The Art of Manliness - An Old-School Boxing Trainer on What It Means to Be a Man

00:00:00.000 Hey, this is Brett. We're taking a break today from a new episode, but we're going to rebroadcast

00:00:03.520 episode number 524, where I talk to legendary boxing trainer Teddy Atlas on what it means to

00:00:08.840 be a man. Hope you enjoy it. We'll be back Wednesday with a brand new episode.

00:00:20.340 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:24.480 Teddy Atlas was born to a well-respected doctor in a wealthy part of Staten Island.

00:00:28.160 Most kids like him end up going to an Ivy League school to become some sort of white-collar

00:00:31.940 professional. Teddy? Well, Teddy dropped out of high school, went to jail, and ended up becoming

00:00:36.020 a trainer to 18 world champion boxers, including heavyweight champion Michael Moorer, who defeated

00:00:40.500 Evander Holyfield for the title in 1994. Today on the show, I talk to Teddy about how and why he took

00:00:45.300 the path that he did in life. Teddy explains how he ended up boxing under legendary trainer Cust D'Amato

00:00:49.500 and how Cust guided Teddy towards becoming a trainer himself. Teddy then shares stories of

00:00:53.740 training kids in the Catskills, taking them to unsanctioned amateur fights in the Bronx,

00:00:57.340 and the lessons he learned from boxing and his father about personal responsibility,

00:01:01.160 managing fear, overcoming resistance, and what it means to be a man. After the show's over,

00:01:05.280 check out our show notes at aom.is slash Atlas. Teddy joins me now via Skype.

00:01:19.900 All right, Teddy Atlas, welcome to the show.

00:01:22.540 Thank you. Appreciate it.

00:01:24.180 So you are an ESPN analyst for the sport of boxing. You've also trained 18 world champions,

00:01:29.920 and you're also the author of the book, It's Atlas, From the Streets to the Ring,

00:01:35.340 A Son Struggled to Become a Man, and you've also started a podcast, The Fight. So I just finished your

00:01:40.680 book, Atlas, and it's an amazing story. It's about your story of how you started, you became a world-class

00:01:47.120 boxing trainer. And what's interesting, the story of how that process began, begins when you were a

00:01:52.460 child. You were the son of a respected doctor who worked really hard. But somehow, despite being the

00:02:01.700 son of a respected doctor, you end up being a high school dropout, and you end up start committing

00:02:05.700 crime. How did that happen?

00:02:08.100 So my father was a GP, a general practitioner on Staten Island. He took care of everybody. He took care of all

00:02:12.680 the poor, took care of people that fell through the cracks. And as part of that, he built this

00:02:19.480 hospital that had 22 beds in it. It was called Sunnyside Hospital before Verilzano Bridge was built.

00:02:25.320 And he took care of people that, you know, this was way before the idea of Obamacare, or there were

00:02:31.240 no HMOs. There was really, really, it was basically nothing. If you didn't just have a doctor like this,

00:02:36.800 or, and there wasn't too many of them, I don't think, that existed, but, or if you didn't, you'd

00:02:42.740 wind up in a clinic. In a clinic, it might not be the greatest care in the world. So my father wanted

00:02:49.200 these people to have the best care possible. So he built this hospital so they would get the proper

00:02:54.260 hospital care, and he would absorb the cost. The people that had money, that had proper insurance,

00:02:58.900 that would obviously keep the place open. And as I said, the rest of it, he'd find a way to absorb

00:03:06.720 it. He would just make a little less money. That's all. And this hospital lasted for about

00:03:11.980 25 years. And then the city built the bridge and they came in and where the hospital was,

00:03:17.980 was where the highway was going to be. So they, they bought it from, they tore it down.

00:03:22.020 He wound up finding another hospital, which a few years later called Doctors Hospital with 60 other

00:03:29.540 doctors, but he was the original founder. The only way he could be with him was to go on house calls.

00:03:34.020 He did house calls until he was 80, charging $5. And he didn't charge when he went to a lot of

00:03:40.920 places. He went into the projects. He went to a lot of places that a lot of other doctors didn't go.

00:03:46.020 And he didn't charge. If he called not to charge, he didn't charge. So I, to steal time,

00:03:52.240 and that's what I was doing. I was stealing time. I was just a kid. I was only seven, eight, nine,

00:03:57.540 10, 11, you know, kept going, maybe 12, 13. And that's how I, that's how I got to be with

00:04:05.580 him. Go on house calls, go to the hospital when he went for the visits. And so I figured that,

00:04:14.540 I guess I, I wasn't, I want him to be at baseball games. I wanted to throw a football with him.

00:04:20.280 I wanted to do other things. And, you know, this is going to sound selfish and it is, it is selfish

00:04:27.180 because I was just thinking about what I wanted. Obviously, you know, we, we all have that habit

00:04:31.820 at some point. And so even though I was with him, it was only under these conditions where it was,

00:04:40.480 you know, on, on the terms of his life on the, on his turf, so to speak. And I guess I wanted him

00:04:46.080 in other places in my life. And so with my infinite wisdom of basically being an idiot, 0.99

00:04:53.900 as I got older, I started to get in trouble because I realize it now, the people that got 0.99

00:05:02.380 his attention were the injured, the fractured, the, the messed up in some cases and the sick.

00:05:09.760 So I got sick. I got, I got sick in a different way, you know, and I, I started getting on the

00:05:16.640 streets and getting into things, not good things. And I thought it would get his attention.

00:05:23.200 And that was obviously, you know, I guess the definition of a misdirected kid. I definitely

00:05:31.280 was misdirected, but, and I'm not trying to make it more or better than it was because

00:05:36.960 there's a righteousness in thinking that you're doing something. There's a cause behind it. There's

00:05:42.680 a purpose behind it. There's a, there's a right behind it. I guess that's where the word is derived

00:05:47.340 from. And I did think there was a right behind it. I did think that it, it gave me the key

00:05:53.880 to the place I wanted to go, which was to him. And they got out of control, quite frankly.

00:06:01.660 And I got to bad places. I'm blessed. I'm in a good place. I got to a good place,

00:06:07.640 you know, but unfortunately it, it took a, it took a couple of detours to kind of get there.

