U.S. Olympians' Boxing Lessons
By GORDON MARINO {August 7 '08}
 
The register of U.S. Olympians reads like a pantheon of professional pugilism. Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya, to name just a few, were all first-place winners. And yet, with the exception of the 1976 squad, which earned five golds, the U.S. boxing team has been something less than a powerhouse. There have been only two gold medalists {2004, 1996} in the past three Olympics.
 
Part of the problem has been that American boxers tend to come from economically challenged backgrounds and as a result turn professional earlier than our rivals do. U.S. boxing teams often are younger than those from other countries and unaccustomed to the peculiarities of the scoring system in international competition.
 
One might think that boxing is boxing, but the criteria for judging fights in international events differs dramatically from that of domestic tournaments. In U.S. competitions, judges decide the winner of a round on the basis of a number of factors, but on the world amateur stage it is more or a less a pure matter of counting blows.
 
In Olympic-style competition, there are five judges with keypads. A boxer's punch is counted whenever at least three judges hit their pads within a second of one another. This means that boxers want to land their shots in the middle of the ring, where all the judges can see them. As our best hope for gold, Rau'shee Warren, remarked: "In international meets they come flying at you kamikaze-style throwing punches the whole time, trying to score points." A jab counts the same as a haymaker. Aggression and power punching are not rewarded.
 
A former probation officer, Dan Campbell is head boxing coach of Team USA. Last September, he made the controversial move of instituting a mandatory 10-month residency program at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Some of the boxers balked at the idea of moving to Colorado. In a widely covered story, light-flyweight Luis Yanez was dismissed from the team for an unexcused absence, though he was later reinstated. During a July visit I made to the training center, middleweight Shawn Estrada of East Los Angles told me: "It was hard coming here in the beginning, especially being separated from our families. But now we think of ourselves as a band of brothers."
 
Mr. Campbell maintains that his motive with the residency program was to create discipline and team camaraderie, but he emphasized: "I also wanted them to gain international experience. Since last September we have only boxed in international contests. First, there was the World Championships and then meets with China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Argentina, and the President's Cup."
 
The 65-year-old coach continued: "Our major competition at the Olympics comes from Russia, Cuba, Thailand and China. All those teams will be older and more experienced." But he noted slyly: "They still have to adjust to our style, which is a little different. We have a lot of speed and agility and change angles very well."
 
A short study of a training session supports Mr. Campbell's assessment. Most of our nine boxers have quicksilver hands, and all have worked on learning how to throw punches almost continuously. Before warm-up calisthenics even started, Gary Russell Jr., clad in a yellow slicker, moved around the ring, snorting, pivoting and snapping off hundreds of shots.
 
Teddy Atlas, who helped train Mike Tyson as an amateur and guided Michael Moorer to the heavyweight title, will be the boxing commentator for NBC at the Olympics when the bouts begin on Saturday. The finals will be held on Aug. 23 and 24. Always candid, Mr. Atlas observed: "Some of our guys are young and relatively green. They are going to need a couple of really good draws, easy fights to get their confidence up. But we have four who should be in the medal mix from the start, namely Demetrius Andrade {welterweight}, Raynell Williams {featherweight}, Gary Russell Jr. {bantamweight}, and especially Rau'shee Warren {flyweight}."
 
Messrs. Warren and Andrade were both gold medalists at the 2007 World Amateur Boxing Championships. Mr. Warren was the youngest male to participate in the Athens Olympics, and he is the only one of our boxers with any Olympic experience. Nicknamed "Nuke" for his explosive punching power, Mr. Warren is a speedy and technically sound boxer. Now 21 and a team leader, the Cincinnati native said: "I try to help my teammates understand what it's going to be like when they open the curtains and you see everyone coming around. I tell them you are going to get nervous and start to zone out, but you have to keep your focus." In the weeks before the trip to Beijing, "focus" was the watchword. A boxer who loses it will tire sooner than he should and/or resort to tactics that do not pay dividends.
 
The highly affable 22-year-old heavyweight Deontay Wilder already seems to be hooked up to a generator. When asked what he was working on these days, Mr. Wilder replied: "On calming down! Sometimes I get too excited and then I get sloppy and lose my technique." Though the 6-foot-7 power puncher has won his past seven contests by knockout, he has had a mere 25 bouts. Some of Mr. Wilder's foes will have had well over 100 fights. A former basketball standout from Tuscaloosa, Ala., Mr. Wilder only began boxing in 2005, when he dropped out of college to work two jobs and try to take care of his young daughter, Naieya, who suffers from spina bifida. Boxing is certainly a part of that economic support plan.
 
Olympic medals can be a magnet for big-money contracts. All of the team members I spoke with are planning on professional boxing careers. But when I pressed Mr. Campbell as to which of his charges was the next Foreman or De La Hoya, his jaw set and he insisted: "I tell my young men to control themselves and not to think of the pros right now. I have to do the same. I don't even think about or watch professional boxing -- just amateur, international competition. That's it."
 
Mr. Marino covers boxing for the Journal.