So what’s so bad about crazy Hal….he surrounded himself with people who do not know anything about boxing outside of the US. They have no international experience. That’s OK if you are only running your LBC. In ’09 Millman and USAB conducted a national search for a new national coach to get us past the debacle of the ’08 US Olympic team and Dan Campbell. I heard that over 95 coaches applied and the final two were Ed Weichers a college coach and Joe Zanders. I don’t know Weichers that well but his team the Air Force Academy has won the most national championships of any school in the NCBA including this year. I’ve known Zanders for years and he is a nice guy and on paper he looks good but how many boxers has he taken from novice to national champ? I don’t think he has any. His LBC and region are one of the top producers of national champs but was Joe the personal coach of any other than standing in as their coach at nationals because he runs his LBC? From what I have heard from good sources of the national coach search was that Millman wanted Zanders but when they had the final interview, it wasn’t close. I was told that Millman and the USOC person in on the interview and the rest of the group said that Weichers was the guy they should hire. So when Adonis ran for election, he promised everybody he talked to that he would take care of them. He told me that if I voted for him, he would assign me to coach a national team but I didn’t even have a vote. Adonis wanted Zanders and right away after he gets elected, he removes Weichers and puts in Zanders. He supposedly did another national search but do you think the coaches who just went through it a year before would submit their names again. Everybody knew he was going to give it to Zanders.
So why isn’t Zanders the Olympic coach? From what I hear, he wasn’t doing the paperwork that the USOC wanted, the team did terrible at the worlds and Pan Am Games so they said he has to go. Adonis wanted Israel Acosta who by all accounts is an excellent coach but he’s not the right guy for the head coach because you need somebody who can speak the language well and be a good spokesperson, etc This is where Weichers would have been good. He’s a teacher and college coach and coming from a military school, he is used to discipline something Campbell was not too good at. He could have been the Coach K of USA boxing. Coaches I know who dealt with him in camps tell me he was good with the boxers and was doing a good job of working with the personal coaches, something that hurt Campbell. Boxers I talked to also said good things about him. So now who do we have? First I heard Terry Edwards from England but that would have gone over like a lead balloon with USAB coaches. So now I hear we are getting a retread Abdulla. Great, how many medals did USAB win with him? Andre Ward but that was because of his personal coach and in ’08, Abdulla had a boxer win the trials but he didn’t even qualify for the Olympics at the worlds or continental qualifiers. Abdulla was part of the coaching staff in ’08 and we bring him back? Wow. That team did real good at the worlds in Chicago and come back from Beijing withone bronze. Has he ever taken a boxer from novice to national champion? I doubt it as most of his boxers come to him with experience. What happened to the days when the US Olympic team had 3-4 Army boxers and they won gold medals? He wasn’t coaching then. Heck, his team got beat in the Armed Forces championships this year by the Marines lead by Jesse Revello who was an assistant Olympic coach in ’96. Maybe he should be the Olympic coach. He was one of the Army coaches when they had good teams. I also hear Abdulla wants Andy Smith on his staff. Really? Is he even a level 3 coach let alone a level 4? He can’t be a level 4 coach unless somebody just blessed him and said “You are now a level 4 son, go forward”. Tell me about all of the national champs he has trained? Wow, it just keeps getting better. Another winner they have in there is Gloria Peek who never had a glove on and never trained a national champ. She got trips as a coach because of Dan Campbell because she took his job when he moved to Colorado Springs to be the national coach and now people think she actually knows something about boxing.
No wonder other countries are laughing at the downfall of USAB. Who will be the team manager? Somebody like Joe Smith who had only been a manager once before the Olympics? Joe is a nice guy but he had no experience. You need somebody in there that knows all about international amateur boxing and knows who the players in AIBA are. Adonis will probably put his buddy Pliner in there. One more before I stop, look at the last nationals and see who the referee was for every bout a Michael King boxer had. I was told again by a good source that King demanded that only two ref’s work his boxers bouts. It would easy enough to check. Low and behold, his super heavy wins by one point in the finals. Who was the ref, who were the judges? I heard one official was not happy that only certain refs worked King’s boxers bouts and filled a grievance with the USOC but they won’t do anything because then King would be mad and take his ball, er I mean money and go home. Or maybe the USOC is just keeping that in their pocket for when they want to decertify USAB. Stay tuned.
