Underdogs Can Be Contenders in the Fight of Their Lives

At the last minute, I sprang for the Tyson-Holyfield fight on pay-per-view Saturday. As a fight fan from way back, I’ve seen most of the major fights on one screen or another but nearly passed up this one because of the $60 price tag and the decline of boxing in recent years.

But, ever the sucker, I ponied up.

The fight itself was entertaining enough. At the end, though--after the last punch had been thrown and the referee had dashed in to stop the pummeling and wave off the victor and, yes, even after promoter Don King’s last blubbering syllable had wafted out the ventilator shaft--the evening was illuminated all over again.

The light shining through came from deep inside Evander Holyfield. By stopping Mike Tyson in the 11th round, Holyfield already had upheld the sports world’s grandest tradition of the underdog coming through. But in his remarks at the post-fight press conference, Holyfield did even more.

In one eloquent verbal combination, he enlarged the fight to make it about much more than him beating Tyson. In fact, the new champ said, it had nothing to do with him beating Tyson.

Rather, it had everything to do with someone considered down-and-out not being down-and-out at all. It had to do with facing challenges, even fearsome ones, and not backing down.

Holyfield talked of an earlier fight--one he had lost--and how he told his son that he shouldn’t cry over his dad’s loss because he had done his best. There was no shame in losing, he told his son, if you’ve given it everything you have.

Boxing isn’t about winning or losing, he said. It’s about not fearing the challenge. It’s about sleeping well every night of your life because you’ve done your best. Holyfield made it sound as if he didn’t care if he were heavyweight champ or a day laborer.

Eventually, Holyfield brought it home. To street level. And that’s when the night came full circle.

“When challenges come up, you’ve got to face them,” Holyfield said. “That’s my message to the world. Face your challenges. That’s what I want to say to kids in the ghettos who say they can’t come up. You can.”

As words on paper, they sound like stuff we’ve heard before. But maybe because to my ear the champ sounded so impassioned and unrehearsed, what he said went way past homilies and cliches.

Whether by design or not, he framed one of the country’s most troublesome social questions: Is getting out of the poverty cycle, or of any unpleasant circumstance, an individual responsibility? Can a person, through will and determination, make it?

Would Holyfield’s words actually filter down to the streets and neighborhoods?

Yes, the words will carry, according to Anthony Sciacca, known as “T” at the Boys & Girls Club of La Habra-Brea, where he is operations director.

“I think his message was terrific, and our younger ones in particular will receive it or hear it,” Sciacca said. “I think any time someone like him overcomes something and states that it’s possible to do it, they [children] respond very well. At times, there’s no better spokesman than someone who becomes a hero to them.”

No, it cannot be a one-time thing, Sciacca said. Youngsters need reinforcement and other helpful influences. “I think teachers are great ones,” he said. “I think coaches are great ones. There’s no better ones than their own parents.”

Club members will see Holyfield’s remarks, Sciacca said. Or, they’ll be clipped out of a newspaper and displayed. There’ll probably be some slogan like, “If Holyfield can do it, so can you.”

“It’s not a hopeless thing,” Sciacca said of the youngsters’ economic disadvantages. “I know it’s so easy for many people to view it like that, and it would be misleading if I said there weren’t days when I go home and I’m down. But in every single one of them there’s definitely hope.”

Holyfield’s comments left me both uplifted and melancholy.

I want to believe leaving a ghetto is as simple as lifting yourself up by your bootstraps. Since we know some can do it, why not all?

Like his punches, Holyfield’s words have impact. He may be exactly right. But to me, too many things still militate against the prospect of people escaping poverty just through force of will. Things like family life, unequal educational opportunity, unequal access to jobs.

We can continue to argue those things at another time.

For today, even while acknowledging those realities, why not applaud a boxer, a man and a citizen who in two splendid moments--one inside the ring and the other outside--honored himself and gave all the other underdogs some real hope.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.