Written by Kevin Baxter at LA Times.com
Boxing wasn’t invented in the U.S. But it may have been perfected there.
No country has won more world titles than the U.S., home to 13 current professional champions. Nor does any country have more Olympic boxing medals than the 111 won by the U.S.
But that second number hasn’t changed in eight years, which is where Billy Walsh comes in.
After the disastrous London Games, in which the U.S. failed to win a medal in the men’s competition for the first time in Olympic history, USA Boxing hired Walsh to turn things around. And so far it seems to be working with lightweight Carlos Balderas winning a unanimous decision Tuesday to join Nico Hernandez in the third round, giving the American men twice as many quarterfinalists in Rio as they had four years ago in England.
“Why am I here? Why am I the U.S. [coach]?” Walsh asked rhetorically. “Things weren’t going so well.”
Just as they weren’t going well for the Irish program when Walsh joined that team as a coach before the 2004 Games. That summer in Athens, Ireland was represented by one boxer — and he lost in the second round.
But over the next 12 years Walsh guided Irish fighters, male and female, to an unprecedented seven Olympic medals and more than 50 others in European and world championship events, making the country one of the premier boxing nations in the world.
“Success builds belief,” he said with a shrug.
And failure? Well, that builds the kind of dysfunction that had unsettled a once-dominant U.S. program. After winning six medals in Atlanta 20 years ago, the Americans won just seven more in the next four Games combined.
Swimmer Michael Phelps won more than three times as many by himself.
So Walsh was hired last winter to turn that around. A genial 53-year-old with a confidence that borders on cockiness, Walsh fought as a welterweight for Ireland in the 1988 Games, losing his only bout. He’s been much more successful as a coach, one who’s more likely to wrap his arms around his fighters in a warm, familial hug than to keep them at arm’s length, as previous U.S. coaches did.
To continue reading this article, click here.
