HE’S STILL STANDING

Antonio Tarver had been down before-- as far down as the streets of West Orlando, Fla., could take him--so he knew he could get up.

But after coming back from a 5 1/2-year layoff from boxing and a hard bout with drugs, after missing out on the 1992 Olympics and patiently awaiting his chance for the Atlanta Games, after staging one of the most impressive runs in the history of American amateur boxing . . . after all that, on the eve of his long-awaited moment, Tarver was shocked that it would come down to getting back up again.

It did.

“You see how things happen with me?” Tarver said from his hotel room in Augusta, Ga., where the U.S. boxing team was holding its last pre-Olympic workouts.

Looking back on his eyebrow-raising fight June 17 with unheralded Russian Igor Dzagoev, the U.S. team’s last exhibition before the Games, Tarver laughed.

“Seems like something dramatic happens with me in everything I do,” Tarver said. “It’s always something--headgear flying off, guy’s T-shirt rips off. . . . It’s overwhelming when I look back.

“I get knocked down in my last bout before the Olympics? See what happens?”

Against a traveling Russian team in Miami, Tarver, the U.S. team’s gold-medal favorite--its only gold-medal favorite--and the top-ranked light-heavyweight in the world, floated through a listless first few minutes, then got clocked by a hard left hook to the chin at the end of the first round.

Tarver, eyes popping with surprise, lurched forward and crashed to the canvas. That, of course, left everyone in the Coconut Grove Convention Center thinking: Tarver, the most dominant amateur fighter the United States has brought into the Olympics in years, the captain of the Olympic team, gets bombed by a guy who isn’t even on the Russian Olympic team?

“Oh, gosh, like the whole place was silent when my son went down,” said Tarver’s mother, Gwendolyn. “I was shocked. But, when I saw that happen, that put me back into reality: ‘Hey, this is a boxing match, and your son can hit that ground like anybody else’s.’

“My heart started racing away, but it looked like to me it didn’t disturb him any, not like he was dazed at all. After I saw my son get up, that’s when he really started to fight.”

Beginning with the bell to start the second round, the 6-foot-2, long-armed Tarver suddenly turned it up to full speed, raking Dzagoev with classic, upright scoring shots, the kind that light up the scoring-system scoreboards.

Tarver, who was credited with only six scoring blows in the first round, machine-gunned Dzagoev, 16-3, in the second and cruised to a 31-11 victory.

“That was just a wake-up call,” Tarver’s trainer, Lou Harris, said of the knockdown. “I was glad to see it. He knows now, ‘Uh-oh, the deal is on.’

“These kinds of things are good. Especially now, just prior to the Olympics, it’s good to know, ‘Whoa, I’m still vulnerable. I’ve got to tighten up a whole lot. If I get caught with another left hand in a few weeks, I might not recover.’

“You can’t get hit in amateur boxing, man, because it falls on the referee. The guy might stop it, bang, you’re gone.”

And you know what Tarver thinks about all this? Maybe if he had gotten to this place earlier, maybe if he hadn’t run into all those obstacles, self-imposed and otherwise, maybe he wouldn’t have the perspective to handle the pressure at the highest levels.

Because that’s what Tarver is now, America’s No. 1 gun, at 27, an age when many top fighters are on their way down.

“I think more than anything, my age is an advantage,” Tarver said. “Like when I got knocked down, I didn’t lose my head. I knew where I was at. Maybe if it was somebody younger, he might have panicked.

“I think I’m always mentally in there and thinking. I think that’s my advantage--I try not to be overwhelmed by anything.”

The last time Tarver let himself be overwhelmed was almost a decade ago, when, after counting on getting a college scholarship in either basketball or football, he graduated from Boone High in Orlando with no scholarship and no prospects.

Though he had been successful in the junior-amateur ranks, he had quit boxing when he was 14 to pursue the other sports. And when the other sports failed to deliver him to college, he delivered himself into trouble.

His mother says Antonio, as a child, dreamed of being a top businessman or athlete. When it didn’t happen immediately and he had to take menial jobs, he hit a wall.

“I was a young guy, you’ve got to remember, and the temptation of drugs. . . . I’ve always lived with that,” Tarver said. “I live with that now.

