Just One Punch Works Wonders for Whitaker : Boxing: He ascends to No. 1 in the United States with knockout, predicts bigger things ahead.

So much for sneaking up on anybody.

With one punch, and what a punch it was, Lance Whitaker believes he has called for a new world order--at least among amateurs who box in the super heavyweight class.

By knocking out Thomas Martin with a crushing right cross 2 minutes 20 seconds into the second round of their Olympic Festival gold medal bout on Tuesday, Whitaker claimed the top spot in the U.S. rankings.

Next, he promised, comes the world. Big talk from a big man. Whitaker, a 24-year-old former San Fernando High football and basketball player, is 6 feet 8, 247 pounds. Come to think of it, he has made such boastful statements before.

Whitaker thought he was on boxing’s super highway when he won in the Olympic Festival semifinals two years ago.

Wrong. He lost in the final.

He bounced back in 1994 to win the U.S. championship, but in international competition he won only one of four bouts.

In the Pan American Games this spring he was stopped 2 minutes 15 seconds into his fight against Leonardo Martinez of Cuba. Afterward, stories emerged of Whitaker’s living conditions in the San Fernando Valley. Stories about him living out of a car.

So much has changed in four months, and Whitaker is quick to give credit where credit is due.

“I have the best trainers in the world,” he said on several occasions during the past week. “Lou Duva and Tommy Brooks. They’re the best.”

Yep. Duva and Brooks, handlers of the heavyweight division’s recent past, Evander Holyfield, might well have the circuit’s future in fold. Duva said his scouts advised that Whitaker could be a diamond in the rough. Little did Brooks know how rough.

“The first time I saw him I thought, ‘What is Lou doing to me?’ ” Brooks recalled this week. “The kid couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Nobody had taken the time to show him basic fundamentals.”

Whitaker worked with U.S. coaches before, but only for a couple of weeks at a time before major competitions. The supplementary training just wasn’t there.

Charles (Blue) Allen, his previous Los Angeles-based trainer, “could only take me so far,” Whitaker said.

That fact was fairly obvious to U.S. coaches enamored with Whitaker’s potential but frustrated by his slow progression.

“We’d get him into camp and start going over some basic things that most boxers know, and he didn’t know them,” said Tom Mustin, the Pan American Games coach for the United States. “You just can’t get a kid like that ready in two weeks.”

Al Mitchell, the U.S. Olympic coach, said the changes in Whitaker were apparent even before his first Olympic Festival bout. “He’s so much more dedicated and better conditioned,” Mitchell said. “He seems like he has a purpose. Before he was walking around in a haze, like he was in limbo.”

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Whitaker guards closely his personal life, so the depths of his despair might never be known. He says only that reports of his need were exaggerated. But then he quickly adds, “Where I am now is so much better. It’s like night and day.”

Whitaker moves around like a nomad, but now lives more like royalty. He is eating good food, receiving top training and, when needed, getting a swift kick in the behind.

When he’s not playing drill sergeant during workouts, Brooks doubles as den mother for Whitaker and the other talented young heavyweights in Duva’s camp.

Leave dishes in the sink and they might be thrown at you. Leave boxing equipment strewn on the floor and risk having it tied in knots. “It’s the beginning of a whole new life for Lance now,” Duva said. “All of a sudden he’s got a whole new family.”

In the past few months, Whitaker has trained in Lake Tahoe, Reno, Flint, Mich., Houston, San Antonio and Atlanta. Brooks was in Whitaker’s corner during the Olympic Festival with Duva and Courage Tshabalala, a promising young heavyweight, watching from ringside.

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Tshabalala, from South Africa, has won his first 11 pro fights by knockout. He is one of Whitaker’s regular sparring partners. And what did he think of his stablemate’s gold medal winning performance? “A good punch,” Tshabalala said. “A very, very good punch. When he hits you, you know it.”

Or, in Martin’s case, you know nothing. Martin, a 6-5, 220-pound national Golden Gloves champion from Miami, went down so fast that a follow-up left by Whitaker whizzed over his head as he crumpled to the canvas.

In the past, Whitaker relied almost solely on his size and strength, throwing punches seemingly without a game plan. At the Olympic Festival he showed far more mobility and, at times, a strong left jab.

Duva loves that jab, and, from ringside, he calls for it constantly.

The instructions certainly aren’t new, only the source.

“The difference when I tell him to jab is that he knows if he doesn’t he’s going to get hit in the head with a stool,” Duva said, laughing.

In the past, Whitaker carried a reputation for being lazy.

“I remember how hard it was to get him to run when I coached him in the Pan Ams,” Mustin said. “Here, he’s done extra running, even sprints, on his own.”

Brooks said being around other heavyweights serious about their careers is rubbing off.

“I’m more motivated,” Whitaker said. “These guys can take me up to another level.”

Whitaker visited Holyfield in Houston, where the former world heavyweight champion owns an impressive estate. “When Lance first met Evander in Houston and saw his mansion and looked at the $20,000 watch he was wearing, I think what he is capable of accomplishing started to sink in,” Brooks said.

“There’s so much money out there. What Holyfield has is peanuts compared to what this kid can make. You think Sonny Liston was a monster? This guy is twice the athlete he was.”

Whitaker can’t afford to pay Duva or Brooks, but theirs is a partnership which both parties expect to last past the Olympics.