THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 10, 1996 TAG: 9602100398
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
For Steve Carter, the Navy isn't just a job. It's ... well, it's actually no job at all.
Not in the conventional sense, at least. Carter does have one task and one task only for as long as he's at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base - become a top-rung boxer, preferably good enough to make the 1996 Olympic boxing team.
Officially, Carter is a fireman apprentice on the USS Detroit stationed in New Jersey. But last spring, after a tour at sea, Carter came to Little Creek to train with coach John Hunter, who runs the Navy's boxing program.
In 1992, Hunter turned out an Olympian, Julian Wheeler, and an Olympic alternate in Sean Fletcher. Wheeler was the first Navy boxer to make the Olympics since Duane Bobick 20 years before.
Of his current 21-man stable, Hunter thinks Carter represents the Navy's best hope of having its banner carried into Atlanta this summer.
``He's as good as Wheeler and Fletcher were at this stage, but he hasn't been exposed as much as they were,'' Hunter says, noting Carter's lack of international experience. ``When he gets to the nationals, he's gonna be one of those sleepers.''
That would be the U.S. Championships that take place Sunday through Friday in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Five other Navy fighters - Benjamin Bundy, Detrich Mayer, Antonio Bryant, Chris Shea and Kenneth Horsley - are also there, all wanting what Carter already has. An invitation to April's Olympic Trials in Oakland.
Carter, 21, secured his place at the Trials by winning the 119-pound (bantamweight) division at the U.S. Interservice Championships last month in Arizona.
This happened after USA Boxing's year-end rankings came out, the ones that did not list Carter among the top 10 amateur bantamweights.
That probably plays right into Carter's hands - which, by the way, he is equally adept at using, Hunter boasts. Carter says underdog status suits him fine. It's one reason he so enjoyed beating his Army opponent last month.
While the Army runs a well-oiled world-class athlete program, Hunter pushes the buttons for Navy boxing from a spartan office just off the basketball court inside Little Creek's Rockwell Hall.
The U.S. Championships could bring Carter a bit from the shadows, but he is there mostly to get the lay of the land. Earn some exposure, but generally take stock of the other guys, many of whom could be at the Trials.
Until then, Carter hopes the strategy he hatched before he enlisted in September 1994 continues unfolding to the letter.
He pulls no punches about why he joined the Navy. Carter, from Harrisburg, Pa., says he was frustrated by the state's boxing politics, where big-city fighters got the breaks and the best fights.
So a friend and former Navy boxer urged Carter, then working for United Parcel Service, to enlist and join the boxing program.
Hunter arranged the proper transfers, got Carter to Little Creek and began to round him into shape and get him some bouts.
Starved for competition, Carter had boxed about 20 times in six years back in Harrisburg. Since May, Carter's been in the ring 21 times. He's lost once.
``I can still learn a little more,'' Carter says. ``I need to put my punches together a little more. Make better combinations.''
Right now, Carter figures his mix of military and civilian life can't be beat. He runs in the mornings and spars with Hunter and the boys, sometimes even with the Olympian Wheeler, in the afternoons.
He's on his own after that. No bunk aboard ship, but a room in a barracks that Carter equates to a hotel.
No workaday drudgery, besides maybe jumping rope or pounding a speed bag.
And at the end of it all, potential glory in an Olympic berth.
Not bad for government work. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by L. Todd Spencer
Steve Carter, in training at the Little Creek Naval Amphib Base,
will box in the U.S. Championships in Colorado Springs next week,
even though he already has an invitation to the Olympic Trials in
April.
by CNB