Olympic Boxer Makes Good on an Old Promise

Before Oscar De La Hoya became a world-famous boxer, he and Manuel Herrera used to kid each other.

“I’d tell him that if he ever won the gold medal, he’d better come to Oxnard and talk to the club,” said Herrera, who is president of the La Colonia Youth Boxing Club Assn. “He said he would.”

So when De La Hoya became the only American boxer to take home a gold medal from the Olympics in August, Herrera got on the phone. “I said, ‘Hey Oscar, remember what you said?’ ”

And Saturday, De La Hoya made good on his promise, appearing at a barbecue that raised close to $4,000 for the club and drew more than 400 people to the National Guard Armory in Oxnard. Not all of them were boxing fans.

“God, he’s so gorgeous,” said Susan Shephard, 20, of Oxnard, as she admired a color photo of the 19-year-old champion.

Her friend, Hilda Lopez, 12, agreed. “He makes you want to start watching boxing.”

Arriving at the armory more than two hours before the Olympics star, the two friends and Hilda’s sister, Lourdes, 15, each paid $5 for a photo and $5 more for a ticket good for an autograph.

“We’ll wait all day for him, all night for him,” Shephard said.

De La Hoya’s delay in arriving from Los Angeles provided time for Bob and Stella Perez to sell more of the glossy 8-by-10s.

“Everyone’s buying them, both the photo and an autograph,” Stella Perez said. “Everybody wants to be like him.”

It’s not just De La Hoya’s success in the ring that people respect, Bob Perez said. “Kids admire his dedication, especially to his deceased mother.”

He was referring to De La Hoya’s rise from the East Los Angeles barrio, where he began boxing at age 6, to the victory platform in Barcelona. Winning the gold medal fulfilled a promise that De La Hoya made to his mother before she died of cancer in 1990.

“I was pretty proud of his accomplishments,” said Arturo Vargas, 22, a National Guard member who was helping at the armory. “To be Mexican and hear so many negative things about our people--this makes people realize that Mexicans are capable of doing positive things.”

De La Hoya, of course, is capable of a sharp left hook that has sent countless opponents to the mat. The most recent victim was Lamar Williams, a Pennsylvania fighter who was on the losing end of De La Hoya’s first professional bout Monday night at the Forum in Inglewood. The fight lasted 1 minute, 42 seconds.

“He’s bad,” said Mario Aguiniga, 11, one of the dozens of young boxers waiting for the champ on Saturday.

“He’s bad to the bone,” insisted Adrian Duran, 10.

They are among 30 to 40 boys who spend a few hours after school each day working out with the boxing club.

“It’s a way to stay away from drugs and gangs,” said Carlos Martinez, 14.

The young boxers--and dozens of not-so-young fans--thronged around De La Hoya when his white minivan, complete with police escort, arrived a little after 2 p.m. Wearing blue pants, a red, white and blue jacket, his gold medal and a sheepish grin, the champ grabbed three or four hands at a time as he made his way through the crowd.

“It feels pretty good,” he told reporters before addressing the crowd in English and Spanish. “People can watch me and hear the advice I give to little kids to stay off drugs and stay in school. That’s the most important thing to me.”

As for becoming a sex symbol, he said: “That feels good, too . . . having girls out there, it’s nice.”

The pressure of being a star is the toughest obstacle facing him now, De La Hoya said. “I have to be perfect, inside the ring and outside the ring.

“I’m only 19. It’s great, but it’s a lot of pressure.”

His old friend, Herrera, isn’t worried. “Oscar, he’s real down to earth,” he said. “I don’t think all this will change him too much.”