By Thomas Gerbasi (photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank)
It only takes a few moments with light heavyweight prospect Mike Lee to realize that he’s a lot more mature than your average 23-year old. In fact, he’s more mature than your average group of 23-year olds. Yet while a Notre Dame education (and a 3.8 GPA) certainly helped in that department, Lee’s ability to project a wisdom beyond his years comes from the man who has been in his corner from Day One.
“I think I got that from my dad,” said Lee of his father, John. “He always parented with an iron fist, so to speak. (Laughs) When I was younger I was never worried about getting in trouble with teachers or the cops or anything like that. It was always ‘what would my dad do?’”
That type of discipline doesn’t always sit well with teenagers, and Lee admits that “at times it was definitely tough,” but as he approaches his third professional fight this Saturday against Keith Debow on the Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito undercard at Cowboys Stadium in Texas, it’s evident that everything has worked out pretty well for the Chicago native.
How well? A finance degree from Notre Dame. A pro boxing contract with Top Rank. A growing fanbase. And more press than practically any 2-0 fighter has received in years. Oh yeah, he’s also following up a pro debut in his hometown and a Las Vegas appearance in bout number two with a slot on a Pacquiao card. How can Lee possibly top this?
“That’s a good question and I haven’t thought about it yet,” he said. “I’m just glad that Top Rank has put me on some great cards and I think it says a lot about hopefully the bright future they see for me, and the exposure that they’re giving me. Maybe the way you top it is hopefully one day I can be the headliner in Cowboys Stadium. That may be the only way to top it.”
For a young man with so much put on his shoulders so early, he remains remarkably humble though. And that can’t be easy considering the hype already around him since he turned pro earlier this year. But again, before looking forward, look back, and you’ll see why everything makes sense.
An All-Conference linebacker in high school, Lee had his mind set on going to Notre Dame ever since he saw the movie “Rudy” as a child. But while he was good on the gridiron, he wasn’t going to be good enough to play for the Indiana powerhouse, and truth be told, his athletic passions ran more to boxing than football.
“I don’t think I could have played at Notre Dame,” he said. “I didn’t have an offer to play there. I could have played at a smaller school in the Midwest maybe, and I had a lot of friends who did that. But I didn’t love football like I loved boxing and you really have to love the sport if you’re going to be in the daily grind. Sometimes I did think about walking on the football team, but once I started getting better and better at boxing, it didn’t compare to any other sport I’d ever played.”
After a year at the University of Missouri, Lee did make it to Notre Dame, and what followed were three titles in the school’s traditional Bengal Bouts, which raise money for the children of Bangladesh. In the process, he found a passion that was going to take precedence over whatever his eventual degree in Finance would offer him.
He also learned how to deal with crowds, something that will come in handy for him this weekend.
“My championships years (at Notre Dame), they put the ring in the middle of the basketball arena, and you get anywhere from five to seven thousand people that come out to the event,” he said. “That was my first taste of figuring out how to fight under the lights and under the pressure and the crowd, and I’d definitely say that helped me out for situations like this upcoming Saturday.”
And while he discussed his boxing aspirations with his father, after graduation and a win in the 2009 Chicago Golden Gloves, it was time to break the news to his mother and sister.
“I had always expressed these feelings to my dad and we wanted to go about it the best way and get the best team,” he said. “But my mom and my sister were a little bit shocked. I guess they didn’t know what to expect. I’d say that the people around me didn’t realize that I would take it this far or start to get this good, though I have a long way to go, as does anybody early in their career.”
He’s got the perfect head start though, signing with a Top Rank organization that is the best in the business at building a fighter the right way. Also on board is renowned trainer Ronnie Shields, who is rapidly molding the raw talent Lee has into a finely tuned fighting machine. Add in Lee’s willingness to learn and his family to keep him grounded, and he will definitely bear watching in the future.
“I have a terrific team around me,” said Lee. “It starts with my dad, who has been a tremendous help, Ronnie Shields, Brian Caldwell, my strength coach, and Top Rank. The most important thing for us was to get a strong team around us because what a lot of people who aren’t boxing fans don’t realize is that even though it’s an individual sport, it really is a team sport. You see a lot of guys who had tremendous talent who get out of the sport because of extracurricular reasons or things that happened outside the ring. So the fact that I have a stable environment and one of the best trainers in the world, and the best promoter in the world in my opinion, it makes all this easier. It helps that they take care of the things that I don’t have to worry about. I just need to worry about getting better every day and I just focus on the boxing aspect of it, so it definitely makes it easier on my end.”
And I know what you’re thinking right now. It’s all sunshine and rainbows and Lee has a marketing juggernaut behind him that’s pushing him at everyone in the boxing world. It almost calls to mind Top Rank’s push behind another Notre Dame product, current Baltimore Ravens safety Tom Zbikowski, who was everywhere when he fought his lone pro fight in 2006.
But beyond the obvious marketing value of Lee, the fact remains that in a sport rapidly filling up with businessmen disguised as prizefighters and reluctant ‘warriors’ afraid to take the risks that make fighters great, Lee actually wants to be here. He could have gone right to Wall Street with a 3.8 GPA and a Finance degree from Notre Dame and made a helluva lot more money punching numbers than punching opponents, and with a lot less wear and tear on his body. Yet Lee realized early on that he was a fighter, and all the marketing in the world can’t hide you in the ring, and he knows it. But he’s also aware that if he didn’t follow this dream of his, it would stick with him forever.
“I knew that if I pursued something else that I didn’t love, I’d be kicking myself ten years from now,” he said. “I’ve said it before; I just don’t want to live my life with regrets, so I’m gonna keep doing well, see where it takes me, and at least know that I went for it.”
Almost reminds you of the story of Rudy Ruettiger, the walk-on football player immortalized in the film that inspired Mike Lee to attend Notre Dame. And ironically, when Lee knocked out Alex Rivera in Las Vegas in September, there was a special guest at ringside.
“Rudy was at my last fight,” said Lee. “He came to the fight in Vegas because he lives out there and that was the first time I had met him. It was such a cool experience for me because I saw the movie when I was five years old and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Notre Dame. I got to meet him and he cheered me on for my second pro win, he was wearing a Team Lee shirt, and it was pretty surreal.”
