All true aficionados know boxing is at least as much an art as a sport.
Now Dundee”s Olympic legend Dick McTaggart has the credentials to prove it.
He has received a honorary degree of doctor of arts from Abertay University and the delighted ex-champion said, “Now I am Dr Dick!”
Now in his mid-70s, Dick was the third youngest of 18 children brought up in the Dens Road area.
He started boxing aged 10 and became one of the greatest amateurs in the world.
In addition to his gold medal in the 1956 Olympics, he was also Commonwealth and European champion and he won 610 of his 634 bouts.
The city has already honoured him by naming a sports hall after him.
Ray Lloyd, head of Abertay’s school of social and health sciences, told the audience in the Caird Hall that Dick was notable for his “quick hands, quick feet and even quicker thought.”
The late sports commentator Harry Carpenter had described him as the greatest amateur boxer he had ever seen, he said.
Asked how he ranked the honorary degrees among his many awards over the years, Dick said, “The MBE was the first, this is definitely the second. It is lovely to be recognised.”
Also receiving an honorary degree was BBC Scotland’s political editor Brian Taylor, who was a pupil at Dundee High and studied at St Andrews before going on to a long, distinguished career in journalism and broadcasting.
He said, “It’s a tremendous honour to get this award…”Having been through perhaps a couple of decades of difficulty, in the last few years I see a tremendous growth, a rebirth of a sense of self-worth in Dundee, a sense of civic pride.
“It is driven by the arts, and by its citizens, but primarily by its two great universities and I am very proud to be an honorary graduate of one of them.”
His advice to the students graduating yesterday was to “keep calm and carry on.”
He said, “We are entering difficult times economically but I am sure that they have gained a tremendous grounding and opportunity from the university and I wish them all the very best.”
Also receiving honorary degrees were National Trust for Scotland chairman and conservationist Dick Balharry, born in Muirhead, by Dundee, and retail expert Professor John Dawson.
Around 900 Abertay students celebrated, graduating in front of family and friends, coming up to be capped by university chancellor Lord Cullen.