Jerome Mackey

**garbanzo** · Posted On: 6/15/2004 3:17pm

Anyone who lived in New York in the 70's and watched T.V. will probably remember Jerome Mackey. He was a pioneer of the Dojo chain business concept.

His commercials usually featured him standing with a child and saying "Hi, I'm Jerome Mackey and this is Scooter. He is the wrong person to attack." Short demo clips usually followed.

He also appeared on Wonderama.

Seems he was also a musician and an actor for T.V. commercials, not to mention one hell of a businessman.

I don't know anything about his MA background or the quality of his schools, but I have always wondered what he's been up to.

Found this link.

http://totls.50megs.com/jerome_mackey.htm

En · Posted On: 6/15/2004 3:21pm

Well, he's now helping the homeless.
I guess that's... nice...?

in the 70's and watched T.V. will

...

**X_plosion** · Posted On: 6/16/2004 10:01pm

AFAIK, it was Judo he was teaching. He was one of the first to popularize the concept of contracts. Black Belt Magazine in the 70's likened him to Col. Saunders due to the "Chain Dojo" concept.

**jshdoff** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 3:03pm

I worked for one of the Jerome Mackey dojos back in the 70s. Most of the instructors were moonlighting cops, there was a LOT of wildness going on afterhours, and while we hard-sold the moms using the kids whining for lessons as a way in, they were not given an real initiative to keep attending classes. Once the contract was signed, no one was really interested in you anymore. Lots of money was being made.

Eventually AFAIK, Mackey was indicted on multiple counts of mail fraud and moved to Germany to avoid extradition.

After working for him, I found it hard to beleive that he was actually "helping" the homeless, that it wasn't part of another scam.

**Mtripp** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 3:30pm

I can remember him singing "Call jerome Mackey and be the wrong guy to attack."

I was in a motel room, in NY, waiting to fly to Germany for my overseas military duty.

I remember I thought "WTF???!!!!"

**Dsimon3387** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 5:12pm

My fellow New York friends who are older than I told me that on 97th and Broadway Mackay was beaten pretty much to within an inch of his life against two guys who decided he was the right guy to attack. Apparently he was with his girl and he took his jacket off and stanced up and the rest is history.

That is all I know of Macckay

**jshdoff** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 6:30pm

You wanna know what happened to him? Google "temple of the lost sheep". it was a whole scam he had going on, apparently still does. His full name is Henry Jerome Mackey.

**ODavy** · Posted On: 7/07/2011 11:13pm

Regarding Jerome Mackey -
This from: http://www.realfighting.com/judo.php
...extracts of letters Donn Draeger wrote to Robert W. Smith between 1959 and 1974...

(Nov. 21, 1963)
Bluming is busy in the Netherlands but is in trouble with federation politics. His feud with Anton Geesink is bigger than ever. Anton is here now and has been named coach at Tenri University for four months! Real reversal of traditional thinking here, eh? The lid is about to blow on the JBBF-AAU struggle for power in USA judo. Keep silent about it, but Phil Porter is building the AAU to take over using JBBF fallouts, who, while nice guys, don't realize the implications and see only the glory and titles Porter freely bestows upon them. Also big is Jerome Mackey's latest, namely pro judo for prizes over CBS- supported television network. Begins in February.

JBBF-AAU and the New York Yudanshakai are in an uproar and threatening to remove Mackey from the JBBF and request the Kodokan to void Mackey's grade. Mackey threatens to sue if this happens. Big deal and typical of Mackey whose only interest is his own pocket. Bad for judo if Mackey gets his way. The Kodokan will give the ax to Mackey soon. I'm in constant conference about this crap now and it irks me as it takes away valuable time I should be putting on manuscripts.