by David P. Greisman

Here is a man whose rise coincided with the rise of others: Victor Conte, a nutrition guru with a superlative cast to use for his client testimonials. He made his name by making athletes stars and by taking those who were already stars and delivering them to superstardom.

His fall, then, brought the fall of his clients, their reputations forever besmirched because they received steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs from Conte. The most noteworthy: Barry Bonds, the home run king whose accomplishments will forever by accompanied by asterisks; and Marion Jones, the Olympic gold medalist sprinter who was stripped of her awards and who spent time in prison.

Conte also spent time behind bars. Now he is back to working with athletes, a nutrition guru once again building a cast of clients, including a few noteworthy boxers.

They know who Conte was and vouch for what they say he is now – someone who has reformed his ways and deserves a second chance, a chance that will help them get to the next level.

They know what people will think, that people will question their association with Conte, that people will speculate about what Conte is doing with this second chance, and that people will be suspicious of what these athletes are doing through their affiliation with him.

There is plenty of reason for skepticism. There is no present cause for suspicion.

Conte has not been charged with any crimes since his release. He has neither been accused of nor implicated in any illicit activities. He has marketed himself as an informed figure who can turn to his past involvement with manufacturing and distributing performance-enhancing drugs and use that knowledge and experience as tools to help clean up sports today.

It is a question of trust and a question of truth. Can he be trusted now? Is he telling the truth now when he hadn’t before?

“He had created a surefire nutritional supplement, a tiny pill called ZMA,” wrote Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams in their 2006 book investigating Conte’s Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. “According to Conte, [ZMA] not only would make you stronger, but would enable you to run faster, jump higher, hit harder, swim better, sleep sounder and even have better sex.”

ZMA was said to be a vitamin to correct deficiencies in zinc and magnesium. It didn’t matter that, as the journalists wrote, “there was no scientific basis to Conte’s claims about ZMA, or that Conte was a junior college dropout with no background in medicine or health.”

What he did have, however, were drugs that could not be detected, including a designer steroid called “The Clear,” an endurance booster known as EPO, human growth hormone, and insulin. Conte’s clients back then took ZMA – which they pointed to as the reason for their success. Conte’s clients back then also took combinations of the other drugs, which were the actual reasons for said success.

Conte’s clients now also take ZMA, according to recent articles. Andre Ward, the Oakland, Calif.-based top super-middleweight, uses substances with brand names such as Aerobitine, Vitalyze, ZMA, according to Steve Kim of MaxBoxing.com. Nonito Donaire, who has held belts at flyweight and junior bantamweight, uses Aerobitine, HypOxygen, Proglycosyn, Vitalyze and ZMA, according to Lem Satterfield of AOL Fanhouse and BoxingScene.com.

Eddie Chambers, a one-time heavyweight title challenger, has also worked with Conte.

All those substances Ward and Donaire use are products of Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Condition, or SNAC, a company based out of the Bay Area city of San Carlos, Calif. Though Satterfield wrote that “Conte now runs SNAC,” the Game of Shadows book has Conte as the founder of SNAC in 1988, an ancillary business to BALCO.

Conte, through SNAC, “created and sold the supplements his athletes supposedly lacked,” Fainaru-Wada and Williams wrote in the book. Conte used what the authors portray as pseudoscience to help come up with vitamin regimens for his clients.

These are “perfectly legal sports nutrition products and supplements,” Conte told Satterfield of what he now does with his clients. “During the initial stages of working with Nonito, we did comprehensive blood testing. And then, based upon what we found regarding depletions and deficiencies, I developed an individualized nutrition program in terms of his supplementation.”

Along with the supplements, Donaire uses a machine that simulates training at altitude. In turn, Donaire’s body, according to Conte, naturally produces more of the hormone known as EPO, “which is similar to the synthetic drug that athletes use when they cheat.” More EPO means more red blood cells, which means more oxygen, which means more stamina.

Shane Mosley, who testified before a grand jury investigating BALCO, admitted to using EPO, among the performance-enhancing drugs he received from Conte that he claims to have used unwittingly more than seven years ago. What Donaire is supposedly doing is different than what Mosley did.

Mosley’s performance-enhancing drug use, like that of Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, happened before Conte was caught, before Conte went to prison. What about Conte’s work now?

