Colin Morgan: Fighting for Everything

 
As long as the sport is around, much of the attention in boxing will go towards fighters who are undefeated, overly charismatic, or especially venomous with their tongues. Boxing is all about ‘What have you done for me lately’ and the spotlight obviously doesn’t shine on everyone associated within the sport. If one is to take the time to look deep within the structure of the sweet science, however, they will see that the makeup of the game is filled with several characters that go unnoticed, yet have stories that are just as meaningful.         

           
One of those unfamiliar faces is trainer Colin Morgan. Looking years younger than you would expect and carrying an attitude that is both humble and unassuming, Morgan doesn’t stand out in a crowd and it’s easy to understand how he might have been overshadowed when you get to know some of the people in the sport he has worked with.

           
As a youth growing up in Georgetown, Guyana, Morgan would begin foray into his own professional career, only to be sidetracked by injury at the age of 24. Despite not being able to fight up to his best abilities afterwards, boxing was still one of the only familiar entities in his life and he stayed around the gym lending a hand wherever he could. Morgan would soon find his calling in life, as he parlayed his knowledge into a professional career as a trainer. That calling is one that has been ultimately rewarding, but not without its tests of patience and trying moments.

           
While you would never suspect Morgan’s modest nature to be the foundation of a story that is overly inspiring, it is very true that there are many lessons that can be learned from speaking with him. Those lessons were on display recently at the Showtime Boxing Gym in Miami, Florida as Morgan opened up about his life and times in the sport of boxing. After overseeing the training regimens of Hino Ehikhamenor and Lightweight contender Anges Adjaho, Morgan sat down with 8 Count News and discussed his life and times in the sport of boxing, including his venture to America as well as leading former Cruiserweight Champion Wayne “Big Truck’ Braithwaite to the title. In his own words, this is Colin Morgan, Fighting for Everything…

 

 

A Way to Survive…

“I came from a huge family. I was one of twelve kids. It was more like we lived in the projects in Guyana so we had to fight for everything. I fought with my siblings, I fought with my friends, and I was just used to fighting. Nothing was easy. Guyana isn’t like America, because there are no programs to help kids get on track with their lives. It wasn’t as easy to get food and the other necessities in life because if you were poor, you were poor, and there wasn’t anything you could do about it. You just had to find a way to survive and that was that. Growing up was sort of tough.”

 

Competing for Everything…

“I grew up being very competitive and had to compete for everything, even attention. Sports really helped me. I remember playing every sport possible. We used to play soccer, cricket, ping pong, chess, we threw darts, and of course we boxed. Whatever there was to play, we played, and there was always a lot of competition because everybody wanted to be the best. I remember when I was younger, the older guys would bring gloves to the neighborhood and have the younger kids go at it. They would make a circle around us and we would go in there and throw punches and just beat the shit out of each other. If you would hear your Mom coming then you would have to pull the gloves off and run home but if not you could keep going.”

 

Adapting to a New Life…

“When I was around sixteen years old they wanted everybody in Guyana to be part of the military. I ended up leaving home and I joined the military. I adapted to a new life and I noticed after a while that they had a competition in the military towards boxing. They had a kid who had nobody to fight and they asked somebody in the audience to compete against this guy. I said ‘why not’ and I decided to fight the guy. I went up into the ring with my little ghetto attitude, I put on the gloves, and ended up kicking the guy’s ass. After that, they ended up placing me on the boxing team. In Guyana they had like five different inter-centers consisting of different teams. We would sometimes compete against each other and sometimes travel and compete in tournaments. I did that for a while but at the age of 24 I suffered a leg injury and I had to stop fighting. I just ended up staying in the gym assisting my trainer with the other fighters and I realized that I could become a trainer myself.”

 

American Opportunity…

“I started traveling a lot after that. I went to Europe, South America, Africa, The Caribbean, and I was with the local boxers from Guyana. I came to America in 1994. My first time coming to America was actually when I was working with a fighter, Andrew Murray, who was training for a world title fight against Ike Quartey. We came to Detroit to train at the Kronk Gym with Emmanuel Steward. The fight was actually held in France but we trained with Emmanuel in Detroit. That’s when I first came to this country. The difference between America and most other places is the opportunity you will find over here. Like I said in Guyana you reach a certain level where you can do everything there is to do over there. As a fighter you can only reach a certain plateau and if you want to make real money you have to come to America. Even though in Guyana I was at the highest level I could get, in coming to America I had to start all over again. I don’t think I’ve reached the level that I would like but I’ve done some good things and I have a lot of goals for the future. Moving to America was all about trying to get to the next level and trying to get some recognition in the sport. Even though I was training top level fighters in Guyana I had to start all over again when I came to America.”

 

 

 

Something to Do…

“I first moved to New York City when I came over. I went to Gleason’s boxing gym when I came over because the owner of the gym had some fighters for me to train at the time. I had a few fighters that I was working with but I turned a lot of my attention to the younger fighters who were coming from the streets because I really wanted to help them out. They didn’t have any money to offer but it gave me something to do. I also worked with some female fighters and the little money they did pay was worth it. I noticed that it was just like any other gym I had to been to because there were a lot of fighters with a lot of trainers and every trainer thinks he was better than the next trainer. The fighters would get different information because each trainer was telling them to do something different. It was just the same kind of stuff I was used to in Guyana. I did some construction work to get by and I would go to the gym after I got off work and that’s how I started out in this country.”

