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The other 'Mike' Grant a rare breed in boxing world
Posted: Monday May 01, 2000 03:24 PM
By Nick Charles, CNNSI.com ARAPAHOE, N.C. -- At first, this boxer's tale sounds all too familiar. But Michael Grant's life hardly followed a conventional path from the south side of Chicago to stardom as a prizefighter. "I had like, two brothers that went to jail. I had those locos that was around. I had those guys that could do that crazy stuff. I had those guys that was in the gangs. I had those guys that was drinking on the corner. I had those guys that liked to rob. I knew those guys that liked to steal, knew those guys that liked to do every unlawful thing in the book. "People say I'm too nice to be a fighter," he said. "But who says you can't be too nice to be a fighter? Who says you got to be a certain way to be fighter?"
Grant is a paradox: A 250-pound heavyweight fighter with 22 knockouts in 31 fights who finds solace playing piano. He was literally a choir boy growing up, singing at the Holy Miracle Non Denominational Church. "I'm not like real, thuggish," says Grant. "And I know people like that. If there's any need to talk to someone like that I can. I grew up in that environment." Otha Grant remembers a time when her son was anything but a fighter. "He never was a fighter," she said. "He always was a coward. His sister had to fight for him. He would sometimes run off and leave his bookbag to keep from fighting."
Grant has always relished the spotlight. He blossomed into a three-sport star at Chicago's Harper High School. He was a right handed pitcher who drew attention from the Kansas City Royals, an imposing two-way player at tight end and defensive end on the football field and a front court force on the basketball court. Grant still gets fired up thinking about his varsity debut. "I had never been in the newspaper before," he recalled. "Sophomore year, they had an article two days later, 'Grant may be Harper's mystery,' something like that. Big story written down. I knew from that point I was gonna do something." Grant graduated in 1991 and went on to play football at Mount San Antonio College near Los Angeles. At 6-foot-7, he was a towering defensive end looking to leap to a major college program. But poor grades forced him to the sidelines. "I couldn't settle for that," Grant said. "I had to be active. I was too great of an athlete to sit down. And at the time I didn't have the patience to sit down." Grant soon found a new outlet for his energies when his future called out to him through the television set. "I watched a fight. (Riddick) Bowe and (Evander) Holyfield. I'm like, 'Damn, this is an interesting fight watching these guys fight for the first time. Oh, look at Riddick Bowe.' And Holyfield coming back with the heart. I'm like, 'Man, these are men right here. These are men.' I was like, 'Man, whew.' And Holyfield comes back in the 12th round and I was like, 'Oh my god.' I'm like, 'I could do that.'" Grant was 21 years old when he threw his first punch, an age considered ancient to begin a boxing career. He fought only 12 times as an amateur, but discovered in that brief span that there was nothing athletically to duplicate the rush of trying to conquer an opponent with his fists. "First fight, (I was) nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. [laughs] Just coming out of college. So I was like 265 (pounds). I was like strong as a bull. I could bench press high numbers. Over 350 (pounds). That's pretty strong as far as boxing. And all my punches were out of fear and nervousness." He won his first 11 bouts before losing in the Golden Gloves National Championships.
"They was touting him to go to the Olympics," says his trainer Don Turner. "I sat him down and said, 'Mike, forget about it. You're not gonna win the Olympics. You don't have enough experience.'" Despite his obvious physical stature and athletic ability, Grant's handlers brought him along slowly through the professional ranks. "The first 12 fights were on the road. Tennessee, little small shows and so forth. I've seen him under pressure enough, because he had no experience. And I had to see how he fared against guys with much more experience than him. That's how I knew I had a fighter." Grant retreated to his remote training camp in Arapahoe in the North Carolina mountains to prepare for the biggest challenge of his career. At 27 years old, just six years after lacing on gloves for the first time, he is one step away from the pinnacle of boxing. Now he will attempt to wrest the heavyweight title away from Lennox Lewis who has been boxing nearly as long as Grant's been alive. "Since that novice day, I've been fighting guys with more experience than I," says Grant. Does he ever think about what might have been had he pursued a career playing football, basketball or baseball with the Royals?
TO ADD A 'Page One' link to a t-1 tease use: Page One "I'd have been definitely on somebody's team," he states. "Some stadium, no question about it. Maybe it was meant for me to be in this position." He loves attention and there are few bigger stages than the one Michael Grant will be on in New York City where he hopes to defy the odds and put on a show that will make him the new heavyweight champion of the world.
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