The SNAC website has a page listed with athletes that “have incorporated SNAC supplements into their training and competition regimes.” Among them, a number of athletes who were punished for, implicated in, or admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs: Bonds; Jones; sprinter Tim Montgomery; sprinter Zhanna Block; runner Regina Jacobs; sprinter Dwain Chambers; sprinter Kelli White; shot-putter Kevin Toth; sprinter Michelle Collins; and football player Bill Romanowski.

Those athletes used SNAC supplements, but illicit substances, too. There is no indication that Conte’s clients today use anything other than SNAC supplements and other training techniques.

“If there are clean athletes out there, it’s the ones working with me,” Conte told Kim of MaxBoxing.com. “Because they will, in fact, be target-tested.”

Conte’s actions would understandably be monitored closely by the government that busted him before. In the past, Conte had been able to take advantage of the cat-and-mouse race between drug manufacturers and drug testers, with the manufacturers attempting to remain one step ahead, coming up with new substances that were not being tested for. It would take a combination of bravado and stupidity for Conte to try the same thing again.

He must be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. And nobody is proving him to be otherwise.

This, then, is the difference between skepticism and suspicion. For those who doubt Conte, they speculate that he is repeating old habits rather than seeking redemption from them.

It is fair for Conte to seek a second chance. It is just as fair for those cautious of Conte to see the news of him working with athletes again and to give this former steroid distributor a closer, second glance.

The 10 Count

1.  Antonio Margarito has not been approved for a boxing license in Nevada. Antonio Margarito has not been denied a boxing license in Nevada, either.

Instead, the Nevada State Athletic Commission decided this past Friday not to make an official decision – delaying Margarito’s application for a license, voting 4-1 in favor of waiting to see whether California would re-license the former welterweight titlist, according to a report by BoxingScene’s own Jake Donovan.

California rescinded Margarito’s boxing license last year after he was found to have tampered hand wraps prior to his bout with Shane Mosley.

It is no surprise that Nevada decided not to decide. It will also not be a surprise when states end up allowing Margarito to fight (his lone appearance since the Mosley bout was in May in Mexico).

Repeating what Keith Kizer, executive director of Nevada’s athletic commission, recalled to Steve Kim of MaxBoxing.com: After Mike Tyson served his suspension for biting part of Evander Holyfield’s ear off, he attempted to get licensed in New Jersey. The Garden State told Tyson he needed to go back to Nevada first.

There is some respect between state athletic commissions. But it is inevitable that, even if Margarito’s situation were not to be resolved in California, a commission could decide that Margarito has served out his punishment, bringing a fight – and money – to their state.

2.  Three important things Margarito said during his hearing Friday in Nevada:

– He placed the blame for the incident on Javier Capetillo, saying his now-former trainer put old knuckle pads on his hand. He also said it was the only time Capetillo had ever done so (according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com). Of course, Capetillo had also placed the blame on himself last year before the California athletic commission.

– He apologized and took responsibility – “They are my hands,” Margarito said (per Rafael). “And that is why I have taken steps to make sure this never happens again.”

– He said he didn’t feel anything different, attempting to absolve himself over not questioning Capetillo over the change in routine. “I never felt anything hard or irregular,” Margarito said. “Everything I felt was that it was a knuckle pad that was normal.”

3.  I don’t know whether to believe Margarito. In his position, wouldn’t he say what he’s saying in order to be allowed to fight again? Then again, if he’s telling the truth, he has all the more reason to say what he’s saying.

I’ve come down hard on Margarito since the Mosley fight. My view contrasts with those who feel that the suspension prevents Margarito from making a living. What Margarito does is a privilege, not a right – people are not normally allowed to fight without being arrested.

I’ve long said that if this were a lesser-known fighter or a less-liked fighter, there would be far fewer people defending him. That the tampered hand wraps were caught before the Mosley fight – instead of afterward, like with Luis Resto’s tampered gloves for his fight with Billy Collins – shouldn’t make a difference. It’s the intent that matters.

One question is tripping me up now: What if Margarito is telling the truth?

Should he continue to be punished for what would then be a case of neglect? I don’t have an answer for this yet.

4.  Hernan “Tyson” Marquez. Joan “Little Tyson” Guzman. Ruslan “White Tyson” Chagaev. So noted a boxing enthusiast buddy named Mike Coppinger.

Or should I call him “Mighty Mike” Coppinger? After all, we’ve had a former junior-welterweight title challenger named “Mighty Mike” Arnaoutis and a former junior-lightweight beltholder named “Mighty Mike” Anchondo.