00:06:14.220 Yeah. I mean, you ended up in, in prison a few times. I mean, did that get his attention? I mean,

00:06:19.340 I'm sure it did, but not in the way you wanted.

00:06:21.380 Yeah. It got his attention, but it, it, it wrecked a havoc on my, on my home because

00:06:28.660 he was, he was a believer that you were accountable. He was the greatest teacher I ever had. And he

00:06:36.580 never, he didn't talk a lot. The only person he talked to a bit to was me when we were on our car

00:06:42.260 drives for house calls, when I would ask questions, but he was a believer in doing not speaking.

00:06:49.300 And so he was a great teacher in action. So I learned from him that, you know, the most important

00:06:56.780 thing was to be accountable for your actions. And so it was maybe a lesson I didn't want to accept

00:07:05.180 that at that point, because there's one thing about talking about being accountable. There's

00:07:10.180 another damn thing about being accountable, but the idea seems pretty damn good until sometimes it's 0.98

00:07:19.280 there. But I, I mean, to give you an example, I, I was a kid, I was a wayward on the streets and 0.98

00:07:27.020 I got hit with a tie iron one time in a fight. I wound up, my friends took me to his office

00:07:34.260 and bleeding all over the place. I thought I had the privilege of going right to the front of the

00:07:39.680 line. The nurse took me right to the front of the line. When he saw me, he said, let him wait with

00:07:44.140 everybody else. My father had the biggest practice on Staten Island, probably one of the biggest

00:07:48.740 practices in New York, because he took care of everybody, took care of the people that, you know,

00:07:53.860 didn't have anything. So I waited four hours, whatever it was. And when it finally came my turn,

00:08:02.840 the nurse did what a nurse does. She came with the needle of Novocaine and he looked at her and he

00:08:08.720 said, what is that for? And obviously she said it was to, you know, inject the Novocaine. And

00:08:16.340 obviously he knew, but he said, he doesn't want that. If he's going to live a life like this,

00:08:23.320 he's got to know how it feels. And of course I said, I didn't want it. And, you know, I got 15

00:08:28.600 stitches put into my head without Novocaine, not the worst thing in the world, but not,

00:08:32.620 not the greatest thing either. And so when I wound up in prison, well, my father wasn't going to give

00:08:40.520 me Novocaine for that. So he refused to pay bail. And again, you do something, you accept what goes

00:08:47.500 with it. You accept being in jail, in this case, Rikers Island. And it took my mother, who obviously

00:08:54.800 didn't come from the exact school that he came from, because she's a mother. It's a little different.

00:09:00.400 And it took her threatening him, took a little time, but to eventually get him to put up bail to

00:09:08.040 get me out. And he was right. My mother was right too. She's a mother, but he was right. Ultimately he

00:09:14.320 was right. But these were, again, I wasn't, I was getting his attention, but not obviously when you

00:09:25.180 get to that kind of confused place, things are confused. Things are a little haywire.

00:09:31.760 And I wasn't obviously, maybe, listen, I, maybe this is human nature. I don't want to say this.

00:09:37.520 And I've never said this before. And it just came to me now. And I hate to say it as I'm saying it,

00:09:42.980 but we are supposed to say what the truths that we know, if we're going to talk, we're supposed to,

00:09:48.920 at least. And maybe I was trying to get even with him. Maybe I was trying to hurt him. I,

00:09:54.100 you know, I just now it hit me. How could I avoid the possibility that that could have been

00:09:59.020 possible? I hate to because he was old. He was the greatest man I knew. But, um, as I speak,

00:10:08.020 yeah, yeah, that's, that's a possibility that that was, you know, lines get blurred and it's

00:10:14.140 possible that line was blurred into that. We're trying to get his attention. But at the same time,

00:10:19.240 in my selfish world, trying to get back at him, maybe a little bit that I didn't have what I

00:10:25.920 wanted. Yeah. And was it during this time or this tumultuous time in your, your young adult life that

00:10:32.380 you discovered boxing or had you boxed, you know, even as a child? Yeah, I boxed as a teenager.

00:10:38.340 And, uh, I was during this time, it was a little before this time, but it was, you know, right,

00:10:43.520 right at the beginning of this time where I was getting into fights in the street. I was hanging

00:10:48.880 out down in a tough neighborhood. And a friend of mine was a boxer, Kevin Rooney, who later on led

00:10:55.760 Mike Tyson when Custom Auto passed away. He led Mike Tyson to, you know, to world titles and made a

00:11:02.600 lot of money. He was, he was my childhood friend. And we hung out on the corner together down in

00:11:09.480 Stapleton area of, of Staten Island. And I followed him to the gym. It was a PAL gym,

00:11:15.380 little dingy place. That's all it needed to be. And PAL is Police Athletic League, which they no

00:11:22.680 longer exist in New York. But at that time they did. And it was a haven for a lot of kids. And I

00:11:30.320 went in there with Kevin and boxed in there. And then later on, when I started getting into more

00:11:36.700 trouble, I got an opportunity to go upstate with Cus, which was provided by Kevin, obviously.

00:11:44.280 And I shouldn't say obviously, it turned out that Kevin wound up going to Cus after he won the New

00:11:49.660 York Ongloves. He went upstate to Custom Auto, who was semi-retired, to train with him to become a pro

00:11:55.720 ultimately. And about four months after Kevin went up there, I got into serious trouble where I was facing

00:12:01.340 serious time, 10 years. And at that time, during the period that I was going to be out, when my

00:12:07.720 father finally did pay bail, I was going to be out. Kevin didn't want me to get into more trouble.

00:12:12.820 So he said, why don't you come up to Catskill and stay here with Cus and me? So I wound up going up

00:12:20.340 to Catskill, continuing to box at a higher level. I won the Ongloves up there, the Adirondack Ongloves.

00:12:27.460 And, you know, the story went to that, you know, it transitioned to that place.

00:12:33.340 Right. And that's where you began, you know, getting your feet wet with training. How did that

00:12:38.180 happen? Did Cus see something in you that you could be a potential trainer and he started nudging you 0.95

00:12:42.740 in that direction? Cus was a master psychologist, manipulator. Don't take that the wrong way,

00:12:50.680 because, you know, you can be a good person and know how to maneuver and manipulate people.

