SECOND CHANCE AT GREATNESS (2024)

(ran PC edition of Pasco Times)

Antonio Tarver has shown his life to be one fight after another, as he prepares for his next step into boxing greatness.

Every day, Tony Tarver prepares for the fight of his life.

Typically, he starts his morning with a run, anywhere from three to six miles, through the quiet streets of his Carrollwood neighborhood.

Then it's off to Calta's Fitness Center where he spends at least two hours honing his body and his mind, remaking himself more and more into the image of a champion.

Tarver is all about being a champion. As an amateur, he dominated the light heavyweight division. In 1995, at the U.S. Championships, Pan American Games and the World Championships, it was Tarver's sinewy arm raised in victory. That year he became the first boxer in U.S. history to capture the gold at all three events.

The next year, Tarver went to the Olympic Games in Atlanta with the whole world expecting him to come home wearing a gold medal around his neck. But something happened on Tarver's bid for greatness. He got beat.

Now, Tarver has joined the professional ranks and he is on a mission.

"A second chance at greatness," Tarver says. That's what he wants now, almost more than anything in this world.

The fight of Tarver's life is always the next one. He is ranked by the International Boxing Federation as the No. 1 contender for a shot at the title, currently held by Roy Jones Jr., a man Tarver fought as a 13-year-old Golden Gloves competitor.

He has fought 14 times as a professional and never lost. Twelve of his opponents lost to him because Tarver hit them so hard and so often they lost consciousness.

Tarver will fight again in September against top-10 ranked boxer Mohammed Sulivanji of France. In Las Vegas. Pay-per-view. On the golden road to what his trainer and mentor Jimmy Williams calls "the mountain top."

Tarver works at his craft, the art of boxing, until the sweat drips off him like rain on a freshly-waxed car hood. Normally a quiet, introspective man, he gets pumped during the vigorous workouts as he considers the future in his gloved hands.

"The boxing world will get a rude awakening," Tarver hollers, his confidence rising. "They got their eyes wide open, but they can't see. When I beat one of their so-called golden boys . . ." And here he stops still in the ring holding his hands high above his head, the way the referee holds them when he beats another man. "Then I'm gonna get my justice."

Is this Tarver's quest for redemption? Not entirely. Redemption relies too heavily on the wrongs of the past. And to Tarver, the subject at hand is the here and now.

"I'm training for Roy Jones," he says, in between pummeling the huge pads on trainer Williams' hands. "Every damn thing I do is for Roy Jones. By September we're gonna be sharp as a Gillette Blue Blade. I'm gonna be a needle and thread with gloves on."

This is a mission shared by the two men in the ring - Tarver, the young man with the hard, flashing hands; and Williams, the wise older man whose every word of advice becomes a part of Tarver's being.

Williams, 72, is as much as much Zen psychologist as boxing trainer. When he speaks from his 50 years of experience in the fight game, Tarver tunes in like a man holding five out of six lotto numbers.

"You have your valleys and your peaks," Williams tells a visitor. "You live in the valley because you ain't about pain. To get to the mountain top, like a monk where you're nearer to God, you have to give up all the things that you love. Where you're going, you need all that energy to come out through your fist. You can't make no mistakes."

Tough love and good amateur boxers

Antonio Deon Tarver was born in Orlando on Nov. 21, 1968. Abandoned by his father, Tarver's mother, Gwendolyn, raised Tony and his three sisters on tough love.

"As a kid coming up, unfortunately having a father around was an experience I didn't have," Tarver says. "My father wasn't there and my mother had to play that role. She was tough and raised us with a lot of love and a lot of morals."

Tarver's second home in inner-city Orlando was the local Boys Club, where he first put on boxing gloves at age 10. In 1979, after less than a year of boxing, Tarver was Florida Olympic Junior champion. That's also when he met Williams, who worked with kids at the club teaching them about boxing.

"I had a lot of kids," Williams says. "You save some and you lose some. Tony was one of the guys who was saved from the streets."

But just barely.

When he was 14, Tarver's family moved to south Orlando, 25 miles away from the gym where Tarver had trained. For a teen-ager with no means of getting around, the move virtually ended Tarver's boxing career right there.

So he focused on basketball and football with the hope of landing an athletic scholarship. But when Tarver graduated from Boone High School in 1988 - the same year he fathered a child, Antonio Jr. _ there were no scholarships.

Tarver settled for a job cooking at a Holiday Inn. Then he did something no boxer worth his weight class would ever do _ Tarver lost his focus. He dropped his guard.

After years of being stronger than the streets, Tarver succumbed to drugs.

"At that time I was so confused," says Tarver, who speaks openly about his past but doesn't belabor it. "Just for that one instant, I made the wrong decision. I got caught up. But when I look back, I think that was the best thing that happened to me. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be as dedicated and committed to Antonio Tarver."

Elusive in the ring, Tarver does not duck the issue of his 1990 arrest on drug charges and his decision to enter a rehab program to avoid a criminal record. Through that process he 12-stepped his way back into world-beating form.

Tarver had been inspired to return to boxing when he saw his old adversary, Roy Jones, boxing for the gold medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. If Jones could do it, Tarver thought, so could he.

By 1993 he had won his first U.S. Championship and was on the road to the Olympic games.

In the 1996 games, "I was heralded going into the Olympics as pretty much a shoe-in for the gold," Tarver said. "But it was bittersweet as far as the outcome."

In Tarver's first fight, a narrow victory, the partisan crowds prone to chanting, "U-S-A!" booed him. His coach termed his performance "lousy."

In the semi-finals, Tarver lost to a fighter from Kazakstan. Kazakstan.

Settling for the bronze medal, Tarver suffered the indignity of hearing his coach, Lou Harris, bad-mouth him in news conferences. Tarver held his tongue, determined not to embarrass himself or his family on the world's stage.

"A lot of things were going on inside my circle with teammates, coaches and the like," Tarver says. "It affected me mentally and it drained me emotionally. When it came time to fight, I already felt beaten."

Training with a throwback

"He should've won the Olympics," Williams says. "If I was with him in Atlanta, he would've won the championship. He got caught up in the hoopla in Atlanta. He lost sight of why he was there."

Tarver turned pro in early 1997 and moved his base of operations from Orlando to Carrollwood to align himself again with Williams. He is the only man Tarver trusts with his championship aspirations.

"Jimmy's a legend in the game," Tarver says. "He's a classic, a throwback to the old days."

Williams has trained champs before, including John "The Beast" Mugabi and Lloyd Honeyghan. And Tarver wants to join that list. It rankles him that three of his Olympic teammates _ Floyd Mayweather, David Reid and Fernando Vargas _ have won championships.

"All those guys used to carry Tony's bag," Williams says. "And now they're world champions. This guy is the most underrated fighter there is. He's the best kept secret there is."

Hoping to change that, Williams is employing an unorthodox training style that draws on his experience as a dancer and golfer and New Age-style philosophy.

"It's the inner man that I deal with," Williams says. "I want to know what you bring, what's inside you. Your intelligence, your guts, your determination, your heart. If you've got guts and heart, I can teach you."

The other asset Tarver already has, the one thing that Williams couldn't teach even if he wanted to, is his pursuit of perfection.

Unlike many fighters, Tarver never dons the mask of animal ferocity when he's fighting. His expression remains remarkably placid considering the noisy havoc he wreaks with his fists.

Even when he's pounding away with strenuous uppercuts, his eyes are still and bright, his brow furrowed as if he wants to ask a question.

"A lot of people think boxers are mean, angry, very aggressive type individuals," Tarver says. "But that is so far from the truth. Sure, you have to have an attitude. We're in the hurting business. But I don't have anger. I consider myself a beautiful person inside and out. When I box, this is my craft, my art. And I'm trying to to perfect it."

"Show it to him!"

This is how Tarver perfects his art, how he prepares for the fight of his life:

Williams ties a clothesline from one ring post to another; then a second line, dividing the ring into equal triangles. Tarver begins bobbing and weaving, his menacing hands dancing in a flurry before his face.

Light on his feet, he bounces and ducks his head under the line, one, two, three times before coming up with a series of jabs, hooks and crossing blows as he attacks his invisible opponent.

Later, with the lines down, Williams gets into the ring wearing large pads on his hands. They're bigger than oven mitts, smaller than sofa cushions. Tarver's fists explode into the padding, punctuated by the sound of his effort. "Hah-hah-bing-pop," Williams says, admiring the combination. "There you go. Hey, there you go. Show it to him. Anticipate him."

An electronic timer keeps track of each three-minute round, a horn sounding the rest period. Tarver drops his hands and, despite his exertion, isn't out of breath as he states his case for a shot at the title.

"I ain't never heard of no Mohammed Benjami or whatever his name is," Tarver says. "He's gonna need to bring a pocket knife with him. There's too much at stake. He's in the way. If I don't beat him, I'll never see Roy Jones. But I'll tell you what. I wouldn't want to fight me for nothing."

Then, laughing at the idea of facing himself in the ring, Tarver raises his right fist and says, "I'd hate to be on the receiving end of this."

Williams says boxing is all about balance, physical and mental. He teaches his boxers dance techniques to achieve physical balance. For mental balance, he teaches them how to play golf.

Tarver also works on balance in his home life. Away from the ring and the golf course, he most enjoys spending time with his 11-year-old son, Little Tony. He shares custody with the child's mother, who lives in Daytona Beach.

For all of his triumphs in boxing, Tarver treasures the title "father" more than any championship.

"My best moment was watching my son come into this world," Tarver says. "Making that commitment to him since day one. My son in the best thing that ever happened to me."

When Little Tony is in town, Tarver often takes him and his girlfriend's son on a whirlwind tour of Carrollwood. He takes them to Malibu Grand Prix to race cars and play miniature golf. Then it's Red Lobster for lunch, followed by a shopping trip that usually includes Pokemon paraphernalia.

"And we play a lot of Playstation," he says.

For Tarver, it's a chance to break away from his all-consuming boxing mission. It provides that balance that Williams demands as he prepares to face Roy Jones for that "second chance at greatness."

"The Olympics were a tough experience for me," he says. "But I'm strong. I'm a warrior. I won't be defeated by anything. I will continue to push on until I get to the so-called promised land. I will follow my dream and believe in myself. That's how I live my life."