Virgin Islander boxer Emile Griffith was BOTD in 1938. Born in Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, he moved to the United States as a teenager. He worked at a hat factory in New York, where his employer, a former amateur boxer, noticed his strong physique and encouraged him to become a boxer. After winning amateur titles in 1958, he began a professional career. He won the world welterweight professional championship in 1961, against reigning champion Benny “Kid” Paget. He defended the title in 1962, again against Paget, whom he knocked unconscious. Paget fell into a coma after the match, dying 10 years later. Rumours flew that Griffith’s aggression in the ring was inflamed by homophobic slurs made by Paret had made prior to the fight, which Griffith denied. He defended his title three further times, before winning the world middleweight championship in 1966 and 1967. He retired from professional fighting in 1977, with 85 wins, and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. Griffith was briefly married in 1971, and was – remarkably for his time – openly bisexual, pursuing relationships with men and women. In 1992, he was brutally beaten after leaving a gay bar in New York, nearly dying from his injuries. In his later years, he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and was cared for by his adopted son. He died in 2013, aged 75. His life story has been the subject of a number of documentaries, and inspired the 2013 opera Champion, written by Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer. Portrayed (briefly) onscreen by Terry Claybon in the 1999 film The Hurricane, a biopic of his life has been in development for many years.