Ron Siler is the latest boxer to exit the Olympics showing all the flaws of the U.S. amateur system.
By GARY SHELTON
Published August 22, 2004
ATHENS - There was something familiar in Ron Siler's face Saturday.
Unfortunately, it was his opponent's fist.
Siler kept sliding around the ring, his eyes a little too wide, his jaw a little too slack, his hands a little too still. Every now and then, usually after Tulashboy Doniyorov would hit him, Siler would blink.
You have seen the look before. It is the desperate expression of someone unable to stop the feeling of leather exploding against his mouth. It is a beaten look of someone who cannot figure out a way to make the pain stop.
Ah, yes.
It is the face of American boxing.
Once again, it appears we are a nation that has lost its punch. We no longer step outside. We no longer make something of it. We no longer want to slap the chip off someone's shoulder. Say what you will about our politics or our foreign policy, when it comes to our boxers, we are a country of peaceniks.
Take Siler, the ex-con who was going to take home a gold medal. Hah. He lasted two rounds before Doniyorov, old Stone Hands from Uzbekistan, took his lunch money. For most of the fight, Siler seemed perfectly willing to stop it and join in the singing of Kumbaya. In the ring, he would not hurt a flyweight.
In the end, Siler was beaten 45-22.
Afterward, he said he was turning pro.
Oh.
Just wondering, Ron: Do you think Don King has your number? Or do you think he has Doniyorov's?
Not to pick on Siler, who has seen enough of that sort of thing lately. After all, he's only the latest in a conga line of fighters who didn't measure up.
It is happening again. The last few days, America's boxers have fought at a Tysonesque pace. Another Olympics, another disappointment, another sad scramble for answers as to why Americans woke up this morning with a bloody nose.
Once, it seemed, we were a nation with a good right hook. Not these days. America has won only two gold medals since the '88 Olympics, and one of those came in Atlanta when David Reed was far behind when he landed a wild punch in the late going.
Once, we were Rocky. These days, we are Peter McNeeley.
On the middle Saturday of the Olympics, as America's boxers were whittled to a quartet, coach Basheer Abdullah admitted that changes needed to be made in the U.S. system. That was nothing new. American boxing coaches always call for change, and all that changes is that a bunch of 20-year-olds are knocked down by older, more experienced opponents.
"We've got some work to do," Abdullah said. "Some changes have to be made. If they aren't, we're going to be right back in four years asking the same questions."
Where do you start? In a nation where young boxers dream of the kind of gold you put in a bank, not in a trophy case, how do you fight against the world? Take Cuba, for instance. The ultimate goal for a boxer in Cuba is to win as much as he can as long as he can on an amateur stage.
The result is that America's boxing teams are always young, always less experienced. They are less familiar with the international scoring system, and they are less familiar with their coaches.
Take the Siler fight. Before the match, Abdullah set up a plan where Siler was going to jab his opponent silly. Siler had other thoughts. All Abdullah could do was steam as he watched Siler lose.
"Maybe someday I'll come up with the answer," Abdullah said. "Right now, my only answer is poor execution by an athlete."
For Siler, it may turn into a decision he will regret for some time. More than any fighter here, Siler needed to have a good Olympics. Everyone knew that, even the judge who let him out of prison after nine months for assaulting someone with a hammer during a brawl. His attorneys argued that boxing would keep him out of trouble and out of gangs.
Siler, at 24, also has five children and a sixth on the way. In other words, he has a history of making bad decisions.
So what happens to him now?
When Siler sees the future, he thinks things are going to be swell. He sees himself a champion and a wise investor and a community leader and a wonderful father. Let's hope so.
On Saturday, however, hitting someone would have been a good idea.
It's odd. Siler and United States boxing seem to have much in common. The U.S. team, too, has made some poor choices. It, too, seems a little overwhelmed with what Olympic boxing has become. It, too, keeps talking about a better day.
Will it come? It's hard to see from here. Of the final four U.S. boxers, two have to face Cubans and another a world champion from Russia.
"Don't give up on us yet," Abdullah said. "I'm optimistic about our fighters who are left."
Yet, Abdullah knows it is not enough. If America is ever to be a dominant force in amateur boxing again, changes must be made.
Abdullah would like to see a national coach. He would like changes implemented in juniors that would help older fighters. He would like more fights against the Europeans that would bring more familiarity with the scoring system.
That way, maybe a coach wouldn't have to watch while a fighter ignored his advice and lost by 23 points.
"It tears you apart," Abdullah said. "I need to sit with a sports psychologist."