“But, before then, I always had something going on in my life where I would say no and feel good about saying no. When I finished my last year of school, I started to feel the pressure of not having the type of job situation that I thought I deserved.

“I pretty much got into a whole self-pity thing and I blame myself. I’ve accepted responsibility for my fall and all that contributed to me making a bad decision. And then I wallowed in my guilt for a minute.”

After about half a year of what has been reported to be a cocaine addiction, and a 1990 drug arrest, Tarver was court-ordered into an Orlando drug program that cleaned up his life. And pointed him back into boxing.

His mother, for one, urged him to return to the sport that he had always been most comfortable in.

Gwendolyn Tarver said, “When everything fell through, I told him, ‘Hey, this is not the end of the world. What about the gift you were naturally born with?’ ”

The way back eventually led to the Frontline Outreach Boxing Club, run by Harris.

“He was lost,” Harris said. “He didn’t know which way to go, whether to box, play football, basketball or just hang on the corner with the guys. He was not certain until he stepped into this gym.

“I told him there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you go to the end, you might reach the light. And so far, this is what happened. He stayed the course.”

Said Tarver: “I picked myself up, brushed myself off and did what I had to do to get back to the person I knew I could be. And here I am.”

Except it wasn’t that easy. After only two years back in competitive boxing, Tarver was a candidate for the 1992 Olympic team but failed in the trials.

He was 23, far from wealthy and looking at a mediocre pro career.

Said Gwendolyn: “I said, ‘It’s like this, son: How bad do you want to have shot at a gold medal?’ He said, ‘Mama, more than anything.’

“Just turning pro without a medal or some kind of backing, it’s like nothing. He said, ‘You know what? I’m going to make that team for ’96.’ ”

Said Harris: “It was a hard decision we both made. But do you want to turn pro at 23 and be a gutter boy, or do you want to be pro at 27 with a gold medal?

“At one time he wanted to go pro, no doubt about that. Go out and make a couple bucks. The average 23-year-old wants to make money, you know that.”

By 1994, Tarver was one of the top-rated fighters in his weight class. Then he was beaten by Anthony Stewart in the U.S. championships, a loss he says spurred him to a glorious 1995 campaign.

In 1995, Tarver did what no U.S. amateur fighter had ever done: He won a U.S. national title, a Pan American Games gold medal and a world title.

“I wanted to really focus in on where I wanted to take my career,” he said. “I wanted to show people that I had everything it took to be in this situation. I didn’t want to just luck up and maybe win a close bout to get to the Olympics.

“I wanted to show my power and skills were at the top.”

Harris says Tarver’s maturity and patience have been factors in his rise on the international scene.

“Those young punks get beat up easy,” Harris said. “Guess what, we’re 27 years old. The other tough guys out there, guess what, they’re older too. But, when they run into us, we’re on the same footing with them. They’re running into a man now, not a teenage boy.”

So Tarver is a senior member of the young Olympic team and says he’s able to look back on his life and be satisfied. Where would he be if he had turned pro in 1992?

“I obviously made the right decision,” Tarver said. “What I want to let the rest of these boxers know, these guys who are 19, 20 years old, you have to realize that success in the pro game isn’t an automatic thing.

“Look at the team from ’92. How many have really succeeded? Four years later, most of these guys’ careers are over with. You don’t want to go down like that, just another boxer. Four years is nothing when I look back at it. Seems like yesterday.

“A lot of these guys have their heart set on the pro thing. But, with my age, I understand that unless you’re a gold medal winner, unless you have something extraordinarily special, it’s not quite that way.”

A few times at Augusta, Tarver said, he gathered the other fighters around him, and, without really meaning to, launched into motivational speeches.

“I can look back at my life and say, ‘Wow, if I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn’t change a thing,’ ” he said. “Maybe I wasn’t ready four years ago for this. Maybe it took the disappointments, the hurt and all that stuff that I went through to prepare me for this.

