Oscar De La Hoya

Oscar De La Hoya Longs for the Golden Days

by Naadu Blankson-Seck

Oscar de la HoyaWhen I was growing up boxing was known as a poor man’s sport. Whoever had aspirations of becoming a world champion did so because they wanted to get their family out of the neighborhood to better their lives and get out of their humble beginnings. Golf is a bit more of an expensive sport; the image I had when I was growing up was that it was a rich man’s sport, where only people with money could play. Now, we have golf courses all over the world where you can play for a reasonable amount.”

Cost parity notwithstanding, Oscar de la Hoya does not need to scan the dailies for fee specials at the local muni to pick up a foursome. Some eight years after his older brother Joel introduced him to golf, he is now host of an annual tournament, which was held this year at the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes. “It’s a game that is a lot of fun to me. I don’t find it frustrating because I don’t go out to play like a pro, and I don’t practice to be on tour. I go and have fun. I am never going to shoot a 65, and I am not [aiming] for it.”

More than a decade after his personal public triumph in the 1992 Olympics, the golden boy of boxing does have an aim. “I founded Golden Boy Promotions to revolutionize the sport from fighters to promoters and managers. Boxing is one of the most recognizable sports in the world; [in the days of] Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis it was a very globally respected sport.” In the wake of those men, things have taken a different turn as boxers strong in the ring and weak in the head have made woefully bad decisions right in the center of public attention. “The baseball and football leagues have taken their sports to another level, but boxing is still frozen in time. We need somebody to change that by saying enough is enough. I think with Golden Boy one of the things we are doing is being really transparent with our fighters and that’s where it starts. As every day passes and we see the people we are teaming up with, I feel very confident that we can bring boxing back to where it was.”

“Boxing was so popular when Sugar Ray Leonard was on network television. People would recognize boxers as global athletes, as it was in the days of the Rocky Marcianos and the Jack Dempseys; now people don’t want to touch the sport because it is corrupt. Changing that perception will be difficult, but not impossible. The majority of people involved with boxing don’t want to see it change, but we have a team of people who are very professional. We are going in the right direction, but it is not going to take a day, or week, or year—it will take some time. Our approach is like shaking a tree. All the bad apples are going to fall and some others will be nice and good enough to eat.”

Some 25 years ago in East L.A., Joel Felix De La Hoya Sr., an amateur boxer and semi-professional baseball player, goaded his sons to develop their stance and arm power. He remembers taking his sons to a gym named after Eduardo Eredia, a local youth who died of leukemia. “Oscar started training before he was seven years old and the director noticed that he was learning better than everyone else so they decided to let young Oscar have an exhibition match.” “Oscar was nervous and wanted to meet the other boxer—you know how it is when they are little—and they started playing. I told him to stop playing because he would be too tired, so we let the other boy run around.”

“They didn’t even go one round. They stopped it because he hurt that little boy. I had always told him to give 110%, not just 100%. I told him ‘Yes they’re going to hit, but make sure you hit harder.’ He was very happy because they were taking pictures with the big camera and at that point he asked ‘When am I going to fight the next fight?’ Oscar was ready to go the next day but I told him to take a week to recuperate.”

Chatting casually from somewhere between the 15th and 16th holes at the South Hills Country Club in West Covina—where he says “certain privileges” allow him cell phone use—Joel (who is not a Jr. because of another brother named after dad) is uninhibited in his admiration for his younger brother. “We grew up surrounded by different gang members and we were smack in the middle of everything—you always heard helicopters flying around and the cops were always there.”

“Boxing kept us from all of that. My father didn’t want us to get into trouble, so he definitely kept us busy. Our parents did a great job. It was not easy where we grew up, but they absolutely kept us from all that and then some. The benefits have been hundred-fold, and for Oscar it was history. Every 10 to 15 years you get a superstar; we had Oscar, and before that we had Sugar Ray Leonard.”

“When you get two guys in the ring, people don’t understand that it is more of an art form—like dance or a painter painting on a canvas. It takes discipline, dedication, and passion to be up there and there’s only a handful of guys in that upper echelon We got lucky with Oscar and are very proud of him.”

Early on, it was Joel that the boys’ uncles and father thought would be in the ring for the long haul. “I started [boxing] at the age of nine or 10, and Oscar followed me to the gym. I probably went at it till I was 15. My father said some coaches and my uncles all [felt I had potential], but you don’t really see it in yourself. I got into baseball because I didn’t like getting hit, and there was too much discipline needed for boxing. We used to train at the house, but we didn’t have any mitts so my dad used to put up his hands. After a while we got a little older and it started to hurt so he had to stop.”

Joel Sr. says when Oscar was 16 and winning junior boxing championships he “felt like a peacock. I felt my son had the aptitude, diligence, force, and ability to continue fighting,” and fight he did. His pre- and post- Olympic paths have been peppered with trainers and the like with less than honorable intentions, but he did manage to maintain a rather impressive knockout record that some consider one of the best going.

Beyond efforts to bring aspiring champions into a reformed boxing world, Golden Boy Promotions has recently teamed with Highridge Partners, an international real estate firm, to make an investment of $100 million to develop housing, retail, and entertainment options in urban Latino communities. In the meantime, rumors that Oscar plans to retire are not totally unsubstantiated. According to Joel Sr., “He wants to fight one more time and then retire”.—And then there is his deepening appreciation of golf, which Joel says Oscar picked up quickly and became addicted soon after his brother introduced him to the game. Whether he hangs his gloves next week or next year, the indelible image of the Mexican-American boy who few thought would win carrying an American and Mexican flag in victory will live on into glory.