They Pack One-Two Punch

This is the story of the boxing Van Horns, Darrin and G.L., pro and con.

Darrin is the pro.

G.L. is the con.

Ex-con, G.L. will have you know. Ex-con, ex-con man. “I was selling (stuff) I didn’t have,” G.L. says. “Con games, b.s.-ing, selling stories.” For this, G.L. served three years in the California penal system before breaking out in 1981. For the escape, he served 18 months in San Quentin. “And let me tell you,” G.L. says, “that ain’t no church picnic up there.”

G.L. is still spinning tales, but now he does it outside of proper society--i.e., the sport of professional boxing, where such behavior is not only tolerated, it is accepted, expected and respected.

“I come out of the gutter,” G.L. says. “My whole family didn’t have a quarter coming up. . . . Now, we’re making orange crates full of money.”

The packer is Darrin Van Horn, G.L.’s 22-year-old son, owner of an iron right fist, a granite chin, a 46-2 professional record and the International Boxing Federation super middleweight championship. Darrin defends his title Saturday afternoon at the Bren Center against John Jarvis, and at Monday’s media hype-and-feed, Darrin was asked how someone so young and unscarred could already have 48 pro bouts to his credit.

Darrin smiled and nodded at his dad.

“Our matchmaker was Campbell’s Soup,” G.L. said. “We beat up a lot of tomato cans.”

G.L. isn’t embarrassed. He says a young fighter can find considerable sustenance in those tomato cans.

“Darrin turned pro when he was 16,” G.L. says, “and I told him, ‘We’re going to give you your amateur career in the pros.’ He took a test a couple times a year, but if we were going to put him in the wars, we weren’t going to put him in there against Top 10 contenders.

“Look at him now. He has no scar tissue, he has no sore ribs. And, I still have a baby.”

Just the way G.L. planned it, the way G.L. has always planned it for Darrin, often at the expense of Darrin’s own plans.

It wasn’t Darrin’s idea to turn pro at 16.

“Not in the least,” Darrin says. “I was physically forced.”

It wasn’t Darrin’s idea to put on his first pair of boxing gloves at 4 and to fight his first fight at 12.

“I don’t know if ‘influence’ is the word,” G.L. says. “It was probably more like force. . . .

“Darrin’s been around boxing since he was in diapers and cowboy boots. I was already training fighters when he was born; he’s been smelling resin since he was this big. It’s been part of his whole life.”

The youngest of three sons, Darrin wasn’t alone. “All my kids fight,” G.L. says. “Not professionally, but they all learned to fight. Some families go skiing or swimming together. We went to the boxing gym. That was our enjoyment.

“I took it up seriously with Darrin because he’s got a good chin. I’ve got an older son who’s vicious, but he can’t take a hit. This one, he’s got a doctor’s degree in boxing.”

Today it’s a family business, raking in the greenbacks, all of it legal, and it operates on a shoestring of a working agreement.

Darrin does the boxing.

G.L. does the talking.

Set ‘em up, knock ‘em down, bring on another. It is poetry in motion with a Louisiana twang, G.L. borrowing from one career to velvet-line another.

Since Jarvis is an already-booked opponent, the con works this way:

“I’ve seen Jarvis fight 24 rounds, all of them exactly the same,” G.L. says. “He’s not very creative. He just does these three things--and he does them all night long. . . . I think a pork chop stands a better chance with a hungry dog than Jarvis does with Darrin.”

Still out there, unsigned, is Thomas Hearns. G.L. wants to change that, he wants a match, but Hearns will take some prodding. The con takes a different shape:

“If Tommy Hearns would please answer his phone, we’ll go up to 175 (pounds) for him,” G.L. says. (Darrin fights at 168.) “We’ll do anything he wants to book that fight. . . .

“Darrin has really never put it all together and that’s why I want to fight Hearns. The better the opposition, the better (Darrin) fights. He’d go to camp, he’d be a peach to train, he really gets up for them things. He rises to the occasion.”

Here we go again. Fight-Hearns is yet another G.L. Van Horn production. Darrin? He’d rather spend another year shopping the canned-goods aisle.

“See, you’ve got to understand,” Darrin says, explaining about his dad. “If you’re looking to get (Hearns) in a fight, you have to remind (G.L.) not to let his hummingbird mouth get his elephant butt in trouble. You talk a lot bigger because you know (Hearns) is the one getting in there and taking the risk.

“No, I wouldn’t mind it, but (G.L.) is just calling names out. And when he’s through, it’s ‘OK, son, there you go.’

“Hearns is a very big guy, and I’m small for 168. He’d look like a giant to me. If it was up to me, I’d like for him to get a little older first.”

Darrin is currently a senior at the University of Kentucky, majoring in broadcast journalism. You could say that his studies are insurance against one too many of G.L.’s bright ideas taking form.

Actually, Darrin claims, he wants his degree for two reasons: “One, so I can slap it in my kids’ faces. And, two, so I can get people off my back. There’s a reason so many fighters turn out like Tyson.

“When you fight, you train from 4:30 to 6:30 and then you’re off, all day long, with nothing to do. With school, I’m so busy, I have no time to get into trouble.”

Unlike father, unlike son?

“There’s a reason ministers have horrible kids and no-good bastards like me have good ones,” G.L. says. “That’s because they all want to be different from dad. I guess that’s why my three sons turned out so well.”

One of them’s a real champ.