BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : They Want Nappi to Fade Away

The blazing Arizona sun is setting this week on one of the great coaching careers in American Olympic sports, and it’s not pretty.

In the Olympics, Pat Nappi coached every prominent U.S. boxer from Sugar Ray Leonard and the Spinks brothers to Pernell Whitaker, Mark Breland and Evander Holyfield.

But this week in Phoenix, where 24 boxers are gathered for the Olympic team boxoffs, Nappi, 73, is a man scorned. He is viewed as a relic, and the man at the heart of a feud that virtually has torn apart USA Boxing, the country’s governing body for amateur boxing.

Boxers on Nappi’s 1976 and ’84 Olympic teams won 13 golds, five at Montreal and nine at Los Angeles.

But Nappi has long been controversial. Although praise was lavished on him after the ’76 and ’84 Games, there also was considerable grumbling--and no doubt a good deal of jealousy--from coaches at thousands of amateur clubs across America.

There were two schools of thought:

--Nappi was the greatest amateur boxing coach ever.

--Nappi had the cream of the crop to work with. Grass-roots coaches developed great boxers, but Nappi got the credit when they went to the Olympics and won gold medals. In the case of the talented Montreal and Los Angeles Olympic teams, so the anti-Nappi theorists said, we could have sent no coach and won gold medals.

Nappi’s grip on amateur boxing began to slip in 1988, when USA Boxing, in response to complaints, ruled that no member of a U.S. Olympic team’s coaching staff could coach on a subsequent team.

So Army Coach Ken Adams became the 1988 Olympic team’s coach. But when Nappi was appointed an “adviser” to the coaching staff, Adams objected. Nappi stayed home.

Last April, more or less the same scenario developed. USA Boxing President Billy Dove informed team manager Buzz Buzalsky by letter that he had appointed Nappi as an adviser to the 1992 Olympic staff, headed by Joe Byrd of Flint, Mich.

It touched off a furor that continues today. Buzalsky told Dove his appointment was contrary to federation procedures, that such a move had to be approved by USA Boxing’s board and that Dove didn’t have the votes to pull it off.

Dove suggested that Buzalsky resign. Buzalsky suggested that Dove resign. And on it goes.

Federation insiders say that Jerry Dusenberry of Portland will be elected president of USA Boxing in September. With Dove, his last remaining ally, gone, Nappi’s power will be a distant memory.

Dusenberry shares the view held by most board members that Nappi should step aside.

“Pat has had a very difficult time letting go of that power,” said Sandy Martinez-Pino, a board member.

“Pat never should have let things get this far,” said Buzalsky, implying that Nappi should have withdrawn his name from consideration. “It only dragged it all out.”

Nappi, who still carries the title of national coach, was highly visible at the Olympic trials at Worcester, Mass., earlier this month. Later, he accompanied the winners and their challengers to a 10-day training camp at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.

Many said he should not have been there. And on this weekend, and at the end of the line, he endured a few final humiliations:

--He drove from Ft. Huachuca to Phoenix with an Olympic team doctor, rather than ride on the chartered bus with coaches and boxers.

--He sat in the headquarters hotel lobby for four hours, waiting for a room, while other federation officials were readily checked in.

--On the grounds of the hotel, the Pointe at South Mountain, community coaches walk right by the man who was once the most famous boxing coach in America, ignoring him.

He has little to say of the events of the last few months.

“They voted me off,” he said. “But the truth is, I never asked to go (to Barcelona) in the first place.”

To a reporter who asked him for a medal prediction, he said: “If it’s anything about the team, ask the coaches.”

And so Nappi cuts a forlorn figure this week. He walks about the hotel, alone with his memories, and perhaps still listening to the cheers from Montreal and Los Angeles.

Last weekend’s Caesars Palace snoozer between Evander Holyfield and Larry Holmes might have signaled the end of 42-year-old heavyweights appearing in title fights. At least, on pay-per-view telecasts.

The numbers aren’t all in, but TVKO, the pay-per-view arm of HBO sports, already is acknowledging that it took a loss on the 12-round waltz.

“We did about 800,000 buys,” said Seth Abraham, president of TVKO. He had said 825,000 were needed to break even.

“Our problem was the fighters’ purses--$18 million for Holyfield and $7 million for Larry. We just gave them too much.”

Abraham, like everyone else who watched, was critical of Holmes’ laid-back effort. Most agreed there were few moments when Holmes actually appeared to be trying to win.

“The only drama was the cut (over Holyfield’s right eye),” Abraham said. “There was no danger of anyone getting knocked down . . . there were not even any flurries.”

What about the talked-about “Geezers at Caesars” bout, George Foreman vs. Holmes?

“I’m thinking that over very hard, and right now I’d say the only way that fight is ‘do-able’ is if each fighter accepts a smaller purse than what I think they’ll ask for, and that if they both agree to retire after the fight,” Abraham said.

“That way, you have two old champions in their farewell appearances, and I think that might work as a good pay-per-view attraction, since you have no championship at stake.”

Calendar

Tonight: Rafael Ruelas vs. Mauro Gutierrez, junior-lightweights; Frank Liles vs. Tim Littles, super-middleweights. Reseda Country Club, 6:15 p.m.

Monday: Carlos Gonzales vs. Jimmy Paul, light-welterweights. Forum, 7 p.m.