00:12:56.300 That's part of the magic of being successful with people, being a mover of people, you know,

00:13:03.360 being a motivator, inspiration to people. So Cus had that ability and he used it when he needed to.

00:13:11.060 And he said I was still, he said I was a born teacher. Sounded good. And he said that I was,

00:13:18.040 you know, I was born to teach. And that even though I had no interest in being a trainer

00:13:26.940 at the time, he said that I could help people. I could do more than I could even do for myself if

00:13:34.720 I was to become a champion. That I could develop fighters and help people get to a place they

00:13:41.360 wouldn't normally get to themselves. And I'd be with them during that journey. A piece of me would

00:13:46.420 be in the ring with them. That's the exact way he put it. To try again to maneuver me to do something

00:13:51.260 I wasn't inclined to do. I wasn't inclined to dedicate my life to being a trainer, to helping

00:13:56.400 other people. I was still at that selfish phase where, hey, and look, success is attached to

00:14:02.480 selfish too. So it's not like you have to apologize for it all the time, unless it gets out of hand.

00:14:08.900 But I was at the place where I wanted to be a fighter. The idea was I was going to turn pro.

00:14:14.020 I had an injury. I had a back injury. And Cush used that, he used that situation to talk me into

00:14:23.020 being a trainer. It didn't take me right away, but he kept at it. You know, he kept at it. And

00:14:29.940 I was a believer in loyalty. It was, it was a thing that I, you know, again, it was taught by my

00:14:37.300 father, the man who didn't talk too much. You know, loyalty is attached to commitment. Loyalty

00:14:41.680 is attached to, you know, just doing what you're supposed to do, right? Loyalty, commitment,

00:14:48.560 keeping your word, you know, living up to, living up to whatever it is that you've obligated yourself

00:14:55.200 to. And so that was, that was something that was important to me. So when Cush said I couldn't fight,

00:15:04.580 I couldn't go somewhere else. There was no thought of that. If Cush said I couldn't, I couldn't. So

00:15:10.300 the option was go back on the street, doing what I was doing or become a trainer. Eventually Cush got me

00:15:17.800 to that place. It, it took a little while. We took some side roads to get there that got me in trouble

00:15:23.980 again. But eventually I kind of succumbed to Cush's insistence that I would be a good trainer.

00:15:33.440 And then he started calling me the young master. He, he, again, he understood how to move people.

00:15:41.400 He understood the psychology, understood what you needed to hear. So I eventually,

00:15:45.760 I eventually stayed up there at some point and I started training all these fighters.

00:15:51.600 They, these, I started developing a, a gym because you got to remember Cush was semi-retired

00:15:57.620 at the time. So there was nobody up there. There was me, Kevin Rooney, maybe three other people,

00:16:02.520 maybe four. And when I, 19 year old, 18, 19 year old kid, and I started putting time into

00:16:12.320 training kids in the gym, kids started coming. They started coming from all different areas.

00:16:19.400 And next thing you know, we went from having nobody in the gym to 20 people, then 30, then 40.

00:16:25.960 We had a real gym, 50 people. And I trained them all. I trained the amateurs at night and Jimmy Jacobs,

00:16:33.820 who was very close, best friends with Cus, wealthy man, owned the biggest fight film collection in the

00:16:40.440 world, him and Bill Caden. Later on, you, the fight fans know who they are. They were the guys that

00:16:45.780 managed Mike Tyson's career at its most formidable stage. And they, you know, they basically funded Cus

00:16:54.740 and they sent pros up there. So I would train the pros in the day and I would train amateurs at night.

00:17:02.960 I had no time, but it was good. I was committed to something. And I, I created a real gym up there

00:17:09.880 with, with Cus's, you know, belief behind me. That's all I needed, his belief behind me. And again,

00:17:16.160 I wasn't getting paid anything, but Cus knew how to pay me. He would call me the young master.

00:17:21.320 And that, I think people listening understand that you need to hear things like that. Sometimes

00:17:27.660 you don't know if it's always true, but you hope it is. And it feels good. You know, it feels good.

00:17:33.700 You, at the time you, you probably wouldn't be lying if you've said it felt just as good as getting

00:17:40.180 paid. Maybe later on you, you, it might not, but at the time it did. And you were, you know, I was,

00:17:48.380 I was, I was in there day and night in that gym. And then after about four, a few years,

00:17:55.260 I was up there about seven years training fighters, it turned out at the end. But after several years

00:18:01.840 of developing this gym, a guy named Mike Tyson came along and, you know, I developed him for another

00:18:07.420 four years before I wound up leaving.

00:18:10.340 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors. And now back to the show.

00:18:15.980 One part that you dig into in the book about how you train these young fighters were these,

00:18:21.180 you take them to these smokers. I think it was down in the Bronx, right? What, what were these?

00:18:26.840 Cause I've never heard of these before, but they just sounded really intense.

00:18:30.280 Yeah, they were intense. They were, again, you know, people that are not knowing of what it is

00:18:36.280 are going to say. It sounds dark and dangerous. And it, maybe it is, maybe it did, but you have

00:18:42.880 to understand they were in the South Bronx where there was nothing but bombed out buildings and

00:18:49.700 people in stairwells shooting up and lost people sometimes on some of the streets where to a certain

00:18:58.840 extent, the police didn't go to certain neighborhoods. They left it alone a little bit,

00:19:04.140 unless, unless they were forced to go. And you'd have a lot of bombed out buildings. And then you'd

00:19:09.960 have a building that was there, that was actually maybe the safest, most positive thing in the

00:19:18.240 neighborhood. It was a boxing club. The one I went to a lot was the Apollo, then later the Jerome,

00:19:24.040 and then there was Castle Hill. There was, there was so many of them, but the ones in the Bronx was the

00:19:32.000 Apollo. And it was right where the L, the L would run right across on the same level as it. So it

00:19:39.560 would shake the whole building. Sparks would go up and it would rumble by. You couldn't hear anything

00:19:45.700 for those couple of minutes. Three flights of steps to get up there. As I said already, you'd,

00:19:50.940 you'd walk past, you know, you'd, you'd smell urine. You'd see discarded needles. You might see

00:19:56.160 somebody possibly shooting up. So yeah, I mean, as I say it now, people are saying, Teddy, what do

00:20:02.080 you mean? It sounds like it could be a little dark and they, yeah, it had that, but it was a safe and

00:20:08.980 the safest place for these kids anywhere from an age is 10. I'll tell you sometimes maybe a little less.

