Andre Ward is the son of an Irish-American heroin addict (now deceased)...
http://theundefeated.com/features/andre ... ad-ending/
Along with his older half-brother, Jonathan, Ward was raised by his white father in Hayward and North Oakland. His African-American mother was rarely present, battling an addiction to crack cocaine and living on the streets of San Francisco for most of 20 years.
“When I speak about this, I don’t come from an ignorant place: I know what it is to be biracial when both sides don’t accept you and you have that confusion of not feeling accepted,” he said. “You’re left asking, ‘Who am I?’ ”
Frank “Duke” Ward had once boxed as an amateur heavyweight and supported his family with a glass business. Ward told me he grew up always thinking of his hulking father as Superman. Frank Ward, the son of an alcoholic, never touched a drop.
But gradually his son discovered the old man had his own kryptonite: He had secretly battled addiction to heroin since before Ward was born. Ward remembered seeing his father retire to his room after work and transform himself into a glassy-eyed, entirely different person. “I thought he was taking sleeping pills. He’d be fired up and then be a zombie.” When Ward was 12, he found a needle in his father’s room and naively brought it to him asking where it might have come from. Frank Ward told his son he’d found it in the street and didn’t want anyone to find it. Ward shook his head, smiling. “I never wrapped my head around the heroin thing until I was a lot older.”
His father remained a functional addict for years, but as his illness worsened the family home was lost. Frank Ward would seek treatment to get clean. And then he’d relapse. This pattern was repeated for many years over the course of Ward’s adolescence.
Understanding that past brings perspective. “Boxing is just a season,” Ward said. “This isn’t my life. It’s what I do, it’s not who I am. Which doesn’t mean I don’t take it seriously. I give it everything I have.”
As Ward’s parents descended into addiction, domestic violence, financial ruin, bouts of homelessness, and repeated stints in rehab, Hunter would become not only Ward’s trainer, but soon his godfather and temporary guardian.
