Guadalajara Glory Days #5

I'm covering the Pan American Games from Oct. 13 through 31 in Guadalajara, Mexico for the Virgin Islands Daily News. These notebook items and photos were published in the print edition.

Say No To Dope

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – U.S. Virgin Islands female boxer Tiffany Reddick has been staying up late at night this past week in Guadalajara because she said she's too excited.

It wasn't as if the very first female boxer to represent the territory at the Pan American Games already had enough on her mind. Earlier in the week, three Anti-Doping Agency workers arrived at the USVI apartment in the athletes' village and they knocked on Reddick's door when she was asleep in bed.

Reddick, 24, was informed she had go with the three Anti-Doping agents to a clinic in the village for a an immediate drug test. No questions asked.

“Before we left, they wouldn't let me wash my hands with soap,” Reddick said. “They did let me brush my teeth but they came into the bathroom and watched me do it.”

USVI boxing coach Julian Jackson went with Reddick to the clinic for the athlete's first ever drug test. Once there, she had to fill out some paperwork and was handed a cup to urinate in. When she went into the restroom, she had more spectators.

“We went back into the room after all that and then they finally let me wash my hands,” she said. “I had to pour the sample into two more containers and it spilled all over the desk. It was strange. I had to do all the dirty work and no one in there had any gloves on, which I thought was very weird.”

Reddick was the only one to handle the containers. She closed the lids, tightened them and had to match up the confirmation numbers before she finally surrendered the samples to the drug testers.

Questions were then asked about the types of vitamins she had taken, where she was born, her birth date, what country she was from and her American favorite football team. Well, not the last question but for the record, Reddick is a Pittsburgh native and she pulls for the Steelers.

“After that, we were done so they gave me a pin,” Reddick said. “It said 'Say No To Dope' on it.”

She has not heard any results from her drug test and weighed in for the boxing competition on Friday. Reddick is scheduled for her first fight on Sunday so one can assume she passed with flying colors.

“I knew there was a chance I may get tested but I didn't think it would happen,” she said. “I don't think it's random. I'm new so I feel like they went after me. It's cool. It would be nice if someone told me I passed though.”

USVI Olympic Committee member Lyn Reid said Reddick has been the only USVI athlete to be drug tested in Mexico, which is below the current average.

“We had two USVI athletes tested in Singapore last year at the Youth Olympic Games,” she said. “It was a unique experience to say the least.”

Boxers get acclimated

Since USVI boxers Clayton Laurent and Tiffany Reddick arrived last Thursday, boxing coach Julian Jackson has worked them out twice a day every single day. These have been full workouts, with pads, endurance exercises and up-tempo sparring sessions.

“We have been training hard,” USVI Boxing Federation president Tony Rosario said Thursday night. “The first time we put them on the track to run, they almost died. They couldn't breath because they had to get used to the altitude.”

Guadalajara is approximately 5,200 feet above sea level. Take four Empire State Buildings and stack one on top of the other and you'll get close to Guadalajara's altitude. Crazy, huh?

After a few workouts, Jackson wanted to test the boxers even more.

The USVI boxers' apartment in the athletes' village is on the 19^th floor of a tower so they pushed the beds out of the way and worked out there on Wednesday.

“We came early just for this reason,” Rosario said. “We figured if you can do four, five rounds up here, you can probably go 10 rounds in the ring. They're definitely going to be ready.”

Reddick will take on a Dominican Republic fighter on Sunday and Laurent, a super heavyweight, will draw hands with a Puerto Rican on Monday.

Island Irish power

As I recklessly rifled through four sets of NCAA brackets and sat at the Hooter's bar, an unusual couple came up to me for no reason at all.

It was the first day of the tourney and it was St. Patty's Day, which can be sort of a perfect storm for lunatics at the bar.

The lady had red hair and could not stop talking about how Irish she was -- "my father was this and that and my grandfather is buried at this random Irish graveyard that everyone is supposed to know" -- that kind of crap.

Her husband was pretty hilarious. He was decked out in Irish threads and even sported some St. Patty's Day pajama pants I was quite fond of (I later asked him if I could buy them and he declined my offer).

