(Written by Chris LaFay)
I was a boxer in the United States Army. I fought welterweight, 147lbs. We fought three, three minutes rounds. The gloves and the trunks sported the company logo Everlast. The headgear we wore was only a leather strip around our head and leather earmuffs. We fought with 8oz. gloves with no tape on our knuckles, only over our wrists—a far cry from today’s fighters, they wear headgear that looks like space helmets and they fight with bigger gloves. Wimps.
I won my first three fights in the sub-novice division. I graduated to the open class. That’s when my troubles began. No one told me I was going to fight the man who had just been named all army champ.
From round one his ruby-red gloves pounded out an unmistakable beat against my head. I wasn’t marching to a different drummer I was the drum. A cut opened over my left eye as a Rorschach test pattern of rich red blood bespattered my silver and black trunks. The bell rang. End of round one.
I went back to my corner. My trainer poured water over my head and put a Q-Tip with some coagulant on it and held it against my cut. I still wear the scar to this very day. Then he smeared Vaseline over my cut and face. I was told to stay away and jab.
“Everything works off of the jab, so use it.”
The bell rang for round two. It was more of the same. I guess the ref could have stopped the fight, but it was only round two. He asked me if I had enough? I nodded no. I had some will and guts left. The bell rang to end round two. I slowly walked back to my corner bleeding from the nose and the eye cut was reopened.
“Son, you gotta throw more punches. I think I want this fight more than you do. Want me to throw in the towel?” my trainer asked.
“No way, I said,”
The ref came to the corner.
“Want to continue?”
“Yes. I got to last out the three rounds. It’s a matter of pride,” I said.
The bell rings for round three, the final round. We walk to the center of the ring and touch gloves. About the only gloves that touched this boxing machine all night. He continues his assault on my face and body.
How easy it would be to quit, to take a knee and this nightmare would be over.
But then I think to myself, this isn’t just a fight between two men this is a fight about who I am and what I stand for. To quit, I’d be quitting on myself. It wasn’t a macho thing it was my self-esteem on the line. I had to last for three more minutes.
I duck my head and charge into my tormentor like a raging bull. He throws an uppercut that hits my chest that makes it feel like my heart stopped. Head still down, trying to salvage some desperate glory, I see an elastic band on his pristine trucks.
In a small rectangle I read the black logo letters of the company name, Everlast, and I will. The bell mercifully rings. Of course he wins by a decision. But he couldn’t get me off of my feet, a moral victory, and a win for me. “My head is bloody, but unbowed.” I faced a superior force and remained standing. Ironically, it was my opponent that showed me the sign, a shibboleth that gave me the courage to never quit.
Perhaps knowledge can sometimes be born from pain.
Today that all seems like a lifetime ago, but even now when things are looking rough and the world’s beating up on me, as it can in so many ways, I ask myself: “How can I ever last?” I think, for only a split second, how easy it would be to take a knee, lie down and quit. Then I recall another dark and testing moment from my past. And I thank my adversary for the valuable lesson losing taught me—how to win. Slowly I say the word to myself, Everlast. Now aloud I sing out my battle cry of today and long ago, EVERLAST.
Suddenly, anything and everything standing in front of me, while yet formidable, somehow seems a little more manageable. And I charge once again, like a raging bull, straight ahead into my tormentor, knowing I’ll never quit.
