by David P. Greisman - More than one story about Adrien Broner mentioned another once-promising prospect to come out of Cincinnati, a man who once seemed a local hero destined for stardom, only to become the disappointing protagonist within a cautionary tale.
Ricardo Williams Jr. fought out of the same gym, shared the same trainer. Broner, eight years younger, at first could look at Williams as a role model to admire. But as Williams squandered his potential, sabotaged his own career and was sentenced to prison on ******* trafficking charges, Broner could only recognize the poor decisions as examples of what to avoid.
“It hurt me because he was somebody who I’d seen who really had a chance to be one of the biggest, biggest guys in the sport,” Broner told Bryan Armen Graham of Sports Illustrated last year.
“He’s a big brother to me,” Broner told Jay Caspian Kang of Grantland earlier this year. “I know where I come from. I came from nothing, and I have a chance to do something that happens once in a lifetime. There are only a couple people who can wake up and say that they're a world champion, a multimillionaire, and a successful superstar. I don't want to mess this up. Ever.”
Sports have been a vessel by which so many youth have been diverted away from disaster and toward discipline. Boxing gyms have long run programs in rough city neighborhoods, providing solace from chaos, channeling kids’ unrestrained youthful energy into a controlled, constructive form of violence. [Click Here To Read More]
Ricardo Williams Jr. fought out of the same gym, shared the same trainer. Broner, eight years younger, at first could look at Williams as a role model to admire. But as Williams squandered his potential, sabotaged his own career and was sentenced to prison on ******* trafficking charges, Broner could only recognize the poor decisions as examples of what to avoid.
“It hurt me because he was somebody who I’d seen who really had a chance to be one of the biggest, biggest guys in the sport,” Broner told Bryan Armen Graham of Sports Illustrated last year.
“He’s a big brother to me,” Broner told Jay Caspian Kang of Grantland earlier this year. “I know where I come from. I came from nothing, and I have a chance to do something that happens once in a lifetime. There are only a couple people who can wake up and say that they're a world champion, a multimillionaire, and a successful superstar. I don't want to mess this up. Ever.”
Sports have been a vessel by which so many youth have been diverted away from disaster and toward discipline. Boxing gyms have long run programs in rough city neighborhoods, providing solace from chaos, channeling kids’ unrestrained youthful energy into a controlled, constructive form of violence. [Click Here To Read More]
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