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2007 Honorees Have Made Their Mark In Community

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By YADIRA Y. CARO Centro Mi Diario

Published: October 7, 2007

TAMPA - Ferdie Pacheco is happy with the long life he has led.

For his role as a doctor to the legendary Muhammad Ali and his work in professional boxing, Pacheco became known as the 'Fight Doctor,' which he says made him 'almost famous.'

'When you're close to the sun, you don't get much light,' says Pacheco, who was born in Tampa.

Pacheco, 80, did get a warm reception, though, on Sept. 29, when he was named the Hispanic Man of the Year by Tampa Hispanic Heritage Inc.

Beyond his medical practice, Pacheco's resume includes stints as a sports commentator, writer and artist.

He also promoted civil rights in the Deep South, but Pacheco says he didn't do that to gain fame or recognition.

'My father used to tell me, 'Don't pat yourself on the back. If you want to do something, do it. Don't think much of yourself.''

Pacheco studied medicine at the University of Miami and went on to establish practices both in Liberty City, a predominantly black neighborhood, and Calle Ocho, where newly arrived Cuban refugees were beginning to settle in the '60s.

'I was there for 25 years,' Pacheco says. 'No one bothered me, and nobody praised me for doing it.'

Pacheco met his wife, Luisita, more than 36 years ago at a flamenco dance show in which she performed. It was Luisita who encouraged him to make larger paintings and make himself more known.

'I told him he had to think big,' she says.

Pacheco's paintings depict life as it was in the Ybor City neighborhood where he grew up, with the lectores or 'readers' in cigar factories, the men playing dominos, the ballroom dances - all things Pacheco misses from the 'golden decades' of the 1930s and '40s.

'In Tampa, he hasn't been valued fairly,' says Bibi del Rincón, a Spanish artist living in Puerto Rico. 'He has left a mark in portraying local customs. All that Ybor City was, he has conveyed.'

Pacheco calls the Man of the Year honor a well-deserved recognition.

'At least they did it while I'm alive,' he jokes.

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