THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Three Years After Its Biggest Day, Amateur Boxing Is in Trouble

For amateur boxing in the United States, Aug. 11, 1984 was a golden night. For the 16,353 in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, watching the United States collect nine gold medals, it was a night to remember.

Jim Fox, the executive director of the USA Amateur Boxing Federation, said recently: “That night sticks in my memory--the patriotism shown by the crowd that night, the tears I saw. . . . A little bit of that night flashes before my eyes every day.

“I remember after (Tyrell) Biggs won the final bout to give us the super-heavyweight gold medal, and all of our 11 medal winners climbed into the ring for a team photo . . . hey, it was moving. I’ll never forget our heavyweight, Henry Tillman, coming up to me with tears in his eyes, and the gold medal around his neck. He couldn’t say anything, so he just hugged me and picked me up in the air.

“Believe me, when you see a bunch of tough, strong, inner-city kids with tears running down their faces, it really moves you.”

It has been three years since that greatest day in the 99-year history of amateur boxing in the United States. The medals are locked away, and the tears of joy have long since dried.

Now, if anyone in U.S. amateur boxing is crying, it’s not for happiness. The sport is having serious problems on several fronts.

Lack of talent is not one of them, however. The U.S. Pan American Games team that will begin competition here today is a good one, although not a great one. It doesn’t compare to the 1984 Olympic team but there are signs of a deep talent well, and officials hope it stays deep through the next Olympics.

Foremost among problems is the continued linkage by the American Medical Assn. of amateur boxing to professional boxing. The AMA advocates abolition of boxing, and numerous articles in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. have attacked the sport, with one writer calling boxing “an obscenity.”

“The AMA has really hurt us,” Fox said.

“Number one, it’s hurt us participation-wise. In 1984, we had 24,000 registered amateur boxers. Now, we’re down to 18,000. The pattern is, mothers take their boys to family doctors, who’ve read articles denouncing boxing, and the next thing we know is the boy is jerked out of one of our programs and put into Little League or something else.

“It’s an unfair situation for us. We have nothing to do with pro boxing. Our rules are completely different, and only a tiny percentage of amateur boxers ever turn pro.

“Amateur boxing is extremely conscious of health and safety issues. We’re in the middle of a four-year study of 500 of our boxers with the Johns Hopkins Medical School that we hope will show whether or not amateur boxing is any more dangerous than any other contact sport.”

There are other problems, though, too, and here is a look at some:

Television Exposure--In 1983 and ‘84, the USA/ABF had an annual income of $1.1 million from ABC-TV. The network televised 10 of the federation’s events in 1983 and again in ’84. In 1988, as part of a continuing, general network TV cutback for all sports, ABC will televise four amateur boxing shows. ABC has also relinquished exclusivity rights, which may result in NBC televising two events.

Corporate Sponsorships--Shortly after the Los Angeles Olympics, Budweiser withdrew as a sponsor, and the federation still hasn’t recovered.

“Losing Budweiser was a big loss, one we haven’t yet made up,” Fox said. “It meant $200,000 a year to us. They told us they felt they had a conflict by also being a USOC sponsor. After ABC, Budweiser was our No. 2 source of funding.”

International Clout--At the time of the last Olympic Games, the International Amateur Boxing Federation (AIBA) was the only Olympic sports federation with an American president, Col. Don Hull. Today, AIBA has a Pakistani president, Prof. Anwar Chowdhry. And Hull is now president of the USA/ABF.

“AIBA needs an American president, or at least an American headquarters,” Fox said. “Col. Hull had a lot of expertise in negotiating with the networks, and the current AIBA leadership has none. We may lose the World Championship Challenge event--which earned AIBA $150,000 per show--simply because the present AIBA administration doesn’t understand these things have to be planned with TV networks.”

Olympic Coach Selection--In 1988, for the first time since 1972, Pat Nappi will not be the U.S. Olympic boxing coach. He retired from international coaching after the 1986 World Championships, and the selection process for his successor is certain to create problems.

In fact, there were problems even when Nappi was the coach.

Should there be one head coach for the Olympic boxing team? Or should a community coach who discovers, develops, trains and coaches a young boxer good enough to make the Olympic team be awarded the right to be in his corner during major international events, such as the Olympic Games?

If they should, then the 12-boxer Olympic or Pan Am Games team would have 12 coaches.

Local coaches in 1984 demanded to be allowed in the corners with their boxers during the Olympics. The arguments grew so heated that on the day before the Olympic tournament started, Nappi left and went to the airport, intending to go home to Syracuse. American boxing officials tracked Nappi down at Los Angeles International Airport and brought him back. How ridiculous did it get? The local coaches of Los Angeles boxers Paul Gonzales and Henry Tillman had to be suited up in ushers’ uniforms before they could be admitted to the Sports Arena floor.

“We’ll never be allowed 12 coaching credentials, because then the track and field federation would want 35 Olympic coaches,” Fox said. “The kids’ hometown coaches were causing us all kinds of problems in 1984. The USOC allows us three coaching credentials, which means a head coach, an assistant, and a team manager.

“One concept we’re looking at is the idea of a daily pass concept, which would give a boxer’s own coach training center and event access only on the day his boxer competes.

“The community coach issue is still a problem, and I have no idea now which way we’ll solve it. We could wind up going to Seoul with one head coach as in the past, or with six or seven.

“Remember one thing. Having one head coach may have made a lot of local coaches unhappy, but it hasn’t exactly been an unworkable system. We’ve won 14 gold medals in the last two Olympics we’ve competed in.”

Operation Gold--It was the USA/ABF’s pride and joy in 1982 and ’83. Operation Gold was a program designed to dissuade promising amateurs from turning pro at least until after the Olympic Games.

Funds were budgeted to first identify two to three dozen athletes whom coaches perceived as Olympic team candidates, then to bring them to the training facility in Colorado Springs. There, they got small allowances for basic living expenses, and were given jobs in the community. Some went to school and were paid education expenses.

Two 1984 gold medalists, Biggs and Tillman, lived and trained in Colorado Springs for extended periods, under the auspices of Operation Gold.

But within a year after the Olympics, Operation Gold was shut down because of lack of money.

“A lot of people think amateur sports federations are swimming in money, after all the money the L.A. Olympics made,” Fox said. “Each of the 38 governing bodies was given the same grant from the USOC, $1.2 million. We spend 50% of the interest that account earns on our junior programs, the rest we never touch. It’s a rainy day fund.”

Fox said he believes Operation Gold may be resumed this year, should negotiations with a possible corporate sponsor be successful.

Malpractice Insurance--Rising costs of malpractice insurance is a growing problem for every sport, but one that’s particularly burdensome for amateur boxing. It’s the only Olympic sport in America that requires a physician to be present at every competition.

“We have a lot of doctors in our program across the country who aren’t covered by our liability coverage or their own,” Fox said. “It gets more and more difficult to find doctors for our events. All of our doctors are extremely concerned about this problem.

“We have had to cancel or postpone local boxing events in the last couple of years because we couldn’t find a doctor who would work them.

“We’re hopeful over what’s happened in Michigan. The legislature there passed a law exempting doctors who work amateur sports events from civil damage cases. If that becomes a trend, that would be a great thing for amateur sports.”