Boxing Coach Wants Medals, Not Meddling

BEIJING, Aug. 6 -- For six years he was a boatswain on the decks of Navy ships from Cyprus to Vietnam, twice even locked for the winter in the Antarctic ice. A lot has come to steel the soul of U.S. Olympic boxing coach Dan Campbell. And so the most controversial man in American amateur boxing leaned back in a chair at a McDonald's next to Beijing Normal University earlier this week and scowled.

"It doesn't faze me," he said. "Everybody's going to criticize everything."

On Saturday, the most promising boxing team the United States has sent to the Olympics in 12 years will begin fighting at Beijing Workers' Gymnasium. Four fighters could win medals if the draw comes out right -- three have a legitimate chance at gold. Their results will say everything about Campbell's leadership and whether his idea to make the entire team live and train for the past year in Colorado Springs was really a wise idea.

Because some of his fighters don't agree.

As far as Olympic experiments go, this was one of the more ambitious: to tell a group of boxers who had spent much of their lives working with their personal coaches to move to the Colorado mountains and learn techniques that conflict with those they have been taught for years.

"I would rather be home with the coach who got me here," middleweight Shawn Estrada said.

It is a feeling shared by most of the boxers who have struggled to find their place in Colorado Springs, training with new coaches and living in dormitories. All have come to accept the program but most have done so grudgingly and with lots of protest. Gary Russell Sr., the father and coach of Capitol Heights bantamweight Gary Russell Jr., has complained for months that his son is not near the shape he was in when he trained in Maryland and blames Campbell for what he calls lax conditioning methods. This sentiment was echoed by the coach of Dallas area light flyweight Luis Yanez when Yanez was kicked off the team in July after leaving Colorado Springs for three weeks to take care of a sister who was battling a drug problem.

After his dismissal, Yanez said that Campbell was not well liked by the fighters and the coach responded by calling Yanez "one of the biggest liars I've ever met." Yanez was eventually allowed back on the team only a week before it left for Beijing after he agreed to forfeit his Olympic stipend.

Yet the incident exposed dissension in the program during the past year.

Last fall, Campbell blasted Russell Jr. for training on his own at times and threatened to throw him off the team. Other conflicts have arisen at times with several other fighters, including lightweight Sadam Ali, who also questioned the Colorado Springs program in a radio interview over the summer.

Russell Sr., who has bickered with Campbell since Campbell used to bring youth teams from his home in the Virginia Beach area to fight in the Washington area, has portrayed the coach as controlling, unwilling to listen to others and vindictive when fighters choose to listen to their coaches rather than him. He said that is why Campbell threatened to throw his son off the team and why he has battled with other fighters -- many of whom train with coaches who are friends of the elder Russell.

Campbell, 65, shook his head when asked about that. He pointed to his four years of international work as a coach on the U.S. world championships, Pan American Games and junior world championships teams. He said he has studied the international game. He has found methods that work, he said. He added that the coaches who are criticizing him do not have this international experience.