“Now, I feel that I’m not taking any of this for granted. And none of the other guys should, either. That’s what I’m telling them.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

U.S. Olympic Boxing Medalists

1904

* George Finnegan, flyweight, gold

* Miles Burke, flyweight, silver

* Oliver Kirk, bantamweight, gold

* George Finnegan, bantamweight, silver

* Oliver Kirk, featherweight, gold

* Frank Haller, featherweight, silver

* Harry Spanger, lightweight, gold

* James Eagan, lightweight, silver

* Russell Van Horn, lightweight, bronze

* Albert Young, welterweight, gold

* Harry Spanger, welterweight, silver

* Jack Eagan, welterweight, bronze

* Joseph Lydon, welterweight, bronze

* Charles Mayer, middleweight, gold

* Benjamin Spradley, middleweight, silver

* Samuel Berger, heavyweight, gold

* Charles Mayer, heavyweight, silver

* William M. Michaels, heavyweight, bronze

1920

* Frank Genaro, flyweight, gold

* Samuel Mosberg, lightweight, gold

* Frederick Colberg, welterweight, bronze

* Edward Eagan, light heavyweight, gold

1924

* Fidel LaBarba, flyweight, gold

* Raymond Fee, flyweight, bronze

* Salvatore Tripoli, bantamweight, silver

* Jackie Fields, featherweight, gold

* Joseph Salas, featherweight, silver

* Frederick Boylstein, lightweight, bronze

1928

* John Daley, bantamweight, silver

* Harold Devine, featherweight, bronze

* Stephen Halaiko, lightweight, silver

1932

* Louis Salica, flyweight, bronze

* Nathan Bor, lightweight, bronze

* Edward Flynn, welterweight, gold

* Carmen Barth, middleweight, gold

* Frederick Feary, heavyweight, bronze

1936

* Louis Daniel Lauria, flyweight, bronze

* Jack Wilson, bantamweight, silver

1948

* Horace Herring, welterweight, silver

1952

* Nathan Brooks, flyweight, gold

* Charles Adkins, light welterweight, gold

* Floyd Patterson, middleweight, gold

* Norvel Lee, light heavyweight, gold

* H. Edward Sanders, heavyweight, gold

1956

* Jose Torres, light middleweight, silver

* James Boyd, light heavyweight, gold

* Peter Rademacher, heavyweight, gold

1960

* Quincelon Daniels, light welterweight, bronze

* Wilbert McClure, light middleweight, gold

* Edward Crook, middleweight, gold

* Cassius Clay, light heavyweight, gold

1964

* Robert Carmody, flyweight, bronze

* Ronald Harris, lightweight, bronze

* Charles Brown, featherweight, bronze

* Joe Frazier, heavyweight, gold

1968

* Harlan Marbley, light flyweight, bronze

* Albert Robinson, featherweight, silver

* Ronald Harris lightweight, gold

* James Wallington, light welterweight, bronze

* John Baldwin, light middleweight, bronze

* Alfred Jones, middleweight, bronze

* George Foreman, heavyweight, gold

1972

* Ricardo Carrera, bantamweight, bronze

* Ray Seales, light welterweight, gold

* Jesse Valdez, welterweight, bronze

* Marvin Johnson, middleweight, bronze

1976

* Leo Randolph, flyweight, gold

* Charles Moone, bantamweight, silver

* Howard Davis, lightweight, gold

* Ray Leonard, light welterweight, gold

* Michael Spinks, middleweight, gold

* Leon Spinks, light heavyweight, gold

* Johnny Tate, heavyweight, bronze

1984

* Paul Gonzales, light flyweight, gold

* Steven McCrory, flyweight, gold

* Meldrick Taylor, featherweight, gold

* Pernell Whitaker, lightweight, gold

* Jerry Page, light welterweight, gold

* Mark Breland, welterweight, gold

* Frank Tate, light middleweight, gold

* Virgil Hill, middleweight, silver

* Evander Holyfield, light heavyweight, bronze

* Henry Tillman, heavyweight, gold

* Tyrell Biggs, super heavyweight, gold

1988

* Michael Carbajal, light flyweight, silver

* Kennedy McKinney, bantamweight, gold

* Romallis Ellis, lightweight, bronze

* Kenneth Gould, welterweight, bronze

* Roy Jones, light middleweight, silver

* Andrew Maynard, light heavyweight, gold

* Ray Mercer, heavyweight, gold

* Riddick Bowe, super heavyweight, silver

1992

* Timothy Austin, flyweight, bronze

* Oscar De La Hoya, lightweight, gold

* Chris Byrd, middleweight, silver