He's the latest in a long line of amateur boxers at Holy Cross.

But, in many ways, Derek Warner ’02 is one of a kind in this unique fraternity.

Whereas many College boxers took up the “sweet science” as a lark—out of camaraderie or as a way to train for another sport—Warner did so simply for love of the game.

It’s a love that Warner traces back to his childhood in Enfield, Conn., watching televised fights with his father, Gene. “For some reason, I was intrigued by it,” says Warner, who now lives in Roslindale, Mass. “I grew up in the suburbs, where there’s not too many boxers. Boxing is a city sport.”

In his early teens, Warner—who was involved in martial arts and running track—lobbied his father for permission to try boxing. At first, Gene discouraged his son’s enthusiasm.

“I persuaded him to stay in martial arts,” he says. “I thought it was safer. Derek was probably 14 when he first expressed an interest [in the sport]. To me, there were more schools for martial arts than there were for boxing. I’d seen some kids who were just thrown into the ring without much experience. It was unsafe.”

But when Warner turned 17, he found a gym in nearby Manchester, Conn., and got the green light from his parents to join. Warner never looked back, quitting karate and track to dedicate all his extracurricular efforts to boxing.

A year later, as Warner was about to enter Holy Cross, he found his amateur boxing career—only four fights old at this point—at a crossroads: Where would he train now?

Warner’s coach in Manchester, Paul Cichon, recommended that the young pugilist train with Carlos Garcia at the Worcester Boys & Girls Club, about two miles from campus. With no car, Warner turned his trip to the Club into a warm-up routine, running there with a duffel full of equipment—and, occasionally, through rough weather.

Though the Boys & Girls Club was just two miles from the Hill, it was a different world. In one corner was Warner, a white, middle-class kid from the ’burbs; in the other, a gym full of predominantly African-American and Hispanic fighters from low-income backgrounds, for whom boxing was a way of life.

But Warner got along just like one of the gang, Garcia says.

“[The boxers] all have so much admiration for him because he was so dedicated,” says Garcia, who has been coaching at the Worcester Boys & Girls Club for 21 years. “We have a lot of people coming from low-income backgrounds. But he got along with everybody. And he was so polite: He always said ’thank you.’ He used to call me ’mister.’ So you could see he came from a good family, and that’s the best team in life.”

Warner said the fish-out-of-water experience was a great education.

“I wouldn’t have changed it at all,” he says. “I learned a lot going to that gym. These kids come from deprived circumstances. But they’re the most real people you’re ever going to meet in your life. It made me appreciate the things that I have, and it forced me to work even harder—at school and at everything else—because half these people never got a chance to go to a college.”

Warner says he was able to earn his fellow fighters’ respect through his dedication and work ethic—traits he needed to overcome the head start others had in their training. The age of 17 is practically over-the-hill when it comes to competitive boxing training.

“I’m never going to have the experience that (other fighters) already have,” he says. “But I tried to compensate for that by out-working them, out-hustling them.”

When he was allowed to have a car on campus during his third year, Warner upped the ante in his training: He joined a gym in Hartford—driving an hour each way after class—training for three hours and then returning to campus to finish his schoolwork before bedtime.

It was in those two years that Warner says he made his greatest gains as a boxer.

In all, Warner, who boxed at 139 pounds—considered a junior welterweight on the amateur level—estimates he had about 55 amateur fights. And though he doesn’t recall his record—”More wins than losses is what I always say”—he does take pride in the fact that he was never knocked down and never had a fight stopped.

“He didn’t have the natural ability that the others had,” Garcia says. “But he worked very, very hard. He had heart. And when you have that inside, that means more.”

Warner’s amateur career often took him on the road. He won a couple of state titles in his native Connecticut. He fought in a regional tournament in Lake Placid, N.Y., won a Golden Gloves tournament in Lowell, Mass., and a regional Golden Gloves championship in Holyoke, Mass. He faced the Irish national team at a black-tie charity fund-raiser and competed at the Ohio State Fair National Boxing Tournament in Columbus, Ohio.

But toward the end of his last year, Warner says he felt it was time to wind down his amateur career.

“I’m a competitive person,” he says. “As soon as I found out what the ultimate amateur level was—going to the Olympics—that was my goal. And that became what I wanted to do. But only one person can go every four years, so it’s a difficult chore. At the end of my senior year, it’s not that I didn’t love boxing any longer; I realized I needed to make a decision. Boxing is a pretty violent sport, and I did have other opportunities outside of the sport. The other part was, I never really had a life at school. Boxing had been my life.”

So, in his last weeks as an undergraduate, Warner allowed himself to partake in the simple things he sacrificed while training—everything from going out with friends on the weekends to sampling dessert at Kimball.

Though he’s about a year and 15 pounds removed from his last amateur match, Warner’s passion for boxing is still evident: His apartment is adorned with a collage of photos of boxers that include George Forman, Vinny Pazienza and commentator Larry Merchant; a wall of ticket stubs from the fights he has attended; and a September 2000 clipping of The Crusader in which he was named the “Crusader Athlete of the Week.” His cell phone rings the Rocky theme song.

“As much as I love boxing, I want to have a future someday,” he says. “I would have loved to have turned professional and gone that route. In boxing, I could have turned professional tomorrow—anybody can turn professional. I think I would have done well because the guys I used to spar with in the gym, I hung in with them big time. But the odds of making it are (not good). And the odds of having anything to show for it—both mentally and financially—are even slimmer. It wasn’t a good option for me. I’d rather take my education, work, and then maybe someday help out the sport along the way.”

Today, Warner works as a group sales representative for Sun Life Financial. And though the office environment is a 180-degree turn from the gym, he does see one parallel.

“It’s a really competitive industry that I’m in,” Warner says. “Now, I’m competing more mentally than anything else. I’m still competing—that’s all that matters.”

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