We’ve had Thomas “Hitman” Hearns and Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton. Sugar Ray Robinson paved the way for Sugar Ray Leonard. Tony “TNT” Tubbs is a former heavyweight titlist from the ‘80s. Tony “TNT” Tucker is also a former heavyweight titlist from the ‘80s. Mark “TNT” Tucker is a contemporary light heavyweight.

Makes you long for more unique nicknames like Juan “The Hispanic Causin’ Panic” Lazcano and “The Galaxxy Warrior” Nate Campbell.

And it makes you wish that if Golden Boy Promotions pits two of its junior welterweights together – “Vicious” Victor Ortiz and “Vicious” Vivian Harris – that the defeated fighter loses rights to the nickname.

5.  Hey, it could happen. I give you July 9, 1978, when “Nature Boy” Ric Flair beat “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers.

And it’d be a lot better of a promotional idea than that for Shane Mosley-Floyd Mayweather Jr.: “WHO R U PICKING?”

6.  December 2005: Dan Rafael names welterweight Joel Julio his prospect of the year.

June 2006: Julio loses a unanimous decision to Carlos Quintana.

December 2009: David P. Greisman of BoxingScene.com names welterweight Antwone Smith his prospect of the year.

July 2010: Smith loses by technical knockout to Lanardo Tyner.

7.  Such things are bound to happen.

The prospect of the year is by definition an unproven commodity. Of those who have not yet graduated to the level of contender, such a designation goes to the fighter who had the best year, someone who has beaten a number of veterans and gatekeepers over the previous 12 months and done so in impressive fashion.

But for whatever compliment “Prospect of the Year” bestows, past success isn’t necessarily going to be a predictor of future success.

In 2005, Rafael gave the caveat of describing Julio as “a powerful fighter blessed with raw talent that needs to be refined.”

Last year, I noted that “[t]here are others who will probably go further in their careers than Smith … Even if he never makes it past the ESPN2 and ‘ShoBox’ level of cards, Smith can say he arrived in 2009.”

What power and talent Julio has isn’t enough for him to win against the upper tier of opponents. And Smith will probably never get beyond “Friday Night Fights” and “ShoBox,” unless he’s brought in as an opponent. That said, Julio and Smith make for entertaining fights. They earned the attention they got in the past, and though they will never reach the highest of heights, they deserve attention whenever they fight again.

8.  Headshaking Moments in Boxing Journalism, part one: There was this irresponsible, erroneous headline in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph – “HBO to stop screening heavyweight boxing due to lack of US interest.”

Benefit of the doubt: Copy editors often write the headlines, not the reporters. The reporter, Gareth A. Davies, quoted Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports, as saying “We’re out of the heavyweight division.”

But several days beforehand, Greenburg had told Dan Rafael that there was interest in a few heavyweight fights: Wladimir Klitschko against David Haye, Vitali Klitschko against Haye, or a fight pitting Tomasz Adamek against either Wladimir, Vitali or Haye. “Other than that, we’ll take a pass,” Greenburg said.

Rafael’s article came out July 2. Davies’ article came out July 7 and likely was inspired by Rafael’s piece. Davies should have included information to paint a wholly accurate picture.

The big problem? Davies’ piece got picked up and repeated, including a link in the influential sports blog The Big Lead.

9.  Headshaking Moments in Boxing Journalism, part two: There was this irresponsible moment featuring Teddy Atlas last week on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” – “What my sources tell me is that Vitali Klitschko […] is possibly – possibly – planning on having for his next opponent, if they can make the fight, with Shannon Briggs.”

Didn’t ESPN2 learn its lesson with Atlas and anonymous sources after the Manny Pacquiao e-mails/Tim Smith report imbroglio?

Which is more likely: That Atlas actually has sources in the Klitschko camp – or that Atlas talked to Briggs, who wanted his name floated out there as a trial balloon while Vitali Klitschko negotiates with Nikolay Valuev?

Not that Klitschko-Briggs couldn’t happen. But which earns Vitali Klitschko more money? A fight with Briggs in America that wouldn’t sell out at the box office and probably wouldn’t be aired on HBO? A fight with Briggs in Europe? Or a fight with Valuev in a battle of two heavyweights from former Soviet countries who have headlined at arenas in Germany?

10.  LeBron James to Miami after seven years in Cleveland, and David P. Greisman to the D.C. area after three years in New England.

LeBron’s move comes with immeasurably more fanfare. This is a good thing: I don’t think anyone in New Hampshire has set fire to printed-out copies of Fighting Words.

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com