Becoming Holyfield by Evander Holyfield Page A

Angeles for the Games, I might as well have landed in Antarctica for all the attention that was paid to me. My teammates were some of the best-known names in amateur boxing and nobody had any idea who I was. A lot of people, including reporters, pronounced my name “Holly-field.” Sports journalists from all over the world buzzed around the other fighters and interviewed them every chance they got, but not a single reporter even said hello to me, not even the ones from Atlanta. Believe it or not, though, I was fine with that. I’d made the U.S. Olympic team and was happy to be a part of it.
    After I knocked out my first opponent, people started to pay some attention. When I knocked out my second opponent, they started asking questions about me. When I knocked out the third one, Howard Cosell held me up for the world to see and my life changed forever.
    But I still had to get through the semifinals…

CHAPTER 5
Olympiad
    Memorial Sports Arena—Los Angeles Olympic Games
August 10, 1984
    Down in the locker room with U.S. Olympic boxing coach Pat Nappy before the fight I tried to focus, but the sounds of the crowd upstairs were coming right through the heavy concrete walls and it was hard not to let some of that excitement get to me. Not to mention that I already had at least a bronze medal in hand.
    Most Olympic sports that have head-to-head matches, like volleyball and basketball, have a “playoff” for the two individuals or teams that lose their semifinal events, to determine who gets the bronze medal. It used to be that way in boxing, too, but in 1952 it was changed so that the two fighters who lose their semifinal bouts both get a bronze. Since I was already in the semifinals, a medal of some kind was a done deal. The idea that I was an Olympic medalist was so crazy wonderful that I had a tough time wrapping my mind around it and tried not to think about it now. I had work to do and needed to concentrate.
    â€œNot gonna be as tough as Okello,” Nappy was saying, referring to yesterday’s quarterfinal bout against Sylvanu Okello of Kenya, “but nobody who gets this far in the Olympics is a pushover.”
    I knew that, and wasn’t taking Kevin Barry, my next opponent, for granted. I never took anybody for granted, because I’d seen enough people get surprised when they took me for granted and I wasn’t about to make that mistake myself.
    But it was hard not to feel pretty confident, especially after my match against Okello. Howard Cosell interviewed me before the fight and I told him I was going to go hard at the Kenyan. Howard didn’t seem to like that. He thought Okello was hard to hurt and that trying to knock him out could backfire on me. He reminded me that the Kenyan had knocked his last opponent out. If I wasn’t super careful he could do the same to me.
    But I’d studied Okello’s fighting style. I told Cosell that I thought he was a really good counterpuncher, a guy who lets you take the first punch and then quickly comes back at you while you’re a little off balance. I left it at that—for all I knew Okello was watching me on television—but what I was thinking was, if he was going to let me keep getting the first punches in, I’d hit him so hard he wouldn’t be able to come back. By the time he figured out that his strategy wasn’t going to work with me, I’d have the advantage in the fight.
    Howard had taken a liking to me following our little misunderstanding at the PanAms, and after the official interview he pulled me off to the side. “You’re the sixth American in the quarterfinals today,” he said. “All the others won their bouts.” It was his way of telling me I had to hold up my end.
    He leaned toward me. “Now, listen,” he said with great seriousness. “This Okello is good. He’s better than the two guys you already fought and he’s better than whoever you’ll be