David Reid

Boxing

It finally struck David Reid in the wee hours Friday night, long after he had outpointed Uzbekistan’s Karim Tulaganov in their semifinal Olympics bout, celebrated the win and then gone to bed.

“I woke up and was going to the bathroom,” Reid said, “and I thought, ‘Damn! Where they” - his U.S. Olympic boxing teammates - “all at?”

It’s lonely in the boxing team’s Georgia Tech dormitory now. There’s Reid, the only American fighting in the gold-medal round. And Al Mitchell, the U.S. coach and Reid’s long-time mentor.

And that’s it.

“I got up and yelled this morning, ‘Helloooo! Where is everybody?”’ Reid said, laughing.

Reid has been preparing for this for more than a decade. He started when he was just 11 - a tough, 75-pound street kid in Philadelphia who kept getting in fights. So his mother sent him to a gym where he met Mitchell, who didn’t have much time for the young ones like Reid.

But eventually, something about Reid got to Mitchell. His absolute hatred of losing, for one thing.

“When he was about 14, he got a trophy for second place,” Mitchell said. “He threw it and broke out a window in the gym. Said, ‘I don’t want no trophy for losing.”’

Says Reid now: “I don’t know where I’d be now if not for Al. Not in boxing.”