THE SEOUL GAMES : Armed for Toughest of Challenges : U.S. Boxing Team Will Take Its Punches, Shots in Seoul

A not-so-young, experienced, and confident American squad is poised for the biggest challenge any U.S. Olympic boxing team has ever faced. Saturday will be Day 1 of the biggest boxing tournament in Olympic history.

With suspension hearings, arbitration hearings, the distraction of Sugar Ray Leonard and coaching staff acrimony all capturing some attention recently, it is finally time for the U.S. team to put on its gloves.

Team USA is one of more than 100 teams at Seoul, compared to 82 at Los Angeles in 1984.

Boxing began in 7,200-seat Chamshil Students’ Gymnasium, just hours after the crowd had filed out of the opening ceremony at the main stadium, a block away. It continues for 13 consecutive days, with sessions twice a day, until a one-day break Sept. 30, after which the finals are scheduled for Oct. 1-2.

U.S. Coach Ken Adams, who needed an arbitrator’s ruling to get his job back last month, likes his boxers’ chances with a big if-- if they can hold up over the long grind.

“Our kids are concentrating well (with one possible exception) and they’re healthy, and I have good vibes about them,” he said.

“Right now, I think they’re going to surprise a lot of people. But it’s a long tournament, and some of our kids might have to box six or seven times.”

The four coaches and several of the boxers seemed to think they couldn’t be more prepared.

After the team was formed in July at Las Vegas, it left for several weeks of training at Ft. Bragg, N.C., then finished with 4 weeks of tough work at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., featuring long morning runs and long sparring sessions in the heat of desert afternoons.

In Seoul, since the team arrived Sept. 4, it has been largely fine-tuning at a nearby Army base gym. Wylie Farrier, the team manager, hopes the team has rebounded from what he saw as a letdown after the trials and box-offs.

“For a while, at Ft. Bragg, the alternates were beating the hell out of some of our guys in the gym,” he said. “But I guess it’s only natural that there’ll be a little bit of a letdown.”

Contrasted with the 1984 Olympic team, a band of talented 20-year olds who won nine gold medals, a silver and a bronze, this is an older, physically stronger, more mature group. But this team is knee-deep in a far tougher tournament than the ’84 team faced.

True, the kings of amateur boxing, the Cubans, aren’t here. But everyone else is.

The toughest boxing tournament since the 1976 Montreal Olympics was the 1986 World Championships at Reno. There, Cuba won seven gold medals, the United States three. Two of those American winners are here--welterweight Ken Gould and featherweight Kelcie Banks.

Even subtracting the Cubans from this tournament, and given its length and the resulting physical toll on the participants, everyone in the U.S. delegation would probably be happy with similar results to Reno’s.

Said Adams: “Concentration, focusing on boxing well over a long tournament, that’s always been the key for us. I knew the physical part of getting in shape would take care of itself.”

And so Adams hopes his athletes will be survivors, as he was.

Last May 12, Adams allegedly assaulted a USA Amateur Boxing Federation accountant at the federation’s offices in Colorado Springs. Adams was suspended for 6 months by the USA/ABF, effectively firing him from his Olympic job.

The suspension held up through two federation hearings, and assistant coach Tom Coulter was named head coach.

But then Adams went to arbitration with a lawyer and won his case.

Coulter returned to being an assistant, along with Larry Ramirez and Hank Johnson. At one time, there was also Leonard, who had been appointed “special adviser” to the coaching staff by Col. Don Hull, president of the USA/ABF. But Leonard quit in Las Vegas, complaining that no one had told him what he was supposed to do.

And Johnson, once Adams’ assistant coach in the Army, at first refused to join the staff, citing differences with Coulter. Eventually, he relented.

It’s a good thing Adams has three assistants, because one of his boxers seems to require a disproportionate amount of guidance.

Riddick Bowe is a 6-foot 5-inch, 225-pound super-heavyweight who at times looks like the second coming of Muhammad Ali. At other times, he looks like the second coming of Pee-Wee Herman.

Bowe, with a concentration problem, is the kind of athlete who drives coaches into real estate sales.

For example, at the Olympic team box-offs at Las Vegas in July, after the first round of his bout against Robert Salters, someone in the fifth row started yelling: “Hey, Riddick! Hey, Riddick!”

Bowe, seated on his stool and supposedly listening to frantic instructions from Coulter, turned to see who was yelling. Coulter took Bowe’s head with both hands, and turned it back to a position facing him.

In Seoul, the U.S. team has been training at a ringless gym on the Yong San U.S. Army base. The little gym was built by the Japanese before World War II.

“We’re using this facility instead of the Olympic workout gyms because we can use it anytime we want, and because I’d just prefer no one saw us working out until it’s time to box,” Adams said.

“We did all our sparring at our training camp at Ft. Huachuca. We’re just coming together as a team now, keeping the guys loose. They’re eager, they want to start boxing. I feel good about them, really.”

But always, the exception . . .

Johnson sized up progress with the often out-of-focus Bowe this way:

“This is the first time in Riddick’s life that someone’s been on his case every hour of the day. It was hard at first. Riddick wasn’t used to it. But after a few days at Ft. Huachuca, when Riddick realized there was no place he could hide, that we were going to be on him every minute of the day, he adjusted.”

Bowe and the other big guy, heavyweight Ray Mercer, are given good chances to make it to the medal round by many. Last summer, Bowe had world champion Jorge Gonzales of Cuba out on his feet in the second round at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, before Gonzales rallied and stopped him.

Ever since, no one has questioned Bowe’s boxing skills, just his concentration and desire. Adams, 47, is a master sergeant from Ft. Hood, Tex., and a 30-year Army man. And Bowe hasn’t been the only boxer to feel the lash of discipline.

The other day, the Olympic team toured a base hospital, visiting hospitalized Army personnel, chatting and signing autographs.

About 5 minutes after the escort nurse had asked the boxers to be quiet as they entered the hospital’s nursery, bantamweight Kennedy McKinney began cutting up in the hallway.

“McKinney!” Adams barked. McKinney looked at Adams. “Maintain it, OK?” Adams barked again, with a scowl.

Tomb-like silence descended upon the hallway.

Bowe, the big, cocky street kid from Brooklyn, N.Y. entered a room where a young soldier stood, beaming, beside his wife and newborn baby. Bowe introduced himself, but the new father was apparently so proud of his baby he couldn’t speak. He grinned away, as his eyes began to tear up. He could only shake hands with the towering boxer.

Outside, the tour over, the boxers climbed aboard the bus that would take them to yet another workout. Light-flyweight Michael Carbajal, who learned to box in a 10-foot gym in his Phoenix garage, sat down and sighed. “More waiting. Man, we’re ready. Let’s go!”