Roy Jones Jr. :: essays research papers

Roy Jones Jr. was born on January 16, 1969 in Pensacola Florida. Unlikeother disgraceful boxers Roy developed his boxing skills on a hog farm in a hamletcalled Barth, outside Pensacola, when many others developed there&8217s in thecity ghettoes. He was the oldest of five. He had three sisters and onr brother.Roy&8217s father Roy elder said that he is the one who sparked Roy Jr.interest in boxing, by play sparring with him when he was only five. Roy Sr.said, &8220I&8217d let him pounch me in the head. When I pounched him, he&8217d getmad and mellow off and cry. Then he&8217d come back and want to do more. Whenwe&8217d finish I let him get the best of me. Roy Sr. was also a formermiddleweight competitor. Roy&8217s dad made Roy Jr. to fight a 14 yr. old whenRoy himself was only 10. The boy out weighed him by 16 lbs. The training facilities weren&8217t to Roy Sr.&8217s standard so he constructedhis own ring in a pasture and fmade a punching wallet with scrap materials. Local kids wat ched as Roy&8217s father taught him the fundamentals of boxing. Soon they got interested and a boxing club was formed. Roy Sr. used hisown bullion to buy boxing equipment and at one point sold the family&8217stractor to finance the boxing club. This wasn&8217t enough though because hehad to ask others that he knew for money to take the kids to boxingtournaments in neighboring states. The only form of transportation was anold rickety van, which doors were held with metal wire.By the time Roy was 19 he had a amatuer record of 106-4 and becamethe yungest member of the 1988 U.S. Olympic boxing team. In public theteam teased Roy but when in the private they asked him for advice. Theysaw how he dominate his opponents with cobonations from many differentangles. Everyone thought that he would deffinetly win gold in the 156 lbsweight class. Like everyone thought he reached the final round. Hisopponent was the South Korean Park Si Hun. When the fight was overPark&8217s face was beaten while Roy&8217s face seemed untouched. The crowd andthe Journalist at ringside all thought that Roy had unanamously won the fight,because Roy also had two standing eight counts along with everything else.