It’s Been an Eventful Week for Champion Pattersons

What a week, even for a world champion and his ex-world champion father.

Tracy and Floyd Patterson would like to take it easy this holiday weekend.

“It’s been one very long week,” Floyd said, “but also the most thrilling in my life.”

It all started on June 22, a Monday, when the father and son were reunited with a 9-year-old boy, whose life they saved six years ago after an automobile accident on the New York State Thruway.

The next night, Tracy Patterson knocked out Thierry Jacob in the second round, winning the WBC super bantamweight championship and raising his record to 45-2 with 34 knockouts.

On June 26, Floyd went to Cleveland, where he guided heavyweight contender Razor Ruddock to a fourth-round knockout over previously unbeaten Phil Jackson.

Then, three days later, 27-year-old Tracy and his wife, Connie, welcomed their second child, daughter Stacy Nicole Patterson, into the world. Weighing 6 pounds 4 ounces, she was born on Monday, June 29 at Kingston Hospital.

“Seeing Tracy win the world title is by far the proudest moment of my life,” said Floyd, the first boxer ever to regain the world heavyweight title. “The addition of another grandchild made it an indescribable seven days.”

Tracy Patterson was understandably exhausted.

“Everybody tells me there was a lot of excitement at the fight Tuesday night,” he said. “Yes, there was, but with everything that’s happened, I’d rather spread these things out a little bit next time.”

The pre-holiday fireworks started during the weigh-in for Tracy’s title fight in Albany, N.Y. As part of the promotion, Madison Square Garden Boxing, which promoted the fight, released photos of the accident six years ago to the Poughkeepsie Journal, Patterson’s hometown newspaper.

The boy they saved, Colin DeVries, had never met Floyd and Tracy and could not be tracked down until his family saw the photos and called the paper. Madison Square Garden then arranged for the reunion and ringside tickets to the fight for the DeVries, who celebrated with the Pattersons at the post-fight news conference.

A principle focus of reporters in the weeks leading up to the fight was Floyd splitting time between his adopted son’s camp and that of Ruddock.

“Tracy has been ready for this fight for a year,” Floyd said. “We’ve got a great group of co-trainers and support staff in camp. This is fine-tuning time. My presence is just not anything that would make a real difference at this point.”

Before Floyd Patterson took the job of training Ruddock earlier this year, he got Tracy’s approval. His son, adopted at age 11, said he recognized that it was important to give his father the opportunity to do something else no former heavyweight champion has done. Train another one.

Ruddock’s title shot probably is a year away, but many believe he is in the same class with the other young, contenders to Evander Holyfield’s undisputed title, Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis.