Saturday, September 30, 2000
Williams wants gold for family
SYDNEY, Australia — He will do it for others. Fighters usually do. They fight for their mothers and fathers and coaches and the neighborhood. They fight for the light at the end of the tunnel. They fight so their children won't have to.
Ricardo Williams Jr., of Taft High and the West End, fights for an Olympic gold medal tonight. And for his mother's soul food, his father's devotion and his 7-month-old child, whose picture adorns his boxing shoes.
Getting hit for a living is so brutal, the reasons for doing it have to be deep and wide.
“I just want to see my whole family happy after it's all over with,” Mr. Williams said Friday night, after he won a fight for the ages against a Cuban named Diogenes Luna.
There are times in the ring when Williams can dance and flash the hand speed that has made him a world-class fighter at age 19. Then there are times like Friday night, when the ballet is useless and all that matters is the fists.
Luna stood and slugged.
“I tried to counter-punch over his right hand and he wasn't there. Then he came back and hit me. From then on, it was a toe-to-toe bout,” Williams said.
During their eight minutes together, Williams got to know Luna much better than he ever thought he would. There was no slipping, no strategy. Only leather. Five judges score an Olympic fight. Each works a button connected to a computer. For a punch to count as a point, at least three judges must hit the button. Lord knows how they scored this fight. Maybe they got to 83 punches, total, and their index fingers flew off.
Luna led 12-10 after Round 1, 25-19 after Round 2. Williams threw a leather storm in Round 3. He scored 16 times. Talented, Cuban and desperate by birth, Luna rallied. It was 40-40 with about 30 seconds left. Williams scored with a combination: 42-40.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his father in the crowd. “Stick and move!” Ricardo Sr. yelled. So for the last 10 seconds, Junior danced, doing all he could to avoid Luna's gloves.
“I took a deep breath and put on my track shoes. I could've beat Michael Johnson, the way I was running,” he said.
When it was over, a 42-41 win secured, Williams' body was shaking from the effort. Then he began laughing.
“I'm in the finals. This is the fight I've been waiting for my whole life,” he thought.
Back home, Ricardo Williams III was sleeping with his mother, Sherise Booth, Williams' live-in girlfriend. The phone rang, but it didn't wake Sherise. Williams left a message: “We did it again. We're going to the finals.”
His dad took him to the gym when he was 6. He had his first fight a year later, at Findlay Street Neighborhood House. It was a three-round draw against a kid 15 pounds heavier. “Right then, my dad knew I had it,” Williams said.
His father has coached him the whole way. He missed just one fight, last year, when his employer wouldn't give him time off to attend the world championship in Houston.
It was the only fight his son has lost in a long time. The man who beat him, Mahamadkadyz Abdullaev of Uzbekistan, is his opponent tonight.
Ricardo Williams will bring three generations of his family into the ring. He'll fight for others. Fighters usually do.
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