Fighting Chance : Disabled Athlete Shares Lessons in Boxing and Life

On a sweltering afternoon in an aging neighborhood, 17-year-old Tony Saez danced about a dusty back yard arena, throwing gut-wrenching punches into the torso of a sparring bag.

There were jabs, uppercuts, combination blows--all rendered in a fierce, measured rhythm. Fists clenched in bright red boxing gloves. Arms like brown steel pistons.

Nearby, in the shade of a drooping tree, a gaunt-looking man watched, his left hand gripping the handle of a metal walking cane.

“Move it around, Tony,” he told the young fighter in more of a croak than a human voice. “Don’t let it come to its senses. Keep those hands moving.”

For a moment, a dozen other youths in the crowded yard left their barbells and shadowboxing, stopped their sit-ups and rope skipping, and turned their attention to the stiffened figure with the signature corduroy golf cap on his head and cross around his neck.

When Saez was finally through, he looked over at the man with the cane. Breathing hard, sweat gushing from his taut, powerful body, he searched for some sign of approval.

That’s when Mike Adame winked. That’s when he reached out with his one good hand to pat the boy on the hip. “You done good, Tony,” Adame whispered. And the boy smiled.

Each weekday afternoon, the 46-year-old former professional boxer and trainer--now crippled by spinal meningitis--comes to this gang-ridden North San Diego County neighborhood to teach two dozen underprivileged Latino teens about boxing. And about life.

That’s no small order for someone whose entire right side is paralyzed, a man who doctors just five years ago predicted would be confined to a wheelchair and never talk again.

His condition has improved. But Adame, who became ill in 1984, is still involved in the fight of his life, enduring the debilitating blasts of pain that punch down his spine and through his good limbs. Several times a month, he needs painkiller injections.

But since learning that the fledgling Mission Valley Boxing Club needed a trainer, the angular Texan has mustered a gritty determination to return to the sport at which he once excelled.

The first day Adame’s wife dropped him off at boxing club headquarters--a house in Oceanside’s troubled Mesa Margarita neighborhood--the youths watched silently as Adame, cane in hand, slowly made his way to the rickety swivel chair that was soon to become his back yard throne.

By the next day--after their first dose of Adame’s sage insights and advice about boxing, schoolwork and the daily struggles of being Latino--the boys had opened their eyes to an unlikely new mentor.

This time, they were there at the corner to carry Adame into the yard on their shoulders like a returning hero--a practice they continue.

“There was a time when I thought I never wanted to do this again,” said Adame, an All-Marine boxer and winner of several state Golden Gloves awards.

“I spent my days watching television, dying a slow death of boredom. But these boys have given me inspiration. I was a cripple. But when I came here, they accepted me.”

The emotions run both ways. “Mike teaches us how to think,” said Saez, a former gang member. “And we listen to him.”

The Mission Valley Boxing Club was born last November when three neighbors--Tony Bribriesca, Luis Villegas and Javier Flores--wanted to give teens an alternative to hanging out.

Armed with a mail-order starter set that included two pairs of boxing gloves, they started meeting each afternoon in Villegas’ back yard. They built wooden frames for secondhand punching bags and erected a makeshift boxing ring.

The youths worked hard, but lacked the experience needed to progress, Villegas recalled. Attendance trailed off. The club seemed down for the count.

Then Mike Adame read a newspaper story about the group. Within several days, the bantam-weight fighter who had compiled a record of 39-4 as a professional arrived in Villegas’ back yard to begin what he calls the biggest boxing challenge of his career.

What he found wasn’t pretty. Young boxers flailing away at each other, with more the finesse of drunks than of schooled amateurs. Aged equipment. Bloody noses and youths who would cry in frustration.

So he started over. He taught the boys the right way to do sit-ups. He taught them not to guzzle water. And he taught them how to punch.

“They only know five punches,” he said. “But they throw them right.”

But for Adame, teaching the boys to become good boxers isn’t really the goal.

“The main thing is to teach them about life,” he said. “Just because you’re Mexican, you don’t have to be a stereotype. You can go to college. You can get off the streets. One day, they’re going to wake up and realize they don’t need boxing, that they can walk away from the ring and still be a man.”

Club rules outlaw gang membership and make school attendance a must. One young boxer has decided to return to classes after several weeks hanging out on the streets. And team captain Lupe Camacho and his 15-year-old brother, Adrian, go home after school these days to help their mother clean the house before boxing practice.

Despite the moral victories, Adame knows his team needs new boxing gloves and uniforms as it prepares to compete next month in out-of-state tournaments.

“If I had the money, I’d pay for it all myself,” Adame said. “I’ve let them know from the get-go that I’m just a man, and a crippled one at that. But if I can, I’ll move mountains to help them.”