When I think of the fathers in boxing, my brain automatically takes me to the most famous fathers currently in the sport. I think of Angel Garcia, father of multi division world champion Danny Garcia of Philadelphia. I think of Shawn Porter’s father that trains him, Kenny. I think of Teofimo Lopez Sr. father of Undisputed Lightweight World Champion, Teofimo Lopez. The list goes on and on. Errol Spence’s father is always at his fights in his corner but I don’t know to what extent he’s involved in the training or managing role. In Danny Garcia’s case, if you haven’t had time to go see his interview with Mark Kriegel on Showtime, I would recommend it - you can find it on YouTube. Danny talks about being a kid and how his dad going away affected him and his family. He talks about waking up one day and not even knowing it was his birthday. He talks about repeating the third grade. He describes very vividly the day his father returned from prison and how he ran to give him a hug on the street. He also talked about losing in a boxing tournament, as a young teenager, and not realizing how much money his father had invested in the travel and the enrollment for the tournament. He shared that he was running around like any normal kid playing after his loss in the ring and his dad being very upset with him and telling him how hard he had worked to save up the money to attend the event. Danny told Mark Kriegel that he never lost a match after that day.
Kenny Porter also has a very tragic story as a child, watching his sibling involved in a car accident resulting in him losing his brother. Many times I try to understand the roles father’s play in their child’s lives, not only in how they train or manage their boxing careers but also on a personal level. With thousands of fighters world wide training with or without their father’s the goal remains the same, to become world champion and in many cases beyond. I wrestle with these concepts because I’m a father of two young children. My oldest child is a boy and my daughter is three years younger.
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has recently opened up and given a very intimate and exclusive interview with Graham Bensinger where he talked about the divorce between his parents and how it affected him. He shared that most of his brothers were older when the divorce happened and most of them had already moved out the house. He was the youngest and was still living at home. One of his brother’s, that was a boxer, became a father figure to him. He also talked about his father running an ice cream business and from a very young age he was on local busses selling ice cream for the family business. Recently they’ve shown a picture of Canelo in the ring with his father at a very young age.
A couple years ago Michelle Rosado aka Raging Babe, a boxing promoter, filmed a mini documentary on Boxing moms in the sport. The documentary focused on two young pro boxers out of Philadelphia, Joseph and Jeremy Adorno. The film was very well done and it showed how labor intensive it is to have two pro boxers as sons and still balance life including a marriage, more younger children and a full time job outside of boxing. The hardest part for me to watch was the roller coaster of emotions this mother had to go through the day her son’s fought. Joseph is the older of the two brothers and is undefeated. In this particular case the brothers were fighting on the same card which amplified everything. If I remember correctly, Joseph fought first and fought to a draw which put a lot of stress on Jeremy in his bout. But Jeremy pushed through and came out with a victory.
During the pandemic through a series of instagram lives, we got to see and hear a lot of stories from Vergil Ortiz’ father Vergil Ortiz Senior. I’m going to call Vergil Sr., Big Vergil for the sake of typing this blog. Big Vergil is the father of six children, three boys and three girls. Little Vergil is the oldest of the family. From a very young age Lil Vergil lived with his father and grandmother. I don’t know the details but Lil Vergil was primarily raised by his father and grandmother, while the next two siblings in line were raised by their mother from my understanding. At a very young age Big Vergil started training Lil Vergil in boxing. There’s stories of Lil Vergil’s grandmother crying begging her son to stop the training in the living room because of the intensity Big Vergil would push his son to throw his body punches with accuracy. Big Vergil has shared that since the very beginning Lil Vergil has been trained like an adult, for long periods of time and hard. I’ve had the privilege of being in the gym in Riverside while Lil Vergil trains and I must admit that one of the things that caught my eye was how much positive feedback Big Vergil gives Lil Vergil when he does things right. Too many times I hear the parent or coach riding the child and only correcting and mentioning the mistakes but like I mentioned before, there has to be a balance. In my opinion, the relationship has to be balanced, if you’re going to correct the child and you really want him or her to listen, then you need to have built enough equity in that particular relationship to be able to withdraw from it.
It reminds me of when I take my children out to local parks and I see parents training their kids in baseball, basketball, tennis whatever the sport may be. And I ask myself should I be pushing my children the same way, daily long and hard workouts? It’s a balance of having healthy relationships with my children both mental, emotional and physical. I always have to find the balance because they (my children) are not just mine, they have their mother too. And their mother was raised very differently and in a lot ways similar to my upbringing. But ultimately we’ve stayed away from putting them in team sports. I’ve witnessed how coaches treat children and I’ve witnessed how parents interact with each other and their children and it’s something my wife and I have steered away from.
I’ve recently been helping a boxing coach with his non profit 501c3 boxing program here locally where I live and even though boxing is not a team sport per say. I’m starting to see some of the similarities in adult behavior in boxing as in team sports. I want my children to develop healthy habits, physically, emotionally and nutritionally but at what cost I ask myself. I think I’ve kept myself in good enough shape physcially to keep up with them now but the real test comes when they become teenages. Soon we will see.
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