Where are they now: Willie deWit and Shawn O'Sullivan
Posted: 26 Jul 2004, 12:17
Has it really been 20 years? Willie deWit sits back and contemplates that question.
"It seems," he says, "like 100 years."
During a break at his Calgary law office, deWit remembers back to the time - yes, 20 long years ago - when he and Shawn O'Sullivan were the great white hopes of the 1984 Olympics in LA.
"Me and Shawn, travelling the world together. It was always me and Shawn," he says. "We got to know each other real well. We rooted for each other. Yeah, there was always a rivalry, but I'd say we were friends. You don't go through what we've gone through without being friends."
At 43, he is just a year older than O'Sullivan.
"We had a lot in common," he continued. "When I think about Shawn, I think about his tremendous character and tremendous heart. Whenever I'm asked about him, I always say the same thing. He had a heart as big as this room.
"It saddens me sometimes to hear some of the things that have happened to him. When I got out of boxing, I wanted to move on to something else. That was very important to me. I didn't want to be one of these boxing people, desperately holding on to the past."
DeWit, a practising criminal lawyer, now does his sparring in courtrooms. A partner in the firm of Wolch, Ogle, Wilson, Hursh and deWit, the judges all know deWit by name and reputation. Outside court, he often is asked for his autograph.
"What I like best about it is there is a lot of similarities to the ring," says deWit, who is married with four children and lives just outside Calgary. "In court, you win and you lose. It's absolute. When you're competitive, you need that kind of thing.
"I've done just about everything you can do in criminal law - murders, assaults, you name it...but there's that moment in court, just like in the ring, when you know you have someone and you're cross-examining them and you know you have them on the ropes. And then you ask the next question and it's like, wham, the knockout punch.
"Sometimes I get in that position in court and I feel like throwing my arms in the air. I think about it. I'd never do it. It's not who I am anymore."
In the two decades since the gold medal favourites somehow slipped to silver, Shawn O'Sullivan stands inside a ring at the Wellington amateur boxing Club - a rustic gym sitting alongside a freshly-ploughed field on the outskirts of the Ontario port town, supervising a sparring session. Most of the fighters are local teenagers. At least half of them are female
"You know," he says, after the session ends, "I'm so pleased to be here."
He tried his hand at a number of professions after his pro career fizzled out, including a stint as a janitor with the Toronto School Board. Today, after selling his home in Toronto - he spends most of his time in an apartment in Wellington. O'Sullivan refuses to delve into his personal life, only to say his family has adjusted well to rural living and everyone is content. "It doesn't matter where you raise your kids. A home is a home."
He has five children.
At least now when he speaks, the slurring that so worried his fans and friends in the latter stages of his career, appears to have lessened. The memory of a 10-minute speech he made at a press conference in 1997 to announce another return to boxing, remains etched on the memory. His sentences were slow and indecipherable then. Ontario boxing commissioner Ken Hayashi was so alarmed he ordered tests to determine if brain damage had been sustained. When the results didn't back Hayashi's belief, he chose to suspend him because of a vision problem.
Seven years after his last pro fight, O'Sullivan's verbal difficulties appear to have diminished. But his words still flow into each other, making it difficult to understand him at times. When asked if he believes he has suffered any brain damage from all the punches absorbed during his amateur and pro career, O'Sullivan launches into a bizarre analogy about how a wristwatch may not become damaged if you play catch with it, but a brain would.
Surveying the scene, he's asked if he has any regrets. He says he has none, with the exception of agreeing to move down a weight class upon turning pro.
"I was never right at 147," he says, finally sharing some details. "Genetically, I was evolving. The Irish, the Celts, are late bloomers. It is a genetic fact. I had to fight my weight so much it got to the point where my eyes would be dry."
Still, for all the punches he threw and took, his memories are clear. He remembers his debut at Madison Square Garden, a first-round knockout over Eduardo Brinoles.
"I remember looking at Mike Tyson at ringside and he was sitting there, pointing a finger and laughing at Brinoles because he was crying. My thought at the time was, 'You're a f------ a------."
For O'Sullivan, the end came quickly, the boxing end. On June 8, 1986, he was matched against a fighter named Simon Brown. O'Sullivan had sparred with Brown, already a world-ranked welterweight, and it was determined then - somehow - that Brown would be the perfect step-up opponent for O'Sullivan.
From the start, the fight was a nightmare. For almost three rounds, Brown, a deadly, methodical puncher who would go on to become a double world champion, punished O'Sullivan. Mercifully, referee Fern Chretien waved an end to the slaughter with 23 seconds left in the third round.
DeWit's own boxing end came on February 13, 1987 on a Saturday afternoon. He was fighting Smokin' Bert Cooper. "It's like I wasn't even there," says deWit, who was hammered in two rounds.
"It was just wrong day, wrong place for me.
"Look, that can happen. It happened to Lennox Lewis twice. One punch and bang, you're out. You look back and say 'What if? What if I had won that day?' A different day, a different feeling, who knows?
"It bothers you to an extent, but you take stock of everything. I guess it wouldn't be worth getting to the top if you had to have your brain scrambled to get there. After that fight, I knew it was time. I was young when I retired. I made the decision and all in all I made the right decision. Still, you think. You always think ..."
Four months after the shock of the Cooper fight, Willie deWit learned what real devastation can be. His 22-year-old brother, Theo, was piloting a small airplane back to their hometown. The plane never arrived safely.
Lost in the crash were Theo and deWit's father, Len.
"It was a devastating thing and a tremendous change for my life," he says. "It's the kind of thing that makes you realize that life is a precious thing. Those kind of things change your attitude toward everything in your life.
