Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer who took
Mike Tyson off the streets and turned him into a world champion, had a unique way of determining who was a contender and worthy of his time.
In Tyson’s book “Iron Ambition”, he shared a story about D’Amato’s gym – which was in a rough part of Lower Manhattan:
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“The gym was up three flights of rickety stairs. If
you stood at the bottom of the stairs, you could see all the way up to the top … Once you got up to the top, there was a big hole in the door, patched up with mesh wiring, and there was a huge watchdog that would smash up against the mesh, barking like crazy.
Cus always said he could determine a lot about the character of a kid who made that trek up the stairs. He even called that walk ‘the trial’ ...
If a kid came up alone and wasn’t deterred by the dog and pushed the door open and said he wanted to be a fighter, Cus knew he had something to work with.
But if someone brought a kid there, it was a different story. ‘Now, if they were brought up by somebody, I knew I had my work cut out for me,’ Cus said, ‘because that fellow didn’t have the discipline or a desire strong enough at the time to
come up there by himself and open the door and say, ‘I want to be a fighter'”
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Over the years Tyson has shared a lot of lessons that he learned from his mentor, and all coaches can benefit from having someone in their corner as well.
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Marc Mawhinney