The boxer who lost his career to crack

Tony Suggs could have been a contender, said Brigid Schulte in The Washington Post Magazine. The former boxer was once the top-rated lightweight in the country and was just one fight away from qualifying for the 1988 Olympic Games. Shy and unimposing at 5-foot-7 outside the ring, he fought with fury once the bell rang, scoring knockouts in 116 of 138 amateur fights.

“All I wanted to do was hurt somebody,’’ he says. “A lot of times, I would feel sorry for an opponent after a fight.” The rage, he knows now, was a response to the physical and sexual abuse he’d experienced growing up in a chaotic family. But he also used drugs to cope with his pain, and when his infant daughter died of sudden infant death syndrome, he took up crack cocaine. “It was like I didn’t care no more. I wanted to mess up my life.’’

At 21, on the eve of qualifying for the Olympics, he was arrested for drug possession. He then spent years bouncing in and out of jail; when he finally got out, the rage was gone. Now 44, he’s training his 25-year-old son, Anthony, to be the boxer he never was. “I feel that is my job to help someone else make it to the Olympics. I don’t think God allowed me to go through what I went through without a reason.’’

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