that it’s right that you’re gonna pick me up. So that’s what really made me want to just get out there and say, hey, man, go on and do your own thing.
[00:33:26] See if you get some type of sponsorship, which Hamilton was the one that jumped out there because I had a buddy of mine that started down here in like, 2012 or something like that. He’s deceased now. His name is Shihan Shawn Lewis, but he’s deceased now. But he started it. So we was over there at the.
[00:33:46] NuPoint, next door to them and the plaza over there. We had a chance. I was talking to the lady at the fitness center, and. And this was probably like, what, five years ago, six years ago? Hey, how would you like to put a karate school up? Because I wasn’t fitting in nobody else’s karate school because I don’t know how to do watereddown.
[00:34:05] I don’t know how to. Oh, Ava, it’s gonna be all right. I. I don’t know how to do all that. I cannot now. I mean, I grown to be able. Hey, come here. You need a hug today? All right, let’s go. You know what I’m saying? But as far as. No. I grew up with a.
[00:34:21] With a military father that had military uncles and godfathers, and. You get what I’m saying? Get your butt back out there. We ain’t got time for that. Get your butt back out there. You know what I’m saying? To where you. Now you got to tone it down and we’ll be okay. You can hurt me.
[00:34:36] Okay, let’s go. But anyway, that’s what made me start because of going to other people’s places. And for one, they wasn’t paying, you know what I’m saying? And they were still holding animosity, trying to hold the noose around my neck as far as what I can teach. So I said, hold on. No, no, let me work on doing this myself.
[00:34:56] So that’s what made me jump out there.
Ava Carubia [00:34:59] And what’s your favorite part about teaching kids?
Danny Wagner [00:35:02] Ah, man, you know, the favorite. The honest and goodness part about really teaching is that when. Because you know, you gotta come down the steps to get down. When they come down the steps and they see you and their eyes light up like, ooh. You know what I’m saying? That’s. That’s my favorite part.
[00:35:23] Like, these kids really care. And they look at me like, here’s somebody that actually cares about me that’s actually trying to. I don’t know nothing about their home, you know, life or nothing like that. But I like the fact that they really be enthused with coming down the steps saying, now I can get in here and do what I.
[00:35:44] And then they can be themselves. I tell them, leave all the drama at them steps right there when you come down here. And I tell the parents, whatever y’ all got going on at home, once they step in here, they my kids. They my kids. So if you got an issue with the kid, go upstairs.
[00:35:58] It’s a whole waiting room upstairs that you can go sit down and wait hour and a half or so for the class to be able to get. So that’s my best thing. And I got some, man, over the course of the years that we’ve been back over here, from over there near NuPoint over there to over here, got some outstanding kids that if the parents just really take time out to pay attention to what the kids learning.
[00:36:23] And I mean, like, I know the last time we was here was full of chairs right there. I moved them out somewhat, cleaning up. But anyway, if the parents really took time out and see. To see, you know, what their kids are really learning and how they exceling and stuff like that.
[00:36:40] And then I look at, like, boxing, tennis, martial arts, fencing and stuff like that. That’s you against that person. It’s not five people against five people. So you got to show your skills. And that’s the best part of it too. Are these kids taking on to it. I started out with little kids at the early age of four, at five, you know, competing.
[00:37:03] They starting at five. So taking them to tournaments, lying about their age at 4, and they smacking out on their kids. 5, 6, 7 years old. I got diamonds in the rough over here, you know what I’m saying? So, I mean, that’s what keep me going. The kids. That’s what keep me going.
Ava Carubia [00:37:23] Well, I want to go back to. You mentioned how your neighborhood, how your street changed. Can you talk more about that? How it changed over time.
Danny Wagner [00:37:34] More white people started moving out and more Blacks started moving in. That’s the. To sum it up. Did I really, really pay attention to that? No, we kids. Back then. We was allowed to be kids back then. Nowadays, you got these phones, you got these tablets, you got all this bull crap. You know, certain things that’s going on in life now.
[00:37:55] And we were allowed to be kids. So by the ones moving from our neighborhood, going up to Shaker, Cleveland Heights, Bedford, Maple, Garfield, those are supposed to be in their pritzy, ritzy, you know, neighborhoods now. More Blacks moved in. But to us, it really didn’t change. We just had more little kids run up and down the street to play with.
[00:38:16] We had no issues, you know what I’m saying? And then we still had fun. Just put it like that. And like I said, on my street, we really didn’t have no white kids running around on us. The only little white kid that was really in the neighborhood, his name was Curtis Campbell, he stayed a couple streets away and he got involved with martial arts.
