Lamont Peterson: Still fighting, in the ring and out

This was the framework for a young, directionless life, washing car windows at busy intersections to earn money legitimately, picking pockets to earn money illicitly, ending up in foster care, starting school in second grade because no one made them go any earlier.

“I didn’t like grown-ups at all,” Lamont said. “At all. Didn’t get along with ’em. Always had altercations with ’em. I was a man. Took care of myself. No one ever told me to go clean your room — or go clean yourself. Homework? Go to school? Nobody told me anything. I did what I wanted to do.”

Video

Professional boxer Lamont Peterson grew up on the streets of Washington D.C. and in foster care as a child. On Dec. 10, he'll fight for a world title.

For a time, the Peterson boys — prepubescent men — hung out in Columbia Heights, back before the Target store became a symbol of the neighborhood’s gentrification. There, Patrice Harris, an older kid toggling between the boxing ring and the streets, had his eyes on Takisha Peterson, “the sweet one,” Anthony said. There, Harris took to Lamont and Anthony, paying them a dollar or two to go beat up kids who annoyed him.

The family lore built from there. A favorite story: The time an older kid bullied Anthony at the arcade, repeatedly pulling down his pants from behind as he tried to play a game. Lamont saw it, marked the kid, followed him outside. Never mind that the kid was four or five years older, a foot taller, who knows how many pounds heavier.

“Of course I said something to him,” Lamont said.

“Anytime he fought,” Anthony said, “it was protecting me.”

Lamont started wailing on the kid, who decided his only defense was to scoop up Peterson and toss him to the ground. Lamont bounced up and resumed the pummeling. Thump! Back down again. He rose once more.

Harris stumbled on the scene, and “I’m just watching going, ‘What is this kid thinking?’”

That is the roundabout way the Peterson boys came to Hunter: because Harris thought they needed some direction, knew they could fight, and had worked with Hunter himself. Harris is now married to Takisha, and he’s an assistant under Hunter at Headbangers. But when they first came to work out at Hunter’s gym, Lamont was 10, Anthony 9.

“Lamont,” Hunter said, “he was almost like a mute.”

So in almost any relationship with adults, Anthony served as Lamont’s delegate. Here’s what he’s thinking. Here’s why he’s upset. Here’s what he told me. Lamont constantly carried the hangdog look of an unhappy child, because that’s what he was.

“It was so normal to feel this way,” he said. “I was hurting, but I never knew why. Always angry, never knew why. I could never put my hand on, ‘Why are these kids playing and happy, and I’m not?’ ”

Hunter, at the time, already was training dozens of kids. A product of the District’s projects himself, the only boy in a four-child household in which his own father appeared only occasionally, he had resisted the pull of the streets as a kid. He wanted to pull kids from them as an adult.

“I know what it’s like to be hungry,” Hunter said. “I know what it’s like to have some shortcomings. And then when you see that, people going through that stuff, you got to ask yourself, ‘What type of person would I be, knowing that I see this child going through this, knowing that there’s something that I could do, but I don’t?’ ”

So Hunter did. The Petersons became fixtures in the group that used to pile in the back of Hunter’s pickup truck, riding through rain or snow to and from the gym. But Hunter was more than just transport, more than just someone who showed up with bags full of Taco Bell to make sure the kids ate.

“He was the first guy ever in my life to say, ‘Anthony, no. Don’t do that. That’s wrong. Do it this way,’ ” Anthony said. “But it wasn’t like he imposed his grown-man authority on me. He talked to me like an individual, not like a child.”

Lamont once got into an argument with an adult outside the Columbia Heights rec center at which Hunter then held his boxing program. To this day, Lamont can’t remember the topic, the nature of the dispute. He remembers only that it changed his life.

“You know what?” the adult said. “I’m gonna take you into the gym and tell Barry.”

He dragged Lamont inside. Hunter heard the tale. Then, he turned to Lamont.

“So,” he said, “what’s your side?”

Lamont reeled at the inquiry. He gathered himself, told his version of the events. And the strangest thing happened: Hunter believed him.

“At that point, I knew there was something different about him,” Lamont Peterson said. “I knew I could trust him.”

‘We want to change boxing’

Bald Eagle Rec Center finally quieted one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, and Barry Hunter’s apostles — nearly two dozen fighters who had sparred and shadowboxed and thudded on punching bags — came by, casually, for their post-workout handshake and hug. One by one, Hunter embraced them, thanking them for them work, hoping he would see them the next day. While this was going on, Lamont Peterson crouched underneath a barbell, bent his knees, and shot back up with a guttural grunt.

“Can’t get him outta here,” Hunter said, nodding in Peterson’s direction. “Always been that way.”

This is what chafes at Hunter still: that the positive test and the canceled fight might overshadow the fact that the IBF ruled in August that Peterson should retain its belt, that the World Boxing Association has called Peterson only a “champ in recess,” never officially stripping him. The controversy, Hunter believes, overshadows the work.

“Everything we put into this?” Hunter asked, incredulous. “It really did change my outlook on people, the system, everything.”

Part of the system, though, is promoting fights and fighters, and Hunter still cares deeply about promoting and preserving Peterson. So there must be posters and flyers, because whether at the Mandalay Bay or the D.C. Armory, Peterson vs. Holt is on ESPN2, live, and the broadcast would be better with a packed venue. The posters and flyers bear block letters proclaiming, “Redemption.” Catchy and, on a surface level, appropriate.

Redemption, though, isn’t something Peterson feels he needs. Not personally, at least. But if something good is going to come from all this . . .

“To be honest, redemption is necessary for the moves we trying to make,” Peterson said. “We want to change boxing. Who wants to follow a cheat? Who’s going to listen to a cheat?”

And who would pursue a cheat? Last month, Peterson surprised the boxing world — and even himself — by signing a deal with Golden Boy Promotions, the very same outfit that manages Khan, the very same outfit that had railed against Peterson after his failed test. In some ways, these are just the kind of folks that Peterson and Hunter and “our little ragtag group,” as Hunter said, have tried to avoid in the past. Now, here they were, at his doorstep, offering redemption.

“Sometimes, you look at it, and you got to make a deal with the devil,” Peterson said. “As long as your heart’s in the right place, and you know what you want to do, you do business. . . . To be honest, I still feel a certain way about Golden Boy. But that’s just the way it is. It’s just business.”

It is also, Peterson believes, a vehicle. Golden Boy still manages Khan, still has other fighters at 140 and 147 pounds, such as the undefeated Danny Garcia of Philadelphia, who would make attractive, money-making matchups for Peterson. Such a platform provides other benefits.

“I always tell people we need stricter drug testing, things like that,” Peterson said. “Maybe this will shine the light on this subject. Maybe it’ll get done.

“A lot of times we ask for stuff, and when it don’t come the way we want it to come, we start crying.”

He will not cry about it. By that point, the gym was quiet. The other fighters had dressed, headed out into the cold. Peterson put down his last weight, then walked back toward the ring, done for the day. His expression revealed none of the hurt of the past year, none of the hope for the future. What stood in the light that shone through the windows of Washington’s best boxing gym was only a will, unbroken.

More on Lamont Peterson:

Peterson kept busy while awaiting bout with Holt

Wise: Story of the year in D.C. sports for 2011

Photos: Boxer is ready for one more round

Flashback: Peterson down, but never out