00:20:15.220 And again, I'm going into that area where people are going to say, is that responsible? Well, is it

00:20:19.460 responsible being in a neighborhood where you could get shot? Is it responsible where dope is very

00:20:25.000 readily available where you could get hit over the head with a pipe? Stabbed? But now you had a place

00:20:31.840 where hopes, you know, hopes were formed and developed hope and dreams. And that's, that's not

00:20:40.840 dangerous. And that's what this place was. It was a, it was a few of them around. They were non-sanctioned

00:20:47.580 fights. So again, yeah, there was, there was no doctors. There was the AAU at the time was

00:20:54.560 supposed to overlook boxing. And then later on it was called the ABF, I think, American

00:21:00.180 Boxing Federation, USA Boxing. But they weren't in these places. These places were, they were

00:21:05.980 on their own. And it was a chance for the proprietor of the place to, to charge $3 at the door,

00:21:13.620 sell little cups of rum, beers, food, and you're able to help yourself with the rent. And that

00:21:20.780 meant keeping the doors open for hope where these kids could come and they could train,

00:21:25.740 they could train, they could box, they could have a chance to get out of those places,

00:21:32.340 have a chance to become Sugar Ray Leonard or Fredo Benitez, you know, all these great fighters that

00:21:39.220 they saw on television. And they heard about on the radio with their fathers, maybe their uncles,

00:21:45.660 somebody in their family, maybe a neighbor, and they could get a chance to become something,

00:21:52.420 a chance to feel better, to feel better about where they were, about who they were. It was

00:21:57.960 important. It was the most important place in the neighborhood. Now maybe you understand. I gave you

00:22:03.600 both sides. I mean, you know, the other side is tough, but without this side, it's unredeemable.

00:22:12.000 With this side, it's redeemable. There's a purpose to it. And the place would be packed. And it was a

00:22:18.100 chance for kids after the trainers did all that work, teaching them the basics for months, it was

00:22:23.120 a chance for them now to find out if they could be a fighter, see what it was, to get experience.

00:22:30.000 You know, you could catch with your father all day on the sidelines, out in the street, or in the

00:22:35.120 driveway. You know, if you're lucky enough to come from a place that had a driveway, these kids weren't.

00:22:40.300 But you could play catch with them all day. But then there came a time you had to be in a game

00:22:45.220 because now in a game, maybe that ball that's thrown the same way looks different. Why? Because

00:22:52.140 somebody's watching because it's a game. And now you get a chance to get up to bat. So you learn all

00:22:58.920 these things, how to hit a bag, how to throw a jab straight, how to throw right hand, how to follow

00:23:04.320 with a hook, how to move your head to avoid punches. And now you get a chance to get the

00:23:09.160 real experience to find out, can I do it? Do I want to do it? Can I make the right choices when

00:23:15.060 the choices come? And you start learning how to be a man. You start learning how to grow up. You

00:23:20.140 start learning how, I mean, nobody outlines that to you. You're learning to be a fighter,

00:23:27.800 but you're learning a lot more than that. And so that's what a smoker was. So you go into these

00:23:34.360 places and you're a nervous kid. You're walking up those steps. You got a chance to think about

00:23:39.780 turning around. That's another part of being a man, another part of growing up. Do I keep going?

00:23:45.600 Do I find it out? Do I get out? Do I escape? Or do I keep going? What do I do? And you get up there

00:23:52.620 and you got the Spanish music blaring from four foot speakers and the pom-pom drums and all that

00:24:04.160 going on. You're nervous. I used to joke with the kids. I said, don't worry. I'm not going to tell

00:24:12.140 anybody. Nobody else could see it. And they used to look, what do you mean? What do you mean?

00:24:18.520 You know, see your heart beating out of your chest with your shirts going up and down. And they would

00:24:24.060 look at their chest real quick to see if it was true. Of course, because they knew what they felt.

00:24:30.700 I said, don't worry. Nobody else saw it. And all these other kids in there, they feel the same way.

00:24:40.400 So you started to teach them how to control their emotions. Started to teach them what it was all

00:24:48.460 about. You started to teach them that it was okay to be scared. Everyone else is scared. You just

00:24:56.040 wouldn't know it by looking at them, but you wouldn't know it by looking at you either because

00:24:59.820 you don't even realize it. You're taking the first step already in overcoming it by not showing it and

00:25:06.080 by dealing with it. And then they get in the ring and they fight. I'll give you an example,

00:25:11.920 an extreme example. I had a kid named Maymore. This kid came to me in Catskill gym because he was

00:25:18.080 getting picked on. His lunch money was he had no father. A lot of my kids had no fathers. It's not

00:25:23.380 an accident they didn't have fathers. That's why they came to the gym. They were looking to find

00:25:28.660 the replacement for what a father would have gave them. Not just in the mentoring. That was part of it.

00:25:36.080 Somebody caring. Somebody telling them when they're doing something right. Somebody got to be there to

00:25:41.680 tell you that. Or when you're doing something wrong, somebody got to be there to tell you that.

00:25:45.880 It's important. And it can't always be a woman. Not saying, oh, women, of course they can do the job, 1.00

00:25:53.240 but sometimes it's got to be a father. And this kid Maymore had no father. So he heard about the gym

00:26:03.300 and he started showing up. But the funny thing was he would show up and he'd leave. Show up,

00:26:11.100 leave. So I'll tell you one thing. As a trainer, you become a psychologist without going to school

00:26:16.460 because if you don't understand the psyche of a human being, you better get the freak out of this

00:26:21.760 business because it ain't just about X's and O's. It's about people. It's about how people feel

00:26:27.200 and how they want to feel and what they're not feeling. So after a few times of seeing this kid

00:26:34.160 darting out, he was 80 pounds. He was 11 years old, 80 pounds. So finally one day I said, come over

00:26:39.780 here. See, I had already gotten sort of the profile, if you want, of Maymore. His name was Maymore.