[00:38:33] When he found out his parents didn’t find out, his body [unclear], we got tight like that. But can I share this one crazy story? I know you too young and I know J know, but do you remember the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, right? I’m pretty sure you heard of the Oklahoma City bombing.
[00:38:55] I used to beat their asses at tournaments. They got a karate school. Terry Nichols family had a karate school called Lots of Nickels. This was back in the 70s, going into the 80s. I used to be their ass at tournaments. My father told me that one time. He said, remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Yeah.
[00:39:14] He said, you remember that karate school? Lots of Nickels. He said, remember Terry and Timothy? I said, oh, them the dudes that did that? Like, wow. Yes, that shit sad as hell. I just heard somebody mentioning on one of these podcasts the other day, we’re just talking about Oklahoma City bombing. And I’m like, man, you know that I used to beat the hell out the little white kids up and up in Pennsylvania, up in Indiana.
[00:39:45] Illinois, Chicago, up there, that upper, upper part, you know, near Connecticut, Rhode Island. That’s where them dudes traveled. They didn’t come this way. As far as going to Philly, New York, Detroit, Cleveland. They never came this way. We went that way. That’s how I ended up meeting them. But we was cool though.
[00:40:04] You could never tell back then the hatred that they grew over the years. To me it’s a bunch of bullshit like they should have been. One of them just got put down. I want to say a couple years ago they finally gave them, you know, the chair, lethal injection. They should have did that shit once they found them guilty.
[00:40:23] Ain’t no damn appeals or nothing like that. Get them. They already caught parking the truck up under. Then you want to. I’m going to kill feds. Okay, cool. You going to kill the feds. But they had a whole daycare. So that let you know you’re going be a researcher. I just have to show that right quick.
Ava Carubia [00:40:44] And as an adult who’s been in this area. How has the neighborhood changed from since you were a kid?
Danny Wagner [00:40:51] Oh man, just the violence, the violence. Not even trying to be funny towards no other race or nothing like that. But the foreigners started coming in, taking over, you know, the mom and pop stores that they sold out on and stuff like that. I mean, you know, once they get here, they want to dog the community, you know, because it’s.
[00:41:12] I mean if you really, really pay attention, it’s. And I know that, you know, around here it’s predominantly Black. It’s 85 to what, 15 percent other groups. So you got to cater to the Black people. You coming in because you got this money loan that tax abatement gave you the money. The way you ain’t got to pay them back for seven years.
[00:41:34] You coming in to set up these stores still selling the same, same cigarettes, the same liquor, worse off food, you know what I’m saying? Outdated food and stuff like that. I’m pretty sure you been in Miles Market. But anyway, that’s how it turns. The violence, you know what I’m saying? It’s always something. It’s always something to where it, it
[00:41:58] Man, I swear I wish that we could go back to the 70s. Milk. Gas was 35 cent a gallon. Milk was 25 cent to 50 cent a quart. You get what I’m saying? Eggs, I don’t remember what eggs cost, but we had abundance of everything. Peanut butter you get for a dollar or less or something like that.
[00:42:19] Loaves of bread, 79 cent and lunch meat was 69 cent a pound. And you get what I’m saying? So it’s like, oh, it’s. That sounds drastic. The world has changed.
Ava Carubia [00:42:33] Well, I have two more questions. The first one is how has being from this part of Cleveland in particular shaped you as a person?
Danny Wagner [00:42:43] Oh, man, you know, people, people talk about their neighborhoods in different ways. Hough they had the riots. Cedar, they had riots and so forth and so on. Same class of period, all type of stuff. Over here, where I grew up at, we had a little bit of everything. We was kids, we really didn’t pay no attention to that.
[00:43:06] That was grown up stuff. But I can say this, being around the people that I grew up with, and I had like fantastic comrades, you know what I’m saying, that I grew up with. You know, man, I can go for days naming people. Sam Grant, Anthony Rebels, his brother, Punkin. Rory Tate, he’s a pastor now.
[00:43:32] Terence Hubbard, he got two, three dump trucks, you know what I’m saying? Going back to Kevin, Durrell Sellers, Eric Scott, which is my brother, my brother Derek. Melvin Brown, I mean, like all of us, we shaped each other because by some of the ones I named was being older. They kept us in check.
[00:43:54] You get what I’m saying? Don’t do the dumb stuff nowadays. You got the older ones that’s putting the little kids up there doing dumb stuff because guess what, if you go over and kill Billy, you, you ain’t gonna get that much time because you ain’t over 12 years old. But back then, fighting, shooting, no, like I said, we had a hell of a neighborhood that we actually stuck together and we kicked it with other neighborhoods.
[00:44:22] Cedar, St. Clair, Hough, Superior, Kinsman, Union, all of that, all of us came together because all of us went to school together, you know what I’m saying? So it was like in school we’re allies, but after school we supposed to beef? Man, Randall Mall was the best gathering place. Randall Park Mall was the best gathering place coming up as a kid.
