THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : THE TOUGH GUY : Banks Is Good, and He Thinks You Should Know

At the Pan American Games boxing tournament the other day, a reporter approached United States featherweight Kelcie Banks, asked for an interview, and the following dialogue transpired:

Banks: “But I don’t have my portfolio with me.”

Reporter: “Your portfolio?”

Banks: “Yeah, my portfolio. My PR man, Reggie Thomas, had it printed up. You know Reggie Thomas, right? He was Muhammad Ali’s bodyguard for 10 years. Now, he’s my PR man. He’s written up my portfolio . . . you know, it’s got all the stuff I’ve done.”

And so, in the first minute of the interview, the reporter had already learned why a lot of people in amateur boxing would like to see Kelcie Banks get knocked right on his portfolio.

At the Pan American Games boxing tournament, the battle of the mouths has been strictly a two-man race between Banks and his super-heavyweight teammate, Riddick Bowe. Bowe has much better lines--”When I fight Mike Tyson, he’s going to find a familiar face in the second row, his”--but Banks is the endurance king.

Get Kelcie talking about himself, and he can go all day. You assume that Bowe will take his cue and get a public relations firm to work up a portfolio for him, too. And business cards. Banks passes out cards that read:

Kelcie (Mr. Mix) Banks

World Amateur Featherweight Champion

Banks has another edge on Bowe. He’s still boxing in the Pan Am Games. Bowe is a spectator here now, as are six of his teammates. There is a real possibility that Banks will wind up as the only U.S. gold medalist after today’s and Sunday’s boxing finals. Five U.S. boxers are in the finals, but Banks is the only solid favorite.

This could also be the case in the Olympics Games at Seoul, South Korea, next year. When he’s on top of his game, Banks, the 125-pound world champion, is the United States’ best amateur boxer and one of the best in the world. For confirmation of this, all you need is his portfolio.

Banks, 22, came into the Pan Am Games as the United States’ most decorated boxer in international competition. His breakthrough performance was at Reno in the 1986 World Championships, the most competitive amateur tournament since the 1976 Olympic Games. Banks won two bouts to qualify for the finals, where he upset Cuba’s Jesus Sollet for the world title.

He’s 3-0 in the Pan Am Games, going into Sunday’s gold medal bout with Emilio Villegas of the Dominican Republic. Before the Pan Am Games, Banks was 6-2 in major international boxing events since 1985.

This all started in a vacant lot in Gulfport, Miss., where Banks and other neighborhood urchins used to engage in play-fighting.

“We were all 8 or 10 years old,” Banks said. “We’d hit each other on the arms, not the head. So I wound up in a gym one day and learned how to box. My first bout was in the juniors, against some kid who had 57 bouts. I don’t remember his name, just that he had 57 bouts and I’d had none. He busted up my lip, and I lost.”

Soon, though, the skinny kid started to win--all the time. In a few years, he’d grown to almost 6 feet but was still skinny. He’s 5-11 1/2 but has boxed at 125 pounds for the last nine years.

By 1984, he was a regional champion and wanted to make the 1984 Olympic team. He was beaten in a regional qualifying tournament, however, and wasn’t invited to the Olympic trials tournament in Fort Worth that year.

“That was hard to take,” he said. “The guy who made it in the 125s, Meldrick Taylor (and who won the gold medal), was made to order for me. I eat guys like that alive, because of my style, my long left jab.”

After the Olympics, Banks decided that Gulfport was too small-time and moved to Chicago.

“I was raised by my grandmother in Gulfport, but spent summers in Chicago, visiting my father,” he said. “By 1984, I’d won six Mississippi Golden Gloves championships but felt like no one had ever heard of me. I needed better exposure.”

In Chicago, Banks became exposed to the elements.

“I didn’t like it much,” he said. “You can’t do good roadwork in the winter, for one thing. The weather is terrible. Snow and everything. And I lived in a terrible neighborhood, at 57th and Carpenter. Even in good weather, I was afraid to go outside and do roadwork, afraid someone would jump me. There were lots of muggers around.

“It was the kind of neighborhood where if someone came up to you on the sidewalk and said, ‘Good mornin’,’ look out.”

So Kelcie hit the road again, this time for Houston and the Houston Boxing Assn., a group sponsoring amateur and professional boxers. His coach is Farris Purify, who once was a coach with the Kronk Gym team in Detroit.

Banks and other HBA boxers live in a Houston apartment building, where they eat meals prepared by an HBA cook.

“If I wasn’t mature and worldly like I am, if I didn’t have the discipline that I have, I’d weigh 145 just like that,” Banks explained, snapping his fingers.

“But this cook comes in five days a week and cooks a lot of steamed vegetables, salads, spinach and pasta for us. I’ve never had any trouble making weight.”

Banks also said he’s considering an offer to become a talk-show host on a Houston radio station. “It’s all being negotiated now,” he said. He also said he has an agent who books him modeling jobs.

It’s a sore point with the U.S.A. Amateur Boxing Federation that Banks and several other boxers on the Pan Am team here insist on having their own coaches in their corners during bouts, instead of the team’s coach, Roosevelt Sanders.

“Each boxer is going to feel more comfortable with his hometown coach,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter, not after the bell rings. No one’s in the ring with you. You’re all alone in there. If they made it a rule it had to be the national coach, that’s fine. I could get by on my own thinking ability. But now, it’s in my best interests to have my own coach with me.”

On the subject of boxing Cubans, it should come as no surprise that Banks professes to have them figured out. The Americans are 2-7 here against Cubans, but Banks knocked off his Cuban foe in the quarterfinals.

Floored in the first round by Arnaldo Mesa, Banks got up, gathered himself and gradually turned the bout around, winning a 3-2 decision. The Cubans claimed later that the decision was a “gift to the Americans,” but many saw it as a clear-cut, impressive Banks victory.

He was asked why, in U.S.-Cuba matchups, Cubans win most of the time.

“The Cubans, in physical and mental ability, are roughly equal to us,” he said. “But most of them are older than us, and they’re more physically mature and stronger. They try to intimidate you early, in the first round, by loading up with right hands. Everything they throw at you early in the bout has knockout velocity on it.

“But I really feel we’re in better condition most of the time. The Cubans wear down fast. In the third round, you can get to them then. We do a lot of interval training work at Colorado Springs for two or three weeks before a major international competition and we’re just in better shape.

“To beat the Cubans, you have to show them a lot of movement, not get caught standing still right in front of them, and keep them off of you with a good jab.”

When the reporter closed his notebook, Banks surmised that the interview was over.

“You going to be here again tomorrow?” Banks asked. “OK, I’ll bring the portfolio tomorrow. All the stuff I’ve done, all my championships, it’s all in there.”

The next day, the reporter sought out Banks.

“OK, where’s the portfolio?” the reporter asked.

“Oh, no--I forgot it,” Banks said, covering his eyes.