00:26:47.000 So my kids in the gym, I asked about him and they told me everything about him. Yeah, he's got no

00:26:53.040 father. He gets picked on by a kid named Goo, takes his lunch money and stuff like that. So now I got

00:27:01.460 what I need for my kids. So next time he comes in, he said, come over here. And he's looking around

00:27:08.460 like, are you talking to me? Come here. So I show him how to throw a jab. I throw a jab out by the

00:27:15.660 mirror. And then I said, you try that. And he tried it. I said, that's good. That's good. You

00:27:21.580 could, you could have a good jab. And then I tell him to throw a right hand. That's good. Wow. I said,

00:27:27.540 have you, have you trained somewhere else? He looks at me like I'm crazy. He says, no, you sure?

00:27:36.440 Because I don't want to find out you trained somewhere else. I'm taking someone else's fighter.

00:27:40.300 No, no, no. I didn't train anywhere else. All right, good. All right. Well, come up here tomorrow.

00:27:45.140 Bring gym shorts, stuff, six o'clock, be here. We'll start training. And that was it. That's

00:27:51.100 what he needed. So I would teach him. He picked up very fast. But then when it came time to get

00:27:57.140 in the ring and boxing, sparring, then he would fall apart. He wasn't ready for that. It was too much.

00:28:04.380 So the funny thing was, I was a guy that came from this troubled past. Where do you think the gym was?

00:28:10.940 Of course. Where else? Above a police station. And what's across the hall in a little place called

00:28:16.100 Catskill? Of course. A courtroom. And we're in Catskill. They didn't lock the doors. So we had

00:28:25.240 the courtroom at night. Nobody there, you know, to most nights. The court was open, whatever it was,

00:28:32.740 sort of day usually. So we have the courtroom. We got the police station downstairs.

00:28:37.320 So when Maine, the first time I put Maine into box, he ran right out of the gym, started crying

00:28:45.140 because he was scared. And he probably figured that he couldn't handle this, obviously. Figured

00:28:52.180 he was yellow. Well, why wouldn't he figure he was yellow? He got his lunch money taken every day.

00:28:57.180 So I would go out of the gym, have some of my older kids keep it going. And I'd go out there and talk

00:29:05.040 to them. And the funny thing was, there was no better place to talk. You had to sit down,

00:29:10.940 go in the courtroom. And I had fun with it a couple of times. I remember one time thinking,

00:29:16.500 after we did this a few times, because it took a while with Maine to get them to that place.

00:29:21.220 I remember at one point, I'm sitting in a judge's chair. I couldn't help but think,

00:29:27.720 you know what, it's a lot better sitting here than on the other side, where I used to sit a few years

00:29:33.800 ago. And I kind of thought like, maybe I had the right to sit there now. Or if I didn't, I still was

00:29:41.380 going to do it anyway, because it was kind of, it was my own way of kind of making things, getting

00:29:47.660 things back, getting back something a little bit. So we would talk and I would tell him,

00:29:53.920 you know, I want to tell you a story. And he'd be crying. And then he'd start calming down a little

00:30:01.420 bit. I'd say, you know, I know it's got nothing to do with you. But when I was a kid, I used to,

00:30:08.740 I used to get picked on. So you could imagine what a shocker was, because I've run the gym and

00:30:14.600 I'm known as a former fighter and all that stuff. This kid looks up to me. So he says,

00:30:20.660 you used to get picked on? I said, yeah, believe it or not. Yeah, yeah, I got picked on. And some

00:30:26.180 guy used to take my lunch money. Now he doesn't know I know everything about him. So he said,

00:30:32.440 well, what did you do? I said, well, I used to, I used to give it to him. And then I would go home and

00:30:38.900 I'd cry and, you know, and then I'd feel terrible, but I wouldn't tell anybody. So he said, well,

00:30:46.760 what happened? And I said, well, one day I just got tired of, I got tired of being hungry. And I

00:30:55.700 got tired of feeling this way. And I started to realize that I'm going to keep feeling this way

00:31:03.900 unless I do something about it. And I started to realize that, you know, the way I feel

00:31:10.780 is, and what I have to do is two different things. If I do something, it's only going to,

00:31:20.520 it's only going to last for a minute. I said, how, how long does a fight last before somebody breaks

00:31:27.720 it up a minute, 30 seconds. But if I keep letting this guy do this and I keep going through what I'm

00:31:36.380 going through, I'm going to keep feeling this. It doesn't go away. I feel it at night. I feel it

00:31:41.260 in the morning. I feel it during school. It's forever. So he said, what happened? I said, well,

00:31:47.240 you know, the garbage pails where you dump your trash. He said, yeah. I said, well, one day the guy

00:31:53.200 asked me for my money and I didn't give it to him. He said, what happened? I said,

00:31:57.280 he wound up in the garbage pail and he said, is that true? I said, yeah. And, you know,

00:32:03.080 he started laughing and I said, you know, he said, I never knew you were afraid. I said,

00:32:09.000 I'm afraid all the time. I said, but like you just said, you never know it, but I'm afraid of

00:32:13.460 things all the time. But I'm more afraid of how I used to feel when I didn't do something about it,

00:32:20.260 when I didn't stand up for myself. I'm more afraid of that because I know how long that lasts.

00:32:25.320 I know that lasts forever. I know the other thing doesn't last that long. So we went back

00:32:30.840 in the gym. The next day I get him in the ring again. We might get into two minutes before he

00:32:36.740 break down, go to the courtroom, sit in the judges chambers, you know, have a talk. And after about

00:32:43.500 a week or two of this, he got through a whole round. He got through two rounds. He got through

00:32:48.640 three rounds. He got through four rounds and I took him to the Bronx. It was time to fight,

00:32:53.640 but I had to find the right guy. I found a kid named Raul Rivera. Raul had the same problems as

00:32:59.760 Maine. He was scared. He was insecure. He had no father. He had no confidence. He was picked on.

