On a fragile and brilliant late autumn afternoon, they came to say goodbye to George "Sugar" Costner and his life of beautiful courage. Sweet vintage jazz filled the funeral home. Ella Fitzgerald, someone decided. Sugar loved Ella.

He was 79 years old when he died, a week ago Saturday, of colon cancer. Sug's passing left a hole in the soul of persistence. Those who knew him won't forget him.

On Friday, Sug's son Alvin stood in the doorway of Thompson, Hall and Jordan Funeral Home, on Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills. He wore a black suit, a white shirt and that look of pained peace reserved for the newly grieving. When Alvin was a kid, he was scared of many things. Sug was always there, though, and Sug always understood. To his boy, Sug sang a song called "When You See Danger Facing You (Little Boy Don't You be Scared)."

Alvin could hear it Friday, so clearly he started to sing. "It was a lesson to me," he said. "It was my father telling me to face up to danger and overcome my fears."

Sugar Costner knew a little about that. Maybe you've heard his story. It's the best story I've ever heard, and I've been telling stories for 23 years. Sit for a minute if you missed it, and learn the power of true belief.

He grew up in Mount Auburn and fought in the gyms downtown. Cincinnati was a great fight town then, as now. He drove a sanitation truck during the day and boxed at night. He turned pro in 1939 and was instantly successful as a welterweight.

Sugar Costner fought 91 times and won 83 of them. He once had a streak of 23 consecutive knockouts. Of his eight defeats, two were title fights against the great Sugar Ray Robinson. One was to Jake LaMotta, when the Raging Bull was in his prime.

Sug was 26 on May 9, 1949, when a punch from a young Cuban named Chico Varona caught him on the left cheekbone just below his eye. It was the sixth round. "It was like somebody took a ball of fire and threw it into my face," Sugar said to me several years ago. He knocked out Varona in 10 rounds.

Ten months later, three days before he was to fight Robinson a second time, Sugar took a punch to his right eye while sparring. "I went down to the dressing room and I couldn't see nothing out of my right eye."

Sugar fought Robinson with one eye. Robinson KO'd him in the first round. He fought three more times, all with sight in only one eye, all wins, until the Pennsylvania state athletic commissioner told him he'd never have another sanctioned bout.

Sugar Costner's last fight was July 12, 1950, a 10-round pummeling of Ike Williams. "He was so swollen, he looked like he had two faces," Sugar recalled.

Then Sugar lost his sight.

Both his retinas had been detached. Six operations in the next eight years couldn't restore his vision. He was totally blind.

This is where it gets good. This is where Sug the boxer learned to fight in the most meaningful way. It's why they celebrated his memory Friday. It's why they were proud to know him.

After several years working menial jobs, Sugar went to college. He got an associate's degree from Cuyahoga Community College. It was just the foreword to his book of inspiration.

At age 52, he enrolled at Cleveland State. Sug took a small apartment on Cleveland's east side. To get to school every day, he took four city buses. On days it was especially cold, Sug deliberately took the wrong bus, so he wouldn't freeze.

He couldn't take notes, so he taped all the lectures. The professors could hear the recorder click when a side of tape ran out. They stopped talking until he changed tapes. If a class required textbooks, Sug would get tapes of the books from the library. He missed two classes in four years.

Sug paid his own way, too, from what remained of his boxing purses and a small disability pension.

He graduated from Cleveland State with a 3.0 grade-point average and a degree in management and labor relations. He went to work for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. At age 56, a blind man had rebuilt his life.

I'll remember him in a pair of black satin lounging pajamas, wearing one of those red leather, six-ounce gloves he used to beat Ike Williams half a century ago. It is the fall of 1992 and Sug is dancing around the living room of his Walnut Hills apartment, rejoicing in a brief, sublime memory of who he was, back in the day.

"JAB-JAB-HOOK," he snorted.

"I'd go right up under the heart," Sug said, snapping punches all the way back to 1950. "Made the heart quiver. Take away a man's stamina." He was still 170 pounds, still a tall 6 feet, no old-man's slouch. He'd had 91 fights, but Sug's face was unused china. Not a mark on it.

"I didn't do much backin' up," Sug said. No, he didn't do much backin' up.

There are stories we have to tell, and stories we need to tell. And there are stories that honor us in their telling. This is one of those.

Soft and mournful jazz graced the funeral home Friday. Sug lay at peace, a pair of his cool, dark shades gracing his eyes, an American flag covering the bottom half of his casket. Yolanda Adams sang "The Battle Is Not Yours." About 100 of Sug's friends and family swayed to the devotion.

"I had run a great race, and I won," Sugar Costner said to me in 1992. "It was a long run, man."

It's done now, my friend. Sleep, and rejoice in a job well done.