Making it with the toughest and best

BOXING: Johnny Watterson interviews Irish middleweight Andy Lee who will be contributing an occasional diary to The Irish Times over the coming months

Each time Andy Lee walks into Detroit's Kronk gym he is reminded. Every time he steps from his car into the humidity or below-freezing air and walks through the grime of McCaw Street, each tug of the shirt and taping of the hands, every drawing of the laces and pounding on the bag he sees where he is going, is reminded of why he is there. Lee saw it when he turned down the most lucrative financial package the Irish Sports Council had ever offered an amateur boxer, the best deal they had offered any Irish athlete.

"It made it harder to walk away but it wasn't about money," he says. "Personal reasons. If I'd stayed amateur it would have been one goal and that was the Olympics in 2008. If I turned pro it was going into the unknown, a world I didn't know."

Now, consumed by the scarred and ageing basement, the flaking walls of the venerable Kronk, where the ring is on the floor and just two bags hang from the ceiling, Lee is, every day, reminded of why he fled the support systems and home comforts of Limerick for the Motor City; why the only Irish fighter to qualify for the last Olympic Games broke bread with professional trainer Emanuel Steward and left huge disappointment in amateur boxing at home .

Thomas Hearns, Mike McCallum, Michael Moorer, Gerald McClelland, Wilfredo Benitez, Evander Holyfield, Julio Cesar Chavez, Lennox Lewis, Oscar De La Hoya, Wladimir Klitschko - they were all turned towards world titles by the hand of Steward, Lee's coach. "Legendary" is Steward's sobriquet, one that is threadbare from use by all sorts of claimants but with Steward is a comfortable fit.

One day Lee believes his name will belong among those world champions, believes a glossy poster image of him, stripped to the waist and fists defiantly high, will some day stare down from the wall. It has always been a boxer's prerogative to dream.

FOUR YEARS AGO the Irish boxing team travelled to Cuba for the world junior championships. It was there Lee stepped into the ring with an American fighter called Jesus Gonzales. The kid had a swagger. He was the number one fighter in America in his age group and weight division. Gonzales too was one of Steward's prospects and was coached and sponsored by the Kronk trainer. In boxing terms, the American teenager was a made man. His talent had earned him the privilege.

"His name was Hey-zeus Gonzales

. . . Jesus," says Lee. "We fought. I beat him."

When Steward heard about the defeat he was puzzled and discomfited. Gonzales showed him the tape of the fight and Steward made a mental note, made inquiries. That same year, it was no accident that Lee found himself in Detroit with his boxing gear, putting his nose in the air and sniffing the shape of the future. A misson of sorts.

"I'd been to the gym in that year (2002) and ended up sparring with this guy. He was a professional with 18 wins, no losses. It was a tough, tough spar but Emanuel was impressed. I wasn't overwhelmed. I loved the challenge.

"There is an incredible atmosphere in the gym. It's a rough, tough place. Just the heat

. . . and in summer the humidity. A real low ceiling. The basement of an old recreation centre. An old building. Nothing big, nothing fancy. Two bags. No real floor space. It's a rough, tough place where the spars are very hard. But they've taken to me there. They're good people. And they like watching me box. Every time. Every time I box the ring is crowded with people watching.

"Then last year I travelled to America for three months. Travelled to LA and stayed in Emanuel's house. At the time he was training Vitali Klitscho. After that we went to Detroit for a month. By that stage I'd made my mind up. Knew I wanted to go pro."

Lee's first two professional bouts have been satisfactory. In Germany last weekend he earned his first stoppage against late step-in Wassim Khalil on the undercard to Vilati's brother Vladimir's IBF heavyweight title win over Chris Byrd.

But Lee's name is 24 carat because of his amateur credentials. The professional boxing trade will quickly erode those. Soon Lee will become known as a professional and his amateur tag will become an anachronistic label. Within two years the 21-year-old will be known as the professional who made it or the professional who couldn't take the step across. It is not alien territory for Lee. He has had to take big steps before. The challenge doesn't generate fear, it fuels ambition.

AS A TOT, too young to remember when, he sat watching the world go by from the corner of a gym in Bow, East London. Working class area, Tom from Limerick and Dubliner Ann raised their five children within the sound of Bow bells. As bona fide Cockneys, the kids trained in the Bethnal Green gym and in the early days, too young to participate, second youngest Andy sat by the ropes enamoured by his older sparring brothers Ned and Tommy. At 11 years he began formal boxing. From watching his brothers, he then followed them. There was nothing he didn't like about it.