00:33:05.600 I put them together and I'm telling you, it was the worst fight ever for people to watch because

00:33:12.160 they grabbed each other. They looked at the referee. They held onto each other. They probably threw about

00:33:19.060 a half a punch each for the whole three rounds, but it was the most beautiful fight I ever watched

00:33:24.540 because it was allowing the kid Maine to deal with what he had to deal with at the right temperature

00:33:31.600 and to get through what he had to get through. And I put them in six times in a row, six weeks in a

00:33:38.000 row with each other. Now the proprietor, Nelson said, Teddy, you're making me throw up. I mean,

00:33:44.400 I can't watch this stuff no more. I mean, I really, I can't watch this. You're killing me.

00:33:50.980 And I said, look, you're going to keep watching it. You're going to keep watching it because this

00:33:55.780 is what they need. And you know what? By the sixth time they were fighting, they weren't grabbing,

00:34:01.660 they weren't looking at the referee, they were fighting. And even Nelson had to say,

00:34:06.100 I cannot believe it. I cannot believe these are the same people. And that's, that's what we did.

00:34:15.100 Yeah. It sounds like you weren't, weren't just teaching these kids how to box. You were,

00:34:18.660 you were teaching them to be men.

00:34:20.240 Yeah. I mean, you weren't, you weren't separating the thoughts that way or articulating it that way,

00:34:27.600 but yeah. Yeah. They were, they were, they were learning, they were learning the magic

00:34:32.980 of being a grownup, of being a man. You know what the magic is? To learn and to understand that

00:34:43.460 you have the choice of how you behave, not somebody else, not circumstances, not the environment,

00:34:52.480 even the environment of the South Bronx, tough environment, beautiful people. They're great

00:34:58.460 people, tough environment, tough environment that those things did not dictate choice. They did not

00:35:09.460 dictate control. They did not tell you how you had to behave. You did, you did. And they learned that

00:35:19.260 they learned that no matter what, no matter how many of these things were lined up there to have

00:35:26.880 basically excuses to be less, that at the end of the day, it was your choice. Nobody else's,

00:35:37.280 your choice of how to behave, your choice of what you were going to do. They learned that.

00:35:45.760 You know what that is? That's the prelude to being a man. That's what it's about.

00:35:53.540 Yeah. I mean, one of the things you, you, you, you hit on this as you're describing the story of the

00:35:57.680 smokers, where it's just this terrible place, people shooting up dope, urine, whatever. That's

00:36:04.400 kind of like the story of boxing in general. Like ever since the beginning, boxing has been criticized

00:36:08.920 as barbaric low brow. It's been looked down upon by the media. And I'm talking going back to the 19th

00:36:16.100 century, but for students of the sport, you hear these amazing stories of individuals from a lot

00:36:23.920 of times minority groups, Irish, black Jews who were in lower class. They were, they could have gone to a 1.00

00:36:30.960 life of crime, but then they found boxing. And for a lot of, for just a few of those guys,

00:36:36.040 they became champions, champions of the world for most of those guys that didn't do that.

00:36:41.740 They still learned about discipline, controlling emotions, managing their fear, those skills that

00:36:46.460 you've been talking about throughout these stories. And they became champions. What is a champion

00:36:51.620 champion? I don't know for me. I don't know when I finally was smart enough to understand this,

00:36:59.180 but for me now it's got less to do with gloves on your hand and how hard a punch you can take and how

00:37:06.860 great endurance you have, both, you know, emotionally, psychologically, and physical endurance.

00:37:12.860 It's got a lot less to do with how fast your hands are than it has to do with how you behave.

00:37:18.920 And that can be equated to anything. And it is, you know, whether it's whatever it is, whether it's to

00:37:27.720 be a, uh, uh, a teacher, a carpenter, a board member of, you know, a CEO, a guy working as a laborer,

00:37:37.160 but to become a champion, to become someone who can make his own choices that is completely free

00:37:46.300 and completely separate from the environment, completely separate from what's going on in your

00:37:53.120 world, what's going on around you, that you can make a choice that you can say today, I'm going to be 0.78

00:38:00.540 the best freaking carpenter in the world. I'm going to be the best freaking teacher in the world. I'm going 0.93

00:38:06.000 to be the best freaking laborer in the world, whatever it is, because you know that it's you who makes that 0.86

00:38:14.860 choice. You know, that you're in control of that. And that's my definition of becoming a professional 0.72

00:38:23.180 doing what you need to do, no matter what goes on around you, no matter how you feel when you wake up

00:38:30.520 that day, but it's becoming a man. It's becoming a whole person. And yeah, you know, the greatest thing

00:38:40.360 I can say about boxing, if somebody said, Teddy, you got one minute, describe, describe boxing.

00:38:47.380 I would say, okay, the world's not fair sometimes. Now they listen. Okay. All right. And maybe

00:38:55.200 sometimes you feel like you haven't been treated fair. You feel like you haven't been given as good

00:39:01.980 cards as your guy down the street was to play with. So this is what boxing is. On one given night,

00:39:10.640 you can get in the ring. If you trained hard enough, if you, if you cared enough, if you were determined

00:39:22.980 enough, if you were driven enough, if you were prepared enough on one given night, no matter where

00:39:33.420 you came from, no matter who your parents are, no matter your ethnicity, your religion, anything

00:39:41.520 on that one given night, you could make a choice to be the best. You, despite everything that happened

00:39:55.300 up to that point, can have your hand risen as the best, as the champion of the world, where

00:40:04.200 everything is fair and right on that one given night. That's boxing. You, you've trained with

00:40:13.520 18 world champions, including Michael Moore, who was the heavyweight champion when he beat Evander

00:40:19.100 Holyfield. I mean, during all this time, you've been training kids, amateurs, pros, and what's the

00:40:25.440 hardest thing to, to teach a boxer? Is it that idea that they, they're in control, that they're in

00:40:31.660 charge, that they can make the choices? Is that the hardest thing or is there something else?