 

Connecting with ‘Big Truck’…

“I had known Wayne Braithwaite since he was a kid. I worked with his as a trainer since he was an amateur boxer over in Guyana. I lost touch with him for a while after I came to America but after I got here his mother reached out to me and asked if I could help bring him to this country. I did everything I could to bring him to this country and we started working with each other again once he came over. This may sound a little biased but most of the fighters you work with are simple people. I think the fighters who perform the best and fight well are the ones who follow instructions. Wayne always followed instructions to a T. He did everything I told him and that was one of the reasons that he was able to win the title. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worst later on.”

 

Conflict of Interest…

“His mother asked me to help him but once things really started going well she was always trying to push me out of the way. I really cared about the kid but she made it hard to focus on my job. I did a lot for him and I was always looking over him and making sure he was alright, from making sure his connections were set to driving him around to and from practice. After he won the title she quit her job and decided that she wanted to be his manager. I don’t think she was ready to take on that position and she just started confronting me about everything I did and questioned all of my actions concerning Wayne.”

 

Walking Away…

“His mother tried to act like I was taking attention away form Wayne because at certain press conferences people would always come up to me and talk to me while Wayne sat in the corner being quiet. What she didn’t understand was that I have paid my dues and I’ve been around this game for a while and I just happened to know a lot of people, that’s all. Wayne was just a naturally quiet guy so he was never the type to approach people. She would make a big deal over small things and when it came to money she didn’t want to pay the people who were really putting in the work. She just made things so impossible that I had no choice but to leave Wayne and walk away from the situation.”

 

Bittersweet Memories…

“I was very much disappointed to see the way Wayne’s career ended up. After all the years of hard work we had put in I really felt that we had a good plan. I had thoughts of Wayne fighting the likes of Roy Jones, Antonio Tarver, or even someone like Chris Byrd. I really thought he could make some good money and accomplish a lot of things in this sport but I think his mother just was a big hindrance towards all of that. I didn’t really speak to Wayne too much after we parted ways but about a month ago I stopped by Gleason’s Gym and did end up having a conversation with him for about ten minutes or so. It was good talking to him because even thought I walked away from him there were never any bad feelings towards him; I just had to get out of that situation. Training Wayne was still very memorable to me. Just looking back and remembering how close we were to a world title fight was the same time that a lot of people were telling Wayne that he could do better without me and to just ditch me. But Wayne stood up for me and he stuck with me and we ended up going overseas into another country to win the title and that was one of my better moments as a trainer.”

 

 

The Footsteps of Everyone Else…

“This sounds a little bit one-sided because I am a trainer but I see things this way.  Most trainers spend their whole life around boxing and they have valuable experience as a fighter and as a trainer. As a trainer you try your best to look out for the fighters but once you get around other business people who don’t really know much about boxing, things can go wrong. Say you bring somebody in who has a financial influence, after a certain time they may get to know somebody else in the boxing world who will tell them ‘this is how it should be’ and now that person will turn their back on you and just follow what somebody else tells them. Then the next guy you bring in may do what’s right for a short period of time but after a while he may just follow the footsteps of everyone else.”

 

Striving for Equality…

“The commission frustrates me a little bit as well. I think boxing is primarily made of a fighter, manager, trainer, and promoter. The commission is there to oversee that the sport is run properly. The promoters are protected through their contracts and the managers are also protected in certain ways and have certain things they can do for leverage. I have noticed as a trainer you have to do a lot of running around and nobody really cares that the trainer is getting paid. The trainer is the one who does a lot and really tries to work with the fighters as well as the younger kids coming up to make sure they have a better life. When fighters have problems in their life they often turn to you for advice. It’s like you can be the first person if someone is in need but the last person considered when it comes to getting your compensation. When the fight is finished it seems like trainers are the last ones running around trying to get paid and the commission doesn’t do what’s necessary to make sure you are properly taken care of. I ended up writing a petition on this matter and I had about 150 people sign it. At the moment, Melvina Lathan, the commissioner in New York, is working on it and trying to make sure that it gets approval. Basically I would just like to see everyone treated equally, whether you are a fighter, manager, or trainer.”

 

Better Times…

“I have had a lot of great memories through boxing. I think one of my best memories was in 1994 when I had a chance to go to South Africa.  That was the same year that the apartheid was abolished. I was one of the first ever former athletes allowed to go back into South Africa to compete as a trainer. Before then they were banned from competing in sports. Going to South Africa in 1994 was very memorable for me to go back at that stage of everything was important. Another memory comes to mind concerning my father. He died in 2000 and before we would always argue about who would win a fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. Later on in my career I was training Larry Donald and he had a fighter with Evander Holyfield in Madison Square Garden. My father had passed away so he didn’t get a chance to see the fight but Larry went in there and he just beat up Holyfield from pillar to post. The commission ended up suspending Holyfield after the fight and I always think of what my father would have thought of that.”

 

Fighting to Make Boxing Better…

“Right now I just stay busy with as many fighters as I can. I’ve been with Peter ‘Kid Chocolate’ Quillin since the beginning, and I also work with Hino Ehikamenor, Elio Rojas, Guillermo Jones, who just won a title last October, and I am helping Anges Adjaho with his latest fight. I spend a lot of my time at Don King’s Training Camp in Ohio but it is closed now because of weather so I am just bouncing back and forth between Florida and New York for the moment. Aside from that what I would really like to do is open up a school for boxing. It would be a school for upcoming fighters where they could learn about the business aspect of boxing and learn how to handle themselves in this sport. I would just like to make the sport more clean as opposed to the way it is. If I find something that isn’t right in this sport I am never afraid to let the promoters, managers, or even the commission know about it. I am just trying to fight to make boxing better, whatever which way possible.”

 

 

Anyone interested in learning more about Colin Morgan’s petition can email him at CS2960@aol.com.

 

If you liked the article please feel free to hit Chris up at Trimond@aol.com or www.Myspace.com/BoxingHarmony