This Ex-Champion Fights AIDS Out of the Spotlight

Magic Johnson is back in the headlines. Refusing to let his HIV-positive condition cramp his style any longer, Johnson is running up and down the court for the Lakers again.

Heavyweight Tommy Morrison is also in the headlines. Having received a positive result on a test for HIV, which causes AIDS, just hours before a scheduled fight, Morrison has been telling his story to reporters from around the world.

And Paul Banke? Here’s a former World Boxing Council super bantamweight champion whose HIV has progressed to AIDS.

He has lost his career, and may eventually lose his life because of the disease. But there was no outcry for HIV testing for boxers after Banke’s condition was revealed last fall, as was the case with Morrison. There are no reporters waiting on Banke’s doorstep to tell his story. Larry King hasn’t called.

But Banke, a Venice resident, hasn’t lost his sense of humor.

“That’s just the heavyweights,” he said, when asked to compare his situation to that of Morrison. “They get a million dollars a fight. The little guys like me get a hundred thousand. The big guys get on TV. We don’t get the exposure. I’m used to it.”

Banke isn’t really angry about the publicity Johnson and Morrison have gotten. Just the opposite. He’s happy that people are finally getting the message about HIV and AIDS.

“You just don’t sit on your deathbed with this disease,” Banke said. “You go back out and do whatever you were doing, if you can. Magic is very inspirational. He has made it easier for me to open up about my condition. He is educating people. That’s what he is doing. He’s very healthy. And he will be healthy for a long time.”

Banke also thinks the Morrison case will help his sport in a way that his own did not.

“It will open people’s eyes in boxing,” Banke said. “We should have HIV testing for every state. You don’t want to fight somebody with this virus. That’s not right. I don’t want to put boxing down. It did so much for me. But to be honest, it is a high-risk sport.”

Like Morrison, Banke discovered he had the disease after taking a mandatory blood test in Nevada. But there, the similarity ends. Morrison’s test was part of the state’s prefight requirement. Banke’s was administered while he was in jail for a traffic violation.

Five weeks after Banke was told he was HIV-positive, another test revealed he had AIDS.

That was in August. And how is he doing today?

“I’m still healthy, thank you,” he said.

Banke’s T-cell count, which had dropped as low as 80, is at 90. A count of 800-1,200 is normal. Doctors normally prescribe medication when the level drops to 500. Banke, who weighed 126 pounds when he last fought in 1993, weighs 149.

“I’m working out with weights,” he said. “And I’m on new medication. My AIDS is in remission. It’s not growing and I have no symptoms.

“People are living longer with it. Who can say how long you can live with it, although it will kill you eventually unless they find a cure.

“I am not in denial. I shared needles and I did a lot of unprotected sex. It is nothing to brag about. AIDS is nothing to be proud of.”

Banke is currently devoting his time to a volunteer project to erect a memorial wall for AIDS victims. Once the cooler weather is gone, and with it the increased risk of sickness, Banke plans to get a job in construction.

Despite his positive attitude, Banke admits he was shaken up a few weeks ago when he attended the funeral of an AIDS victim, a woman he knew only as Karina.

“I kept telling her how good she looked when I would visit her,” Banke said. “But it was killing me inside. She was down to 80 pounds. She looked like a skeleton.

“That scared me. That was reality. The virus will get you if you don’t take care of yourself. I can be positive, but, in the back of my mind, I’m scared. It’s like when I fought for a world title. I had a positive attitude, but in the back of my mind, I was scared.”

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Crowning blow to King: Like everybody else in boxing, promoter Don King was shocked at Morrison’s positive test.

Morrison had just joined the King camp and was in line for a shot at former champion Mike Tyson, another King fighter, possibly by the end of the year.

But King had his own reasons for bringing Morrison into his organization. King is still smarting from what he sees as a racial undertone to the charges that he took Tyson away from promoter Bill Cayton.

“They said it was a case of a black guy going with the black guy,” King said.

King is black. Cayton, who also managed Morrison, is white.

“Here was the same story,” King said. “But this time, the guy leaving Cayton was not black, but white. Morrison is a white guy from mid-America. What were they going to say now, that I shanghaied the white guy?”

Boxing Notes

North American Boxing Organization welterweight champion Luis Ramon “Yory Boy” Campas (63-1, 56 knockouts) defends his title in a 12-round main event against Ray Collins (16-7-1, four knockouts) at the Forum on Monday in a show that begins at 7 p.m. In a featherweight bout on the card, Juan Manuel Marquez (13-1, 10 knockouts) will fight Ulises Chong (27-15-3, 16 knockouts). . . . Oscar De La Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez will begin an 11-day, 26-city tour to promote their June 7 Las Vegas title fight with an opening news conference Monday at the Olympic Auditorium. The public is invited to attend the 11 a.m. event free of charge. . . . All 7,600 seats at the Olympic have been sold for the closed-circuit showing of the De La Hoya-Chavez fight by a private company that plans on distributing the tickets to its customers. . . . Johnny Tapia, the World Boxing Organization’s junior-bantamweight champion, is going home. Tapia had moved from his home in Albuquerque to Big Bear in the middle of last year, partly to train and partly to get away from the trouble he seemed to get into in Albuquerque, including cocaine addiction and domestic violence. The 29-year-old Tapia (34-0-2, 20 knockouts), who says he will retire from boxing at the end of the year, will be in a drug-counseling and treatment program in Albuquerque, much like the one he participated in at Big Bear. . . . Manuel Castillo, who had been scheduled to fight Gabriel Ruelas at the Olympic Auditorium on March 13, has dropped out. Eduardo Perez (15-9-2, 13 knockouts) is the new opponent.

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Calendar

Monday--Luis Ramon “Yory Boy” Campas vs. Ray Collins, NABO welterweight title fight; Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Ulises Chong, featherweights, Forum, 7 p.m.