Freddie Roach moved about the ring at his Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. Holding punch mitts, he barked out commands to Bernard Hopkins. “Give me two jabs,” Roach instructed Hopkins, who delivered them crisply.
This is an every day ritual for a trainer and his fighter. But Roach is not just any trainer. He suffers from Parkinson’s syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by tremor, hypokinesia, rigidity and postural instability.
Roach, a lightweight who was 39-13 with 15 knockouts fighting from 1978-86, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1992, six years after he retired from a career that saw him stand toe-to-toe with some of the best. Fifteen years later, he is one of the hardest-working trainers in boxing.
Roach’s condition has progressed, but he vows to work hard as long as he can. At the moment, that would be six 12 hour days a week, taking only Sundays off to enjoy his two favorite hobbies – a movie and some grub at a local restaurant.
Roach, 47, will be in Hopkins’ corner tonight when he takes on Winky Wright in the light heavyweight main event at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. When they tangle, it will likely be more of a chess match. When Roach threw down, he really rumbled, and
that is probably why he has Parkinson’s. “They tell me that you can assume it, but you can’t really prove it,” Roach said. “But it’s more trauma related, they believe.”
Roach has the shakes and impaired speech. He walks funny because the Parkinson’s won’t allow him to strike his heel correctly on the left side. He has developed torticollis, a neck malady that causes his head to lean to one side, or be pulled forward or backward. All of this is noticeable as Roach goes about his daily business.
Roach also has double vision, but if he moves his head a certain way, it goes away. He still drives.
With all this, it would seem that what Roach is doing for as many as 72 hours per week would not only be extremely difficult, but detrimental. Roach, however, said that he and some of his doctors believe that training boxers – especially working the punch mitts – could be the best thing for him.
“I don’t want my problem really getting in the way of my life, so I just work through it,” Roach said. “You know, I think my symptons are pretty much at bay right now because of what I do, my hand-eye coordination with the mitts and so forth. And I think this really helps me with the disease. Parkinson’s, it’s a progressive disease and I think if you let it take over, it will.
“And I just refuse to do that. Some doctors say I should slow down and some doctors say it’s the best thing in the world for me.”
Dr. Malcolm Dick, a neuropsychologist at UC Irvine, agrees that Roach is likely doing the right thing.
“I think most physicians probably would recommend that a person try to maintain some kind of activity or exercise to help with that stiffness and try to help them maintain some of that flexibility,” said Dr. Dick, who treated the late Mike Quarry for years before the former world-class light heavyweight died last year from dementia pugilistica.
In other words, Roach has no intention of slowing down. He has a large stable of fighters that includes Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, Rey “Boom Boom” Bautista and Gerry Penalosa, to name a few.
How’s this? When Mexico takes on the Philippines in the De La Hoya-promoted World Cup of Boxing on Aug. 11 at ARCO Arena in Sacramento, Roach will be working the corner in six fights. All in one night. Two of them are title fights, two are title elimination fights.
Meaning all four of those are 12-round bouts.
“The thing is, I have trouble saying no to fighters,” Roach said.
“That’s why I have so many.”
The bigger fighters like De La Hoya and Hopkins are more taxing to Roach, but it’s easy to see that he thrives on the work.
As Hopkins cracks the mitts, Roach grimaces, then smiles as Hopkins playfully talks a little smack to him. From time to time, Hopkins will get carried away and land a punch on Roach instead of the mitts, but nothing that would be really harmful.
“He knocked the wind out of me one day with a good body shot and he gave me a little cut on the eye one day, but he’s not really trying to hurt me or anything like that,” Roach said.
“I learned with him after I call a combination, I gotta move a little bit.”
Hopkins is amazed by Roach, who recently turned part of the strip mall that houses his gym into his residence.
“I work with a lot of guys with mitts, and I think boxing, being on top of your game (with) mitts, thinking strategy, that keeps Freddie Roach intact, man,” Hopkins said. “I think that all he do in the ring, not only with me but with all the other fighters, I mean, this guy, he sleeps on top of the gym. That man never leaves.
“He makes me, at this stage of my career, want to win even bigger for him. The man ain’t two-time Trainer of the Year for nothing.”
Roach has received his share of accolades. They have been hard-earned. To coin a phrase, he eats, sleeps and drinks boxing.
“I sleep next door, but my life is in the gym,” he said. Dr. Dick said that Roach’s life may or may not be shortened by his Parkinson’s.
“I think a lot just depends on the person’s age when they have it,” Dr. Dick said, “and how quickly the disease progresses.”
Roach realizes that his Parkinson’s is indeed going to progress, but he plans on staving off the worst of it as long as possible. He said he doesn’t want any sympathy, either, because few have jobs they love as much as he loves his.
“You don’t usually die from Parkinson’s per se, but the symptons can get you to a point where you are almost catatonic, you know, where you can’t function,” said Roach, who said if he doesn’t take his medication three times a day, he begins to shake more. “And I think that’s why what I do in staying active, it helps me.
“Parkinson’s makes you rigid. Like when somebody calls a person and you turn toward them quickly with your neck. A Parkinson’s person would turn toward you with his whole body. It makes you rigid, slow moving. It’s like your nerves don’t have any oil in them anymore. I don’t have that problem at all yet, and I think it’s because of the punch mitts. Again, most of my doctors say that what I do is very preventing.”
And very impressive.