I got him to pose for a picture with Tiffany Reddick. When Reddick is not slinging suds at Hooter's, she's a USVI Olympic hopeful in boxing and she has a mean right overhand.

Anyways, I was trying to ignore them until they decided to buy me a shot of whiskey -- it's 12:15 p.m. and the games just tipped off mind you -- so I decided to halfway tilt my body in their direction and humor them briefly.

"Yeah, so I'm doing the Irish and black thing," the husband said to me.

"Oh yeah, how about we drink some Black and Tans," I respond. "That's a good Irish drink and I've got a decent beach complexion."

He agreed. But we were disappointed when I ordered. You would think that with such a vast array of adult beverages in stock, Hooter's would have more than enough Bass Ale to go around.

"Black and Tan ... what the hell is that?" the blond bimbo behind the bar said. "Is that like some Irish thing?"

"Indeed, it is," I said. "Bass Ale mixed with a stout."

"What's a stout?" she said back.

"Unbelievable," I muttered to myself, before I swiveled my bar stool back around to face my favorite interracial St. Patty's Day couple.

Instead of a Black and Tan, I bought them back a shot of whiskey and it looked like that would be enough for the redhead for a while. They told me they had been bar hopping since the early morning and apparently, were the only two members of a non-existent bar crawl that came through the area.

I watched the early games with limited interruption from the black Leprechaun, who gave me basket-by-basket updates of the games I had the most money on.

I paid my bill, said my good byes and went back into the office to finish up a few things. Later on, I was driving to a UVI basketball game and saw them stumbling around the waterfront in a drunken haze of some sort. Only on St. Patty's Day, I thought. Only on St. Thomas.

Knuckle Up

I have to say that one of the best parts about my job is that I get to talk to new people almost everyday. I think that's the same for any sports writer.

St. Thomas is a small island -- 13 square miles -- so there is not a bounty of sports to dig into everyday. I know this, people. Every time I tell someone what I do and where, that's the next thing out of their mouth. "So do they even have sports down there?"

Why, yes. They sure do.

Every so often, I make my way down to the Paul M. Pearson Gardens Learning Center (a very long name for a dark, dirty dungeon where boxers learn to crush their opponents). It's located right in the middle of a tough neighborhood. Last month, someone was shot inside a nearby apartment, stumbled onto the outdoor basketball court and died -- I checked the next day for blood splatter.

But when I complete the journey down there, successfully park without drawing too many stares and make it into the gym, the red carpet is rolled out for "that newspaper guy with the beard."

Most of them know me by name. The ones that don't just haven't been interviewed yet.

So I've been following these three local guys who went pro last year. Each of them are still undefeated at the moment. Two of the three are brothers and the third is their cousin.

Confused yet? Let me try harder.

Their coach is the brothers' father, also known as Julian "The Hawk" Jackson, a three-time boxing world champion. Great guy.

Jackson's stepson is this young fellow...


His name is Clayton (perfect first name for a boxer) Laurent. He's the USVI super heavyweight and if everything goes to plan, he will compete in the 2012 Olympics in London.

When I was interviewing a female boxer making her amateur debut last Saturday, Clayton, who was still warming up for his bout, grabbed my digital recorder and took over.

He started to ask her sarcastic questions about her fight and the best part was she started to answer them. I thought I was going to have to give him a byline credit at the end of the story.

To read that story, which was published in Monday's edition, click here.

Another funny thing is that he wears two different colored socks pulled up to his bulky knee caps when he fights. Yeah, he's that kind of person.

When I made fun of his fresh new haircut -- Clayton had styled in three straight lines on the side of his head like what M.C. Hammer used to do -- he had a quick response.

"I'm trying to bring it back, man. That's all."

He's funny, humble and very likable. And a damn good boxer. He floored his opponent from Puerto Rico twice in the second round Saturday and the PR coach threw in the towel.

Better yet, a friend of mine who works at The Saint, the only "night club" on the island, said she saw a bunch of boxers in the club later that night celebrating.

"Oh yeah, one of them was wearing a whole bunch of medals around his neck," she told me. "He was huge!"

I knew right away who she was talking about. Only Clayton would take everyone's medals, put them around his neck and enter the club on a Saturday night.

Now the day I get to roll with those guys into the club -- that would be an experience. I only wish I was that cool.