00:40:35.640 Yeah, that's a good question. The hardest thing to teach a fighter is to know that the hardest thing

00:40:47.580 to accept, to get a fighter, I'm going to use that word instead of your word. The hardest thing, no,

00:40:53.460 no, it's all good, but the hardest thing to get somebody to accept, that's what a teacher has to do,

00:40:58.380 to get somebody to accept is that, and I'm putting this in the most simplest way, that you either have

00:41:07.300 reasons why, and you develop those reasons why you can't, or you have excuses why you can't. Bang!

00:41:16.620 Bang! That's it. I know that's, as I said, as simplistic as you can get, but it's not that simple

00:41:25.780 when you try to unravel it and you try to execute it, but that's what it is. You either have reasons

00:41:33.320 and you take those reasons because people said you couldn't do it because they said you were a 1.00

00:41:37.840 yellow coward, because your stepfather says you're a piece of garbage, because you got no father, 1.00

00:41:44.920 because your mother is on drugs. Whatever it is, whatever it is, you either, you take those, 1.00

00:41:51.700 you make those reasons why you're going to do it, because you just want to do it, because you just

00:41:58.260 want to feel good, and you know what else? You just want to know who you are. I just, a kid just wants

00:42:03.940 to know who they are. They want to know, am I somebody good? Am I somebody worthwhile? Because

00:42:09.200 I heard a lot of people say I wasn't, and am I somebody worthy of something, of success,

00:42:16.260 of feeling good? Am I allowed to feel good? So you either have reasons to go forward in those

00:42:22.440 directions, or everything I just said, take everything I just said and use it on the left

00:42:28.800 hand column as excuses why you won't and why you can't. You get them to understand that,

00:42:35.700 and you're on your way.

00:42:37.200 Something you've also said in your interviews and in your book is that a fighter isn't really

00:42:42.760 a fighter until they've faced resistance. But what's an example of a fighter who hasn't

00:42:47.280 faced resistance?

00:42:48.920 Forget about a fighter. You in life, in anything, you're not a teacher until you had a kid in

00:42:57.500 the classroom trying to put the classroom on fire. And I'm kidding around. I'm exaggerating.

00:43:03.260 I hope there's nobody trying to put their teacher's classrooms on fire out there. Please don't do

00:43:09.260 that. But until you've gotten a kid that doesn't let you go home so easy, that is not so agreeable,

00:43:18.240 you know, that is not so committed to what you want them committed to. Until you overcome that,

00:43:24.560 you're not a teacher. Until you as a doctor, you open up somebody and veins that woman is supposed 1.00

00:43:31.460 to be bleeding are bleeding. You're not a doctor. You're just a guy that understands the anatomy.

00:43:37.860 You're a guy that passed a lot of tests. You go into a courtroom and all of a sudden a district

00:43:45.200 attorney throws a curveball. All of a sudden the judge says, no, you can't use that brief today.

00:43:50.100 I don't care that you put four months work into it. No, you can't. You're not a lawyer.

00:43:56.280 You thought you were a lawyer because you got a diploma that's up on a wall that looks pretty

00:44:01.840 freaking good. But you're not a lawyer. Not until you deal with that. Not until you overcome something.

00:44:09.060 You're not a fighter. It's the same thing. You're just a guy that's in good shape. You're a guy that

00:44:16.140 has physical abilities. You're a guy who inherited good genetics. You're a guy who's going through an

00:44:22.560 athletic exhibition. Great. Looks good. But until there's resistance, until there's something to

00:44:30.380 overcome, you're not a fighter. And that's when a lot of fighters who maybe have that talent,

00:44:36.140 those genes, when they face that resistance, that's when they give up. And they don't know

00:44:41.380 that idea that it's harder to give up than it is to fight. Yeah, that idea is so simple.

00:44:45.880 I'll say it again. I've been saying it for whatever amount of time we've been talking in so many words,

00:44:52.100 in different words. But, you know, I'll say it again. It is harder to quit than it is to fight.

00:45:01.560 Because when you fight, it's over within a second, 10 seconds. Really? I mean, really? Am I exaggerating?

00:45:11.040 A fight, a world title fight, if it goes the distance, lands 36 minutes. That's a blink of

00:45:18.620 the eye in somebody's life. A blink of the eye. It's a second. Something difficult you got to deal

00:45:25.600 with. A minute. A half a minute. Five seconds. Whatever it is. That's how long it lasts to deal

00:45:31.060 with it. But you don't fight. Whatever your fight is, you don't deal with it. And you quit.

00:45:39.420 You submit. You give in. That doesn't go away. That's there all day, all night. Comes at the

00:45:49.160 worst times to you. Two o'clock in the morning. You can't sleep. You're laying in bed. You get up.

00:45:57.240 You walk into the washroom. You look in the mirror. And there it is. There it is. There it is.

00:46:04.500 It's still there. The next day, still there. The next day, still there. Yeah. If you understand it

00:46:12.400 in the way I just said it, the real way, yeah. It's damn easier to fight than it is to quit.

00:46:20.060 You've spent your career training young men to be fighters and men. You started this when you were

00:46:28.020 19, 20. How has your conception of what it means to be a man evolved since then? And I'm curious,

00:46:36.440 I mean, obviously your father has a big influence on what you think of what a man is, that whole idea

00:46:40.920 of accountability. But as you've gotten older, have you noticed that your father's influence,

00:46:46.220 has it gotten stronger? Or maybe even Cuss's or maybe other people, or maybe you've discovered

00:46:50.920 things on your own on what it means to be a man?

00:46:53.580 It was my father. Cuss taught me how to put it into words, taught me how to teach it,

00:46:59.220 how to articulate it. Yes. He put it into form, into usable form. Cuss did. Brilliant man. Special

00:47:09.060 man. But the real architect of this, if you will use such a description, the former of this,

00:47:19.480 my father. There's no greater teacher than example. There's no greater lessons than to watch,

00:47:28.120 to see that no matter how this man felt. I mean, this is a guy who, no matter how he felt,

00:47:35.840 he did what he had to do. This is a guy who had to get surgery. Back in the days when surgery in

00:47:43.740 certain ways was much more evasive, much more dangerous. I mean, my father had a, I don't know

00:47:49.600 if it was a double, triple hernia, whatever the hell they called it. But he got it as an intern

00:47:54.160 when he was interning. He went to the NYU Medical School and he interned at Bellevue. He told me that

00:48:01.520 when you got out of Bellevue, you're ready for everything. And he saved an obese person's life,

00:48:07.860 it turned out, when he was a young intern. The person, it was a woman, had collapsed on a street.

