By: RICKY RAY TAYLOR

Adrien Broner is a bad-boy.
Of course that’s not a difficult assumption to make given the fact that in his 23 fights
as a professional we can count on one hand the number of rounds he’s lost.
In any event, thus-far, Broner can pass the test as a bad-boy on ANY Boxing radar.

There exists yet, another “bad-boy” definition (or “title” I guess you could call it)
that will cling on to Adrien Broner for the rest of his days. You see, there is a farm
(of sorts) of special fighters who lived in lived in a battalion which was specifically
designed to strengthen mental & physical TOUGHNESS. The farm (or training grounds)
is located in Marquette, Michigan on the campus of NORTHERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
in the dorms of the OLYMPIC EDUCATION CENTER (OEC). Any fighter who was
privileged to earn this full-ride scholarship (funded by the Olympic committee) was
certainly Blessed. Eventually though, within a few weeks of arriving, each fighter
who was initiated to the team was sure to be hit with a brick-in-the-face of dire-reality.

To say that it was “tough” to remain at the OEC is beyond an understatement,
it was BRUTAL. Dire loneliness; depravity from simple things like watching television,
taking a car-ride or flipping through the cable channels; constant isolation from family;
incessant dieting, nagging temptations of sickness combined with rigid pressures of
out-for-blood sparring sessions; high-intensity training and schooling schedules kept the
front doors revolving through the months.

One of the Northern-most cities in the Upper-peninsula of Michigan, Marquette is
a tundra of persistent, high-blowing Lake Superior winds, mind-numbing below-zero
temperatures amidst a social-tundra that SCREAMS of desolation. Personally, had
NMU decided against implementing their campus in that city I truly don’t think
anyone would be living there. For the unfortunate natives of the U.P. however,
the torrid weather conditions did not seem to have much effect on “hardening”
them. Rather, a “Mayberry-spirit” seemed to take hold of the inhabitants while
a steady diet of marsh-mellows was most presumably the norm.

In turn, Marquette is the anti-perfect neighborhood to ship in a crew of street-wise,
largely anti-social fighters from some of the toughest hoods in America.

Having earned my pedigree from this hard-knock-school, patting myself on the back –
I can say that as hellacious as it was during my 3 1/2 years there – I wouldn’t trade
the memories for the world.

Chatting it up with a fellow bad-boy brother boxing trainer recently, ERIC KELLY,
to my surprise I was informed, that ADRIEN BRONER was a bad boy. Upon hearing
that, I scratched my head for a moment and recalled something:
In ’07, I teamed up with fellow bad-boys MIKE VAIL (current Atlanta PAL boxing
coach) & VERNON FORREST (2 time world champ) and made a trip back to the OEC.
It was my first time there since I graduated in ’92 and the event was OVER-THE-TOP.
As we pulled up to the dorms we saw coach (Al Mitchel) standing outside with a
small 112lb fighter. (You can always tell the fighters from the rest of the civilians
in Mayberry)

The fighter had on a bright RED Cincinnati Reds jacket and a REDS hat pushed
down under his eyebrows. The kid had his suitcases with him. They were waiting on
a taxi to take him to the airport. As the 3 of us walked towards them, Al ran over
to shake our hands and hug us before abruptly turning back to the kid and saying,
“kid, you can fight like the devil … but you just can’t stay here.” Within a minute
or so, the taxi pulled up, the kid jumped in and we all went to eat.

Evidently, the 112lber had problems adapting to the Mayberry mindset in Marquette.
Understandable.
I recalled the perpetual revolving door at the OEC and how many fighters I used to
see being given their walking papers after only a few days in town. In this case
they said that the kid we saw leave was beating people up on the campus. -not good.

The kid was ADRIEN BRONER.
I guess he found other mountains to climb.
—- —- —- —-

-RICKY RAY TAYLOR-
“Preach the Gospel at all times,
use words when necessary”