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Games of life

For 11 of his 18 years, Keith Thurman has had one goal: the Olympics.

By JOHN COTEY
Published August 18, 2007

Keith Thurman, an amateur sparring with professional boxer Derrick Samuels, is in Houston preparing for next week's U.S. Trials, wher ehe hopes to qualify for the 2008 Olympics.
	[Willie J. Allen Jr. | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Jim Damaske | Times (2000)] Keith Thurman practices in January 2000, at age 11. Related links Photo gallery: Keith Thurman's lifelong dream

The boy, 7, walks down the hall with his mother, past a row of lockers, until they find what they are looking for.

A man - short, thick and graying - listens to the mother, looks back at the boy.

He wants to box, she tells him. Can you help him?

"Put your hands up. Show me your stance," the man says, and the boy does.

The man nods approvingly.

"Throw a left jab," the man says, and he does.

Psssh.

The punch is quick, straight, sharp.

Perfect.

"Let's get him in the gym," the man says.

That night, the boy begins to dream. In it, he is winning, and crowds are cheering, and there is a gold medal around his neck.

- - -

The boy is now all grown up. He's 18. His name is Keith Thurman, and he is in Houston getting ready for next week, when he takes his final steps toward fulfilling a lifelong ambition of making the U.S. Olympic boxing team.

"It's going to be tough," he said. "It's been a long journey. It's been lots of hard training the past few years. It all leads up to this. It all comes down to this one tournament."

As former Olympians such as Mark Breland and Evander Holyfield look on, the Clearwater prodigy is raining punches down on bigger, older fighters during his final preparation.

Like longtime coach Ben Getty that day 11 years ago at Belleair Elementary, Breland and Holyfield nod approvingly.

Like Getty, they want to see more of the left jab.

"Keith has two things going for him. He's strong, and his style is frustrating," said Breland, who won a gold medal in 1984.

Thurman, he adds, reminds him of a young, relentless Roberto Duran.

"He's going to be a good pro," Breland says.

First, Thurman wants to be a great amateur, and that means making the Olympic team.

To get here, Thurman had to give up practically everything. He has spent months away from his family. Surrendered his childhood to afternoons of training. Left high school. Traveled the country for tournaments.

What he needed to learn, he learned at the Ross Norton Recreation Center, during simmering summer mornings at the St. Pete Boxing Club sparring with world champions such as Winky Wright, Jeff Lacy and Chad Dawson or talking with his father.

"Junior never had a chance to be a normal teenager. He's put so much into boxing," Keith Sr., his father, said. "I'm proud of his commitment to the sport. He kept his focus, and the boxing helped him out with that. And Ben's done a great job with him."

Keith Sr. says that on the streets in their neighborhoods, kids look up to his son. They see how he decided to do something and did it. How he has steered clear of the trouble that has claimed many of his friends.

Sometimes, the kids will tell him, we want to be just like you.

"You're only here for a minute, and you try to make a difference in that time," Keith Sr. said. "I think Junior understands that."

- - -

Getty, a former Army paratrooper and boxing coach who did a tour in Vietnam and at the renowned Kronk Gym in Detroit, has been Thurman's trainer since the beginning. He has twice taken fighters to the Olympic Trials, unsuccessfully in 1984 and successfully in '88, when Kenneth Gould went all the way to the Olympics and won bronze.

But Thurman is his greatest find.

"I've never had anyone with that ungodly punching power," Getty said. "And he's obsessed. This is his dream. He's being wined and dined by promoters who want to make him a pro, and he's unfazed."

There is little doubt Thurman has the skill and style to be fighting for money and titles. He is an anomaly in the amateur game - even with headgear on, if he touches you on your chin, down you go.

Promoters are drooling and eager to sign him. Top Rank recently invited him to train in Las Vegas. When he turned 18 last year, six-figure signing bonuses were waved in his face.

"But I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm going to accomplish this first," Thurman said. "I see my dream coming true. Why would I back away from that now?"

Whether he succeeds or not in Houston, Keith Sr. said his son already has proved himself golden by surviving 11 years in the ring, the last four in heavy training, for a chance to be one of only eight 152-pound fighters in the United States to have a chance to represent his country.

"I'm still finding it hard to believe he's 18. I'm getting over that," he said, laughing. "I mean, he pulls up in his car, and I'm like, 'That's my little boy.' Time has just gone by."

- - -

Thurman, 91-11 as an amateur and ranked No. 3 in the United States, is one of the favorites to win at the Trials, but he fights in one of the hardest divisions. Two-time national champion Demetrius Andrade will be there, as will Charles Hatley, who recently beat Thurman at nationals.

But Thurman also has wins over both fighters and believes he can beat anyone. He says this as fact, in a deep, monotone voice that has become as much his signature as his ponytail and powerful right hand.

He's no more excited than the guy leaving for the office in the morning or heading off to drive a bus all day.

"It's my life. It's not like a raffle," Thurman says. "I'm not like, 'Oh my God, I'm here!' This is what I do."

And the next morning, he returns to the gym, his dream a day closer, the one where he is winning, and crowds are cheering, and there is a gold medal around his neck.

John C. Cotey can be reached at 813 909-4612 or johncotey@gmail.com

[Last modified August 17, 2007, 23:12:51]