Gil Clancy, the Hall of Fame boxing manager and trainer who guided Emile Griffith to the welterweight and middleweight championships and later worked as a boxing matchmaker and TV analyst, died Thursday in Lynbrook, N.Y. He was 88.

Clancy trained a host of big-name boxers, including George Foreman, Oscar De La Hoya, Jerry Quarry and Gerry Cooney. But he was best known for his long association with Griffith.

Clancy was teaching in the New York City schools and training amateur fighters when he developed Griffith into a Golden Gloves champion. He was Griffith’s trainer and co-manager when Griffith turned pro in 1958.

On March 24, 1962, Clancy sent Griffith into the ring against Benny Paret, known as Kid, in a welterweight title bout at Madison Square Garden.

At the weigh-in for that third bout, as Griffith remembered it, Paret directed a gay slur at him in Spanish. Griffith wanted to attack Paret, but Clancy held him back.

In the 12th round, Griffith pinned Paret into a corner, then delivered a whirlwind of blows to the head with no response from Paret. When the referee finally stopped the fight, Paret collapsed with blood clots in his brain. He died 10 days later.

As Clancy recalled for Dave Anderson’s book “In the Corner,” an oral history of boxing trainers, he told Griffith before the fight, “Anytime you’re inside with this guy, you’ve got to punch until he either falls or grabs you or the referee stops you.”

Clancy added, “I’ve always thought that what happened at the weigh-in had absolutely nothing to do with what happened in the Garden that night.”