No girl dated me as a boxer – Nsofor

Nsofor

Despite being born with a silver spoon, Nigeria’s boxing head coach, Idika Nsofor, decided early in life to chart his own course, KAZEEM BUSARI writes

 Not many Nigerians these days know when Idika Nsofor wore gloves and battered opponents in the ring as a young pugilist. Quite a few know him to be a once dreaded boxer even as a student at Holy Ghost College in Owerri, Imo State.

It was easy to miss the Oguta-born prince on Nigeria’s boxing scene because he left for the United States early in life to continue his boxing career – a career his father, Francis Nsofor, never gave his blessings.

“My father was very disappointed in me for being a boxer. He believed the sport was only practiced by lowlifes and not befitting a man born to a royal family. He told me to stop or he would stop paying for my school fees. When I didn’t heed his advice, he stopped paying the fees,” Nsofor, who started boxing in 1965 as a student of New Era Technical Institute in Port Harcourt, said.

The late coach Steve Jiafra introduced the young Nsofor to boxing, but the love for the sport and the inspiration he derived from boxing legend Mohammed Ali’s career kept him going.

In 1972, when Holy Ghost College boxing club represented Owerri in the first East-Central State Sports Festival held in Enugu, Nsofor made it to the final of the competition but lost to a more experienced boxer, Igwe, in the light welterweight division.

After the fight, now Nollywood star, Pete Edochie, then a sports caster, nicknamed him School Boy Boxer alias Casius Clay.

It was at the event he met Mr. Jerry Eneli, the Director of Sports in East–Central State, who helped him out with a holiday job and later a scholarship to study in the USA.

Before then in 1971 as a student at Holy Ghost College, Nsofor stole the show to the amazement of many during a fund-raising event between his school and the Army Artillery Unit in Owerri.

 He said, “The main event was my bout against the Army champion, Abela. The arena was full of students and soldiers.  Trouble started when I knocked out Abela in the first round; the soldiers were so angry with the outcome that they disrupted the whole event. It was like a riot back then. That incident brought me to the limelight on the local scene.”

But it was not enough to endear him to the opposite sex, unlike his classmates, who were also into sports but were ‘worshipped’ by the ladies in the community.

“Girls were not attracted to me because they feared I might be dangerous due to the sport. I was about the only person from a rich home that was into boxing. It was awkward but I dared the consequences,” he said.

“I had a lot of challenges as a boxer coming from a rich family. My teammates never accepted me; they felt that I was taking their job; that I didn’t belong in the same group with them,” he added.

It was at Holy Ghost College that he knew the just-retired Director General of the National Sports Commission, Dr. Patrick Ekeji, who was three years ahead of him and was the football team captain of the school.

Ekeji was at that time in Upper Six, while Nsofor was in Class Three. Although they never encountered each other, the respect from afar was mutual.

One fight Nsofor would not forget in a hurry was the one against Davidson Andeh in 1973. As the light-welterweight champion in East-Central State and a sparring partner of Eddie Ndukwu and Albert Igwe, Nsofor stepped out for the state at the first National Sports Festival in Lagos.

Nsofor said, “After making weight to come down to light- welterweight, our head coach Mr. Dick Uchegbuo said I had to go down to lightweight or I would not participate in the tournament. I made the weight to box Andeh, but I lost too much weight and became so weak. I was nearly killed in the ring due to the bad decision by the coach.”

In the USA, Nsofor was trained by the legendry Eddie Futch who trained heavyweight champions Joe Frazer, Ken Northern among others. He was ranked 14th by the Western Coast Boxing Federation.

“My professional boxing career was very short. When I was in graduate school, working on my masters degree at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, my trainer, Futch, called me to the corner and asked me to take a look at all the boxers in the gym. ‘Ex-convict, ex-convict, rapist…,’ he said. ‘What the heck are you doing here? You don’t belong here, you are too smart to be a boxer; you are not hungry enough to become a champion. If you love boxing that much, do me a favour, why not try coaching?”

That was how Nsofor quit fighting. “I registered with Nevada Athletic Commission and took the practical and written tests to become a boxing coach in America.

“My parents tried and failed to stop me from boxing, but the truth from my coach was all it took for me to change my career.”

After a relatively successful outing at the 2011 All-Africa Games in Mozambique, where Nigeria won three silver and one bronze in boxing, the team failed to shine at the 2012 London Olympics.

As the technical adviser of the Nigeria Boxing Federation and a three-star AIBA coach, Nsofor, was disappointed Nigeria did not live up to expectation at the Games.

He said, “My credentials were not put to use at the Olympics because I was not allowed to train the boxers in the two months we spent preparing in London. A Briton, coach Kevin Smith, was employed during the Games, but he was a one-star coach.  I was in my hotel room throughout the Olympics. I was only given a one-day pass to visit our team.

“Our boxers were exhibiting what they were taught. I was heartbroken when I saw Lukman Lawal boxing like a novice; I couldn’t help but weep for them. Our two and a half years of training just went up in smoke.”

He added, “Things can be better for Nigerian boxing but we have to learn from our past mistakes regarding decision making on technical issues and equip our gyms with the basic facilities like speed balls, double end balls and target punching balls.”

“Participation in AIBA tournaments is vital for our boxers to be ranked. When you are ranked, you have byes and don’t have to fight in preliminary rounds.

“There’s the need to have a functional marketing department in the Nigeria Boxing Federation so that we can stop waiting for funds from the government before preparing our boxers for tournaments.”