00:48:14.740 He got her off the street, you know, pulled her to wherever he had to. And she had a heart attack.

00:48:20.800 Basically, he saved her life. And he formed a hernia. Well, he didn't have time to take care of

00:48:28.620 that, you know? So 35 years later, finally, he had to get it. It was strangling him.

00:48:35.040 Now, I didn't know nothing about that stuff. But one day, I walked into his bedroom. I shouldn't

00:48:42.280 have. But again, I'm seven years old. I'm eight years old, whatever the heck I was. I walk in,

00:48:47.540 I open the door, and there was a big mirror that was right to the left that could show you what was

00:48:53.300 to the right of the room. So I looked in the mirror, and there he was, a way I'd never seen

00:48:57.540 in my life. He was bent over, obviously in pain, and he had this contraption around him.

00:49:05.040 Around his midsection, around his groin area. It was a thrust. I didn't know what the hell it was.

00:49:10.320 It was made out of leather, and it was to keep his intestines from popping out. It was to keep

00:49:15.980 the hernia, which was popping way out, to keep it in place. That's what they had in those days.

00:49:22.060 And I was confused. He got angry. He said, close the door, leave the room. And of course,

00:49:29.760 I never forgot that. You know what that told me? I didn't know a damn thing. But I knew he was in pain.

00:49:35.040 I knew my father was in pain every day, and he still did everything he was supposed to do

00:49:42.820 every day in pain. Every day. And he waited 35 years to get the surgery. He got it done in

00:49:52.980 doctor's hospital that he found it. And I know this is crazy. And my father was eccentric.

00:49:57.960 Okay. You know, I think great people are. I think special people are sometimes. And maybe

00:50:03.900 we call it eccentric, and maybe it's really special. Maybe it's what works for them. But

00:50:09.780 he actually had given himself some anesthesia, or started the process by giving himself something

00:50:20.660 just before he got to the, just as he was walking in the hospital. So by the time they got him ready,

00:50:26.240 he saved them time. He was already starting to be, you know, a little bit ready for the anesthesia,

00:50:32.900 I guess, and stuff. Whatever they have to give. I mean, he knew what to do. So they got him on the

00:50:37.700 stretcher, and they're taking him to the OR room. And he says, hold on a minute. Stop here at the

00:50:43.880 station. Nurses station. Stop here. Dr. Atlas, we got to get you into the OR. No, no, no, no. Got to

00:50:50.780 stop here. I just got to go over a couple orders for a few patients. And he had a sense of humor that

00:50:57.840 was very different than other people. He said, just in case this don't go right, he says, I got

00:51:03.540 to make sure that this poor lady gets out of here Monday. I got to make sure she gets discharged. 1.00

00:51:11.200 And I got to make sure that this other guy gets his medicines changed. So stop at the station.

00:51:17.120 He stopped at the station, looked at the orders, made a few adjustments. And then he said, all right,

00:51:24.380 go ahead. Let's go. Take me. He was supposed to be in the hospital at least eight, nine days in those

00:51:33.520 days in the hospital one day. Now, was it the right way to do it? No. No, it wasn't. Doctors are the

00:51:41.460 worst patients. We get it. But he could do it. He could do it. He understood it was a matter of dealing

00:51:49.380 with the pain. It was a matter of what his responsibility. He was back working in his

00:51:55.240 office three days later. He knew he could do it. Was it convenient? No. Could you do it? Yes.

00:52:04.520 And that's what I learned. And that's how I learned it. And to answer your question, I think I'm

00:52:10.480 remembering it. Even though I went down this road, you said, what is it? What is it to be a man? What

00:52:16.720 is it to be this? Convenience. That's what it is. To understand the difference between convenience

00:52:24.160 and responsibility. That's it. That's it. Well, Teddy, this has been a great conversation. Where

00:52:30.460 can people go to learn more about what you're doing? The podcast, anything else you got going

00:52:34.060 on? They can go to the podcast. I think you go on, you, I don't know much about this stuff. I'm a

00:52:40.300 caveman. I'm the most unsophisticated media guy in the world, but somebody fortunately does this for

00:52:47.680 me and talked me into doing it. So I have a podcast. You go on YouTube and you put in the

00:52:53.640 fight with Teddy Atlas. And I know there's some iTunes and other stuff that you can go on,

00:52:59.420 you know, on, on, on something on, uh, sure. And what are they, what do you talk about on your

00:53:07.180 podcast? We talk about life. You know what I, I said from the beginning, I said, I'm going to use

00:53:11.800 this podcast to talk boxing, but to use boxing to connect the dots in life. Because for me,

00:53:20.520 everybody's fighting. I don't mean it that way. I don't mean it the way it sounds because there is a

00:53:25.500 lot of fighting going on out there. But what I mean is we're all in a fight. It's just a matter

00:53:30.660 what the hell you're fighting for. And for me, what better to use to kind of take people through

00:53:37.480 things than boxing to explain the fight they might be dealing with. So I talk about boxing,

00:53:44.500 connect the dots with life. And, um, I try to go places where maybe people would like to go,

00:53:51.200 but they just don't know how. And I try to show them how, and I just recorded my book into an

00:53:57.940 audio book where it's coming out next month. So hopefully that'd be something too, that people

00:54:03.820 will, you know, that people will find interesting. Fantastic. Well, Teddy Atlas, thanks so much for

00:54:08.220 your time. It's been a pleasure. It's my pleasure. Thank you. My guest today was Teddy Atlas. You can

00:54:13.340 check out his book. It's called Atlas from the streets to the ring. A son struggled to become a man.

00:54:17.660 It's a great story. Also check out his podcast, The Fight. It's available on anywhere. You can

00:54:22.020 listen to podcasts and check out our show notes at aom.is slash Atlas, where you can find links

00:54:26.420 to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM

00:54:37.780 podcast. Check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you can find our podcast archives. We've got

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The Art of Manliness - May 16, 2022

An Old-School Boxing Trainer on What It Means to Be a Man

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