[00:44:48] And I mean, everybody, everybody came here. Richmond Mall, Severance, when it was a mall. Instead of this outside thing, man, I just can’t say. I mean, our neighborhood was excellent to me as a kid coming up because that’s the people that we grew up and grew up. You know, we grew up and grew up.
[00:45:06] We shared diaper type things going to these other neighborhoods, we had no problems with nobody because everybody came to our neighborhood. So my neighborhood, to me, I mean, everybody got their different views on their neighborhood. My neighborhood, to me, I wouldn’t change it for the world. And it was supposed to be a poor neighborhood as it got integrated with more Blacks coming in, you know what I’m saying?
[00:45:32] So, hey, we still rockin’. We still have hope.
Ava Carubia [00:45:40] Well, my last question for you is, what message would you like to leave for future generations?
Danny Wagner [00:45:48] The message would honestly be, man think for yourself. Because nowadays you don’t have the peers to really help you out. You know what I’m saying? Like when I say, think for yourself, don’t let nobody else put you up against the dumb stuff. You know what I mean? If you know deep down in your heart that this is not supposed to happen and I’m not supposed to do this, think, think it, think it.
[00:46:13] Don’t let nobody, you know, peer pressure. I mean, did we have peer pressure coming up? Back when I was growing up, kiss the little girl, hit the little girl on her butt type thing, you know what I’m saying? Oh, yeah. But other than that, man, think for yourselves, man. Get your education while we still can.
[00:46:33] And it’s being put out there for you to be able to get educated. Take that and ride with it. Because this person that we got that’s being our president right now, he don’t want nothing good for nobody, just for himself and his family. But yeah, there you go again. Just like, dude, everybody need to wake up this younger generation and do what’s right for you and your family.
[00:46:56] Don’t let nobody else come in and take over your shit. You know what I’m saying?
Ava Carubia [00:47:02] Thank you. Is there anything else I didn’t ask you about that you want?
Danny Wagner [00:47:06] Oh, man, hold on. We can go here. Coming up. As a kid, I had a chance to meet Muhammad Ali, had a chance to spar with him. James Brown, Red Fox. Like I said, Billy Blanks did gotta get the Taboe tapes on I don’t know if he up to those. But he was in a couple movies also.
[00:47:25] Let me see, who else can I say? Bill Wallace, he was in a couple movies. I had a chance, like seeing Chuck Norris before. Bruce Lee’s son. His wife Linda Lee, had a chance to meet them in Canada. Beat Bruce’s son is the ass. But we ain’t gonna go there, rest in peace [unclear].
[00:47:50] But, but no, I mean, dude, being involved or having a parent that stuck with and I’m going say kind of forced you to be involved. Involved instead on task with something that you good in. Like I come in LeBron. Because he didn’t let whatever endeavors his mother was going through at the time sidetrack from being.
[00:48:16] I ain’t gonna say the greatest because he’s still behind some people. But he never let that next thing Up. Who else? That I can really honestly say that. I mean, it’s a lot of just, dude, I had fun. I appreciate you for having time and you, J, for having time to sit down and talk to me.
[00:48:37] Because I mean, I can go on for days, but I had fun. Still having fun. Look, two knee replacements later, I’m still having fun. You know what I’m saying? So, I mean, dude, it’s just a blessing. It was a blessing in disguise coming up. And I hope that, you know, if people take time to look at the video and take time to read it on the archives, that they would take what I’m saying to heat.
[00:49:05] Damn, dude. He did all that with the father that worked at U.S. Steel, that cared. ’Cause these parents stay like that. That’s why I stay on top of mine. I wish I would have forced them in martial arts, but I tried, you know, how to make their own pathway and stuff like that.
[00:49:23] I wish I would have forced them because sometimes, you know, especially when I’m going through the thing about my knees, I would have them teach the class. Instead of me, I can, you know, teach it from the side. Hey, no, do it this way. No, you know, you get what I’m saying?
[00:49:37] But no, I mean, I may not have much, but I know I got that experience and that knowledge and the ability to talk, teach, show. You know what I’m saying? It’s a blessing. Dude, you gotta watch my face sometimes. Especially when it comes to my father. Because, man, my father’s a hell of a guy.
[00:50:03] He was. I wouldn’t trade him for nobody’s dad Nobody’s. Michael Jordan, whoever, all of them. I had hell of a daddy that raised me. Real talk. I’m done.
Ava Carubia [00:50:18] Okay, well, thank you so much. I’m gonna end the recording now.
Danny Wagner [00:50:22] Give me something, J.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
