By Ryan Maquiñana
Floyd Mayweather never has hid the fact that he loves college football, and let three Oregon Ducks players know about his fandom after boxing’s pound-for-pound king invited the trio to watch him train in Las Vegas.
“He said, … ‘I make the most money off the Oregon Ducks,’” linebacker Torrodney Prevot told The Oregonian. "I guess he's a big fan of us."
Mayweather, who is preparing for his May 3 pay-per-view showdown with Argentina’s Marcos Maidana, trained for three consecutive hours according to Prevot, who watched the workout with defensive lineman Arik Armstead and tight end Pharaoh Brown. The Ducks were on their spring break at the time.
"Seeing him train is crazy," Prevot added. "He’s just constantly works out; it’s amazing, life-changing."
Prevot noticed something else about Mayweather’s verbal idiosyncrasies that the linebacker plans to apply to his own practice habits.
"I see how he speaks as he’s sparring, and he’s not talking to the opponent, he’s actually talking to himself as he’s fighting," Prevot said. "I just saw that and I brought that back here and started talking to myself, like positive reinforcement when I need to."
Oregon, coming off a victory over Texas in the Alamo Bowl last year, will hold its spring game May 3.
Ryan Maquiñana was the boxing producer for NBCOlympics.com during London 2012 and writes a boxing column for CSNBayArea.com. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and Ring Magazine's Ratings Panel. E-mail him at rmaquinana@gmail.com, check out his blog at Norcalboxing.com or follow him on Twitter@RMaq28 .
