In the News . . .
August 17, 2008
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Fighting Chef Brown wins 132-pound title at LI Amateur Boxing Tournament
He enters an empty gymnasium with an "aw shucks" demeanor and a slightly bent Toronto Blue Jays cap atop his wiry 5-11 frame. The 18-year-old, who trains out of the Rockaway Ropes Boxing Club in Far Rockaway, is also studying the culinary arts at Food and Finance High School in Midtown Manhattan.

Being a fighting chef is not exactly the prescribed blueprint for fistic greatness, but Brown is on his way.

Last night at the Long Island Amateur Boxing Tournament at Five Towns Community Center in Lawrence, Brown defeated Dominique James by a 5-0 decision to win the open 132-pound title.

He used his superior jab and speed to keep James off balance.

"I wanted to make a statement," Brown said. "I know I'm the best at this weight. Nobody can beat me."

The road to this title was paved on the fighting streets of Brooklyn.

His father, Marlon Brown, aka Big Marlon, took him to the New Bed-Stuy Boxing Center on his fourth birthday. He taught Little Marlon the basics, a jab here, a one-two combination there. "I loved it right away," Brown said.

Ever since Brown started his boxing journey, Big Marlon, a former amateur fighter who once sparred with Riddick Bowe and Mark Breland, nurtured his son to become the antithesis of the archetypal Brooklyn fighter.

Silent, not brash. Humble, not boisterous.

"Just because you are a loudmouth doesn't make you a good fighter," Big Marlon said. "Being quiet doesn't make you a bad fighter."

Brown's hectic schedule almost makes you wonder how he musters the energy to fight. He leaves his family's Bronx apartment at 7 o'clock in the morning to make the hour-long commute to school. Basketball practice follows, and then Brown takes the subway down to Queens to get in his boxing training.

He arrives home around midnight, grabs a meal, gets some rest and does it again.

"It is tiring," Brown said, "but I love the sport, so I have to do it."

Like any top amateur, he would love an Olympic medal and professional success. But he is preparing for life beyond the ropes. After waiting two years for entrance at Food and Finance, Brown got accepted and immediately took to the school's unorthodox curriculum. He says omelets are his specialty and is looking forward to his fall course on French cooking.

"I'm into the art of cooking," Brown said. "It is just like boxing, with all of the different styles."

Once inside the ring, Brown enters seek-and-attack mode, releasing the aggressiveness that seems absent from his day-to-day persona. It is a startling Bruce Banner-like change. He says he enters his zone, and the crowd noise becomes little more than buzzing in his ears.

And that's when the chef decides to do a bit of fighting.

"When he is in his zone, he just wants to fight and get it over with," Big Marlon said.

Said Brown: "I'm just more aggressive."

Maybe the quiet kid screams boxer, after all.
Despite the cool air in the gymnasium of the Five Towns Community Center there was heat coming from the boxing ring as the fifth annual Long Island Amateur Boxing Championships were held in Lawrence from Aug. 18 to 21.

Organized by West Hempstead resident Michael Carryl, a former boxer, the yearly tournament is a showcase for established fighters and newcomers to boxing.

The 44-year-old former Golden Gloves boxer, who twice made it to the quarterfinals of that competition in 1989 and 1995, created the Long Island Amateur Boxing and Charities in 2006 to bring the combat sport to West Hempstead teenagers.

"The idea is expose them to Olympic-style boxing," said Carryl, who noted that the American system of boxing seeks to turn out professionals, while ignoring international competition.

"The reason the U.S. doesn't win gold medals is the kids are not prepared right," he added. "We expose to them to international rules and establish a relationship that helps these amateur boxers."

Carryl, who in spite of the many demands made of him as an organizer, he kept a cool demeanor throughout the night — a trick likely mastered during his years of competitive boxing. His organization also espouses doing well in school — Carryl has a master's degree in exercise physiology — and healthy eating.

As part of establishing an international relationship winners of this tournament will travel to the Dominican Republic in the fall to compete against a combined team from the Puerto Rican and Dominican federations. Domingo Solano, president of the Dominican Republic Federation and vice president of the International Boxing Federation, attended the competition.

Closer to home, Herve Duroseau, 27, a boxer in the 165-pound open class representing the Freeport PAL and a 2009 tournament champion, who took up boxing five years ago, said he enjoys the "sweet science" for the competition, exercise and keeping his brain sharp.

"That is the hardest part of the amateur game preparing for your opponent," said Duroseau, a Town of Hempstead sanitation worker. a couple hours before his bout. "It's good exercise and to have fun that's what it is."

Though he said his plans are to keep fighting at the amateur level, Duroseau takes his boxing seriously. His three-round match against Peter Reyes of Brooklyn's Gleason's Gym was a slugfest as both 165-pound fighters in the open class traded a barrage of punches in every round. It was close, but Duroseau came out on top.

Duroseau's home gym is run by three no-nonsense men: Joe Higgins, Brendan Hollohan and Sam Jackson. Higgins and Hollohan boxed in the 1970s' and Jackson, now 75, fought as a heavyweight in the '60s and carries a black and white newspaper photo of him at a fight weigh-in.

"I love helping the kids, I have been doing it since I retired," Jackson said.

Higgins said it is their disciplined, regimented program that ensures that the boxers from novice to experienced conducts themselves properly while training and does it the proper way.

"We are very professional and our fighters understand hard work, the kids can't get away with the way they want to do it," said Higgins, who added that newcomers to the sport don't fight until they have a year of training under their belt. "This is not a boxercise program, this is competitive boxing."

That competitiveness was on display in the finals last Saturday as Duroseau led a parade of 13 boxers, who were crowned champions of their respective classes, including Rockaway Ropes Joseph Williams (201-open) and Marlon Brown (132-open).