"Crowds shouting. Hearing everyone. Hearing family cheering. Once you get into the ring you get into a different mode," he says. "You almost don't become yourself anymore. You just box. Primal instincts take over, I suppose."

When Andy was 14 the family moved back to Limerick from London. Big step. New world. The fracture was painful but East London was no leafy middle-class suburb and Bethnal Green gym was not a scout-den jamboree. Lee is hard but he wears it lightly. His face is handsome but the welts and smarting of his fight from last week in Germany add a few years to his age.

Outwardly he has a gentle and reflective nature but he also possesses an overriding pragmatism. He is proud of his ability and the joy it brings to his parents and five siblings and there is an absence of arrogance. He doesn't trash-talk, he plots.

Steward teaches humility, a lifestyle. Doubtless in Lee he has seen a talent that has value to him. The Irishman is an investment. But the very maturation of the policy requires careful nurturing and as much as showing Lee how to hurt others and defend himself, he also teaches him how to live, conduct himself. Fail there and . . .

"It was tough moving to the West of Ireland. I was removed from eveything I knew in life, my friends and my little world in East London," he says. "It took some time getting used to. I wasn't happy but looking back it was the best thing. It allowed me to focus on boxing."

Abandoning school then to work with his father in landscape gardening, it took four more years to impress the Irish senior selectors, just two for an underage singlet. A European silver medal followed, an Olympics too and by the age of 20 he had shop-windowed himself on a global scale.

He tightens his lips. His affection for amateur boxing is genuine but, like an old infatuation, it is so over. His eyes have been opened to a bigger, more cut-throat, grimy life. A more exciting world.

"IN THE AMATEURS Ireland has no power, no influence politically. Just not big enough. Don't have the boxers," he says "In the pro game with Emanuel, who is one of the big hitters, I'm now on the good side. Emanuel has good relationships with people. He has contacts. He can put you on big shows when you need it and he can get you easy fights when you need it.

"He's a humble person. When you are in his presence you know you are in the presence of someone . . . different. I think a bit special. Special in what he does in boxing. I see why he has been so successful. His attention to detail and his intelligence. He does things trainers wouldn't even think of doing.

"When Vladimir Klitschko was training for his last fight, Byrd had asked for an 18-foot ring, which is quite small for heavyweights. Maybe it was tactical, maybe to put Vladimir out of his stride. For the training camp Emanuel got the exact same size ring for Vladimir. Trained in it for a month.Last day Emanuel got out this piece of tape and asked me to help measure the ring exactly. He cut it, rolled it up and put it in his pocket. Everyone was wondering what he was doing.

"We go to Germany for the fight and the day before, they all go into the arena. It's a big 14,000-seat stadium and the ring looks so small. Byrd's people are going crazy saying the ring is too small, saying it's not 18 feet and that they couldn't box here. Emanuel said nothing. He took the tape out of his pocket and rolled it out. It was the exact same size. He said nothing and put it back in his pocket. He knew he'd have no problem.

"Every day he wraps my hands for training. Tapes and bandages them. He says every day you need to be using these hands. Makes sure he does it personally. They need to be in good order he says. Little things. Most boxers put vaseline on their faces to make the punches slide off. He uses cocoa butter."

THE FIGHTER'S HANDS are long and thin. The tendons strain as his fingers drum on his knees. Long, and tanned from a month in Spain training, it's clear why Steward oversees the ritual taping. They are pianist's hands, not those of a pugilist. His frame is long and his reach too. At 6ft 2ins Lee is exceptionally tall in a division that averages 5ft 11ins. But with his balance, classical style and natural insticts he manages his body beautifully.

He can weigh in at 160lbs but in professional boxing that station is 24 hours before the bout. Fight-night he's back to a more natural 172lbs. It's not only in the ring his body takes punishment. From now on those hands, that frame, will climb through the ropes every six weeks and fight.

With his friends Kermit Cintron, Aaron Prior and Johnathon Banks, all prospects, he's discovering Detroit, eating soul food, living a new dream.

"I go out with these guys. A token white guy. They're all black guys in a black city. We go to these black restaraunts. I'm always the odd one out. But they look after me. They make sure I'm comfortable," he says.

"The gym is in a really bad place. A rough area. It's a big, big difference. Just have to adapt. I don't mind that. I don't want home everywhere I go. I'm grateful I have the opportunity. I know there's a lot more reasons I shouldn't be in Detroit with Emanuel Steward."

Sometimes he's reminded of home. But home is where he wants to be. Home is necessity. Home is what makes him happy. It's the comfort of his bed, the snug fit of his gloves. It's his companions. Home is anywhere he is encouraged to dream.