"I knew then I had to move forward. I didn't want to live in the past ... Some days you get recognized. You say hi, they say hi. And then you move on."
"It seems," he says, "like 100 years."
During a break at his Calgary law office, deWit remembers back to the time - yes, 20 long years ago - when he and Shawn O'Sullivan were the great white hopes of the 1984 Olympics in LA.
"Me and Shawn, travelling the world together. It was always me and Shawn," he says. "We got to know each other real well. We rooted for each other. Yeah, there was always a rivalry, but I'd say we were friends. You don't go through what we've gone through without being friends."
At 43, he is just a year older than O'Sullivan.
"We had a lot in common," he continued. "When I think about Shawn, I think about his tremendous character and tremendous heart. Whenever I'm asked about him, I always say the same thing. He had a heart as big as this room.
"It saddens me sometimes to hear some of the things that have happened to him. When I got out of boxing, I wanted to move on to something else. That was very important to me. I didn't want to be one of these boxing people, desperately holding on to the past."
DeWit, a practising criminal lawyer, now does his sparring in courtrooms. A partner in the firm of Wolch, Ogle, Wilson, Hursh and deWit, the judges all know deWit by name and reputation. Outside court, he often is asked for his autograph.
"What I like best about it is there is a lot of similarities to the ring," says deWit, who is married with four children and lives just outside Calgary. "In court, you win and you lose. It's absolute. When you're competitive, you need that kind of thing.
"I've done just about everything you can do in criminal law - murders, assaults, you name it...but there's that moment in court, just like in the ring, when you know you have someone and you're cross-examining them and you know you have them on the ropes. And then you ask the next question and it's like, wham, the knockout punch.
"Sometimes I get in that position in court and I feel like throwing my arms in the air. I think about it. I'd never do it. It's not who I am anymore."
In the two decades since the gold medal favourites somehow slipped to silver, Shawn O'Sullivan stands inside a ring at the Wellington amateur boxing Club - a rustic gym sitting alongside a freshly-ploughed field on the outskirts of the Ontario port town, supervising a sparring session. Most of the fighters are local teenagers. At least half of them are female
"You know," he says, after the session ends, "I'm so pleased to be here."
He tried his hand at a number of professions after his pro career fizzled out, including a stint as a janitor with the Toronto School Board. Today, after selling his home in Toronto - he spends most of his time in an apartment in Wellington. O'Sullivan refuses to delve into his personal life, only to say his family has adjusted well to rural living and everyone is content. "It doesn't matter where you raise your kids. A home is a home."
He has five children.
At least now when he speaks, the slurring that so worried his fans and friends in the latter stages of his career, appears to have lessened. The memory of a 10-minute speech he made at a press conference in 1997 to announce another return to boxing, remains etched on the memory. His sentences were slow and indecipherable then. Ontario boxing commissioner Ken Hayashi was so alarmed he ordered tests to determine if brain damage had been sustained. When the results didn't back Hayashi's belief, he chose to suspend him because of a vision problem.
Seven years after his last pro fight, O'Sullivan's verbal difficulties appear to have diminished. But his words still flow into each other, making it difficult to understand him at times. When asked if he believes he has suffered any brain damage from all the punches absorbed during his amateur and pro career, O'Sullivan launches into a bizarre analogy about how a wristwatch may not become damaged if you play catch with it, but a brain would.
Surveying the scene, he's asked if he has any regrets. He says he has none, with the exception of agreeing to move down a weight class upon turning pro.
"I was never right at 147," he says, finally sharing some details. "Genetically, I was evolving. The Irish, the Celts, are late bloomers. It is a genetic fact. I had to fight my weight so much it got to the point where my eyes would be dry."
Still, for all the punches he threw and took, his memories are clear. He remembers his debut at Madison Square Garden, a first-round knockout over Eduardo Brinoles.
"I remember looking at Mike Tyson at ringside and he was sitting there, pointing a finger and laughing at Brinoles because he was crying. My thought at the time was, 'You're a f------ a------."
For O'Sullivan, the end came quickly, the boxing end. On June 8, 1986, he was matched against a fighter named Simon Brown. O'Sullivan had sparred with Brown, already a world-ranked welterweight, and it was determined then - somehow - that Brown would be the perfect step-up opponent for O'Sullivan.
From the start, the fight was a nightmare. For almost three rounds, Brown, a deadly, methodical puncher who would go on to become a double world champion, punished O'Sullivan. Mercifully, referee Fern Chretien waved an end to the slaughter with 23 seconds left in the third round.
DeWit's own boxing end came on February 13, 1987 on a Saturday afternoon. He was fighting Smokin' Bert Cooper. "It's like I wasn't even there," says deWit, who was hammered in two rounds.
"It was just wrong day, wrong place for me.
"Look, that can happen. It happened to Lennox Lewis twice. One punch and bang, you're out. You look back and say 'What if? What if I had won that day?' A different day, a different feeling, who knows?
"It bothers you to an extent, but you take stock of everything. I guess it wouldn't be worth getting to the top if you had to have your brain scrambled to get there. After that fight, I knew it was time. I was young when I retired. I made the decision and all in all I made the right decision. Still, you think. You always think ..."
Four months after the shock of the Cooper fight, Willie deWit learned what real devastation can be. His 22-year-old brother, Theo, was piloting a small airplane back to their hometown. The plane never arrived safely.
Lost in the crash were Theo and deWit's father, Len.
"It was a devastating thing and a tremendous change for my life," he says. "It's the kind of thing that makes you realize that life is a precious thing. Those kind of things change your attitude toward everything in your life.
"I knew then I had to move forward. I didn't want to live in the past ... Some days you get recognized. You say hi, they say hi. And then you move on."