By Cliff Rold
If it’s always darkest before the dawn, let’s hope the two face saving wins turned in on day five for the U.S. Olympic Boxing team was some sort of symbolic 5 AM. Through the first round of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it’s not all bad.
It just could have been better.
Two of the best Medal hopefuls…out, one before competition began due to weight struggle. Two not so hopeful hopefuls…also out. Still, five of eight active competitors seeing the second round is nothing to sneeze at and as an American I’ll continue to cheer.
Everyday BoxingScene readers have probably caught on to the Olympic fever being experienced by this scribe and one Jake Donovan. The fever is easy to understand. Both of us are young enough to have the energy to keep up with the action and old enough to remember.
Remember what some might ask?
Remember the Olympics as they once were and only on a case-by-case basis still are. I remember the 1984 and 1988 Games vividly. Then as now, Gymnastics, Diving and Swimming competitions were center stage sports. Basketball was played by the best young amateur Americans. Track and Field and Boxing were on the front page.
Times change we suppose, but not always for the better. Take Basketball for instance. From 1936-1988, the Americans won all but two Gold Medals at Games they competed in. In 88, America settled for the bronze and the format changed forever. America wouldn’t let the slight of not settling for a Bronze slide; we would send out very best, our professionals. Three of four Gold medals since came home, but with them went a little more of the innocence of the Games.
This isn’t stated with some whimsy about good ol’ days…at least not entirely. In the old days, it was known that the Soviet bloc and other communist nations often competed with an unfair advantage. They had athletes trained to compete in not just one Olympics but a series of them. We sent our best child athletes to compete with adults in too many sports from around the globe.
And when we won under those conditions, victory was all the sweeter.
That essential sweetness has been lost in recent years. Professionals dot the Winter Hockey Games now, eliminating the chance of there ever being another ‘Miracle on Ice’ and Beach Volleyball in prime time during the summer just doesn’t feel all that significant. We still get some great moments of course. Michael Phelps is a beast and watching a lady gymnast fall flat on her back only to get up to finish with her arms held high is still worth a goosebump or two. The mainstream of NBC Olympic coverage gives us a good mix of old and new school.
Watching the competition between amateur pugilists though is still pretty much all old-school all the time. We send young men still eligible in most respects to be called kids abroad in the squared circle to face down a deep pool of grown men. The U.S. veteran leader is already eliminated 21-year old Flyweight Rau’shee Warren. On most teams, that would be the baby on squad if a member at all.
Putting aside the competition itself, the reality of the obstacles U.S. Amateurs face and the stories they bring with them are being lost to a generation of sports fans and it’s too bad. They are still among the most compelling athletes in the Games, their triumphs and defeats still so much more pronounced.
If Dream Team 08 doesn’t capture the Gold this year, what’s the real drama? That Kobe Bryant won’t have a Gold Medal to go with his pot of Gold? That King James won’t have another jewel for his crown? As they wipe away the tears with their shoe contracts, consider what Boxing’s amateurs face.
Middleweight Shawn Estrada is a firefighter back home in Southern California who found the time to qualify for the Olympics. One assumes that sort of thing doesn’t pop a network rating like it used to. It certainly isn’t allowed to try.
At least the massive, excellent coverage on CNBC makes it up to the faithful.
The heart of the matter being discussed gets at the heart of what the Olympics still is at its best. It is a (sort of) peaceful competition laid against the broad and turbulent backdrop of politics where, even in the age of globalization and so-called global citizenship, it is okay to cheer based on borders. The real amateur men and women that make up Team USA in so many athletic endeavors are the one who belong in some respect to the nation.
In Boxing, that makes young men like Estrada, Welterweight Demetrius Andrade and Flyweight Rau’shee Warren “our boys.” The phrasing, the sentiment, will come across as too touchy-feely for some. With closed your eyes it sounds like something a Grandparent would say about soldiers returning from World War II, the armies of Hitler laid waste behind them.
“Our Boys” also applied in the same era to the Jesse Owens medal run and the University of Washington rowing team that embarrassed Germany at the 1936 Berlin Games where Basketball was introduced.
“Our boys” was what crossed the mind when youthful Light Welterweight Javier Molina and Warren tried to deal with the end of the Dreams they brought this year to Beijing. It also crossed the mind when Featherweight Raynell Williams smiled bright, his first victory in hand for a day after interview, showing off all of the international team pins he’s accumulated from other athletes around the world.
“Once in a lifetime opportunity…” Williams repeated more than once.
For him, it is.
Someday soon, within the next couple years, maybe in the case of the gifted and ring wise Williams, fans will have forgotten the pins if they noticed them at all. They’ll be debating about who he’s ducking, how much money he’s asking for, where he rates in his division…pound for pound…even all time. At the least they’ll argue why he’s as good or not as good as his supporters demand.
That small, frozen moment focused on a 19-year old with a big smile and some buttons will fade because he won’t be that kid anymore. He won’t be “ours” anymore. With success, as was the case with Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya, the professional man will belongs to promoters, networks and endorsements, playing a different game by a different set of rules. Those that fell in love with the kid will let the memory remain strong enough to stoke interest, but it won’t be the same.
It’s never the same as this. The stories of what drives those who choose to seek fortune with fist haven’t changed much. Boxing remains a hard sport filled with hard cases. Marvin Hagler once said it’s hard to keep training in silk pajamas.
People born in them rarely bother.
The Olympics remains for most of our amateurs their ticket. No, it’s not the super lottery ticket a Gold Medal used to be, but it’s still a solid scratch-off. Successes they achieve are laid raw against lives of adversity, speaking to the best of American dreams worth fighting for.
Round two of the Olympic competition is about to get under way. Heavyweight Deontay Wilder, Estrada, Williams, Andrade and Light Flyweight Luis Yanez continue on.
They’re still “our boys” for a few more days.
And they’re still fighting.
Cliff’s Notes…
Back after the Games, and right in time for the professional goodness of Ivan Calderon-Hugo Cazares II.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
