4B
Wednesday, February 14, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BOXING
Morrison's situation brings concern to the area
Boxers,promoters consider making tests mandatory
By Tracl Carl The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As a teenage boxer living part-time with his coach, Tommy Morrison used to worry about cars and women.
But a day after officials confirmed that Morrison had tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, young boxers following in Morrison's footsteps have some new worries.
Lois Smith, whose husband George, used to coach Morrison, said yesterday that the news had been a hard lesson in AIDS education for the boxers at their Kansas City, Kan., club.
The Smiths took Morrison into their home in Paola, Kan., about 35 miles south of the Kansas City area, when he joined their boxing club in the mid-1890s.
"You know how 19-year-olds are," she said.
She described Morrison as quiet and said he was always really worried about his cars and women.
Boxing promoter Tony Holden confirmed on Monday that Morrison was suspended before a weekend fight in Las Vegas because he had
tested positive for the HIV virus. That same day, Smith said, Derrick Roddy, a boxing pro who worked with the Smiths, was tested for the HIV virus because he had sparred with Morrison a few months ago.
Roddy tested negative. But Smith said Morrison's situation was affecting all of the club's boxers, even the ones that didn't fight with him.
"It's making them all think," she said.
But she was reluctant to endorse mandatory AIDS testing, because boxers would have to cover the cost.
Gordon Neal, tournament director for the greater Kansas City Golden Gloves Association Inc., was not.
After learning of Morrison's condition, Neal said, he was shocked and
concerned about the health threat of blood spilled during fights.
Morrison fought in several regional Golden Glove boxing tournaments in the 1980s, and Neal said he had known the boxer since he was 10.
Neal said protective head gear worn by the Golden Gloves fighters reduces the threat to them, because they suffer fewer cuts than professional boxers, who wear no head gear.
"it's fairly rare that an amateur boxer would have a cut eye or cheek," he said, adding that officials stop amateur fights if both boxers become bloody.
The Missouri Office of Athletics, which oversees professional boxing
in the state, tests boxers for drugs but not the AIDS virus.
Administrator Tim Lueckenhoff predicted yesterday that the state would begin AIDS testing within the year if the federal government didn't do it first.
Lueckenhoff said requiring AIDS tests probably would have a larger effect on smaller, professional shows at hotels and local bars.
"If we would test boxers for club shows, it would be, in my opinion, that we would find quite a few with the HIV virus," he said.
Lueckenhoff, who was attending a Toughman Contest in St. Louis yesterday, said the news of Morrison's illness had not hurt enthusiasm to participate in or watch the sport.
But he said requiring an AIDS test, which the boxer would have to pay for, could.
"If we start doing that kind of testing, we are going to cut out so many small boxes that it's going to die," he said, referring to small tournaments.
Morrison last fought in Missouri when he knocked out Donovan "Razor" Ruddick in June in Kansas City.
Smith said she remembered going to Kemper Arena to see Mike Tyson box.
Her husband had said to a young Morrison, "Just think, bud, one day we'll be here watching you."
States begin push to make HIV testing the law for boxers
A couple years later, they were.
Tommy Morrison's test provokes others to follow and cities to think twice
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — A day after Tommy Morrison admitted testing positive for the AIDS virus, the referee of Morrison's bloody fight with Lennox Lewis sought to calm his mind by taking an AIDS test of his own.
In the wake of Morrison's test results, which shook the boxing world, boxing officials across the country renewed calls for all states with boxing to test for HIV.
"I hope we can get a bill passed in California before something major happens in this state, before some documented transmission occurs in a boxing ring," said Richard DeCuir, head of the California Athletic Commission.
Monday's confirmation of Morrison's positive test prompted referee Mills Lane to go to his doctor in Reno, Nev., and have blood drawn to make sure he didn't get the virus.
Lane was the third man in the ring in Morrison's Oct. 7 loss to Lewis in Atlantic City, N.J., in which he was cut around both eyes in the second round and bled much of the
way before the fight was finally stopped in the seventh round.
"I had blood all over me," Lane said. "He bled all over me and everyone else."
Lane, a state judge in Reno who has referred 78 title fights, said he was unaware at the time that New Jersey was one of the many states that didn't require boxes to take tests for the AIDS virus.
It is not known whether Morrison had the virus at the time he fought Lewis.
Lane said he was told by his doctor that there was only a slight chance he could have gotten the virus in the ring but that he wanted him to take the test just to make sure.
"I've got a family. I've got a wife and two children," he said. "I'm not really worried, but it will make me feel better to know for sure."
While Lane went in for an AIDS test, Lewis remained at his remote mountain retreat in Jamaica, where promoter Dino Duva said it was very difficult to reach him.
Diva said Lewis was scheduled to be tested for AIDS next month in Britain as part of their requirements for his annual boxing license.
"I assume that's what he will do," Duva said. "I don't think he'll rush it. The risk is very small, from what I understand."
Morrison, meanwhile, remained in seclu
sion in Oklahoma, waiting for results of a second set of tests taken Monday that will confirm the Las Vegas test. The results of the latest tests were expected today.
Tony Holden, Morrison's promoter, said agents for Morrison and Magic Johnson were arranging a telephone call between the two.
Holden said it likely would be a personal discussion of how to deal with the illness and the media attention.
"Magic is probably the best person to talk to him right now," Holden said.
Former heavyweight champion Ridick Bowe said basketball and boxing were far apart when it came to an HIV-infected athlete being allowed to compete.
"I think it's great for people like Magic Johnson to have the opportunity to come back and play basketball, doing what he does best," Bowe said. "But as far as boxing is concerned, unlike other sports, it's bloody and violent and the risk is far too great for fighters to contract the virus through physical contact.
"I would not fight someone who is HIV positive. It would just be too great a risk for me, my wife and children."
the aftermath of Morrison's admission affected not only his former opponents and referees but also much of the boxing world. An outcry grew for mandatory AIDS testing
of all boxers.
Nevada's top boxing official said he would push to have other states begin testing like Nevada, which has tested some 2,100 boxers since beginning its AIDS program in 1988.
Nevada is one of only a handful of states that require AIDS testing.
"We test about 200 to 300 boxers a year, but there's another couple of thousand that aren't tested and are fighting in a blood sport in other states," said Marc Ratner, president of the Association of Boxing Commissions. "It doesn't make sense. But sometimes it takes something like this to shock the world.
"Maybe this will be a catalyst for the rest of the states."
Ratner said he would push for mandatory testing at the association's annual meeting in June.
Larry Hazzard, New Jersey's boxing commissioner, said that he tested the outcry would lead to his state testing fighters and that he was pushing a testing plan with the New Jersey attorney general's office.
"I would love to announce within a week or so that New Jersey is testing." Hazzard said. "I'm totally in favor of it. What happened before when we tried is we ran into these laws on civil rights and disabilities and rights to privacy."
In Louisiana, that state's boxing commis
sion had been planning to implement AIDS testing even before the Morrison story broke.
"I will have a policy in place for the commission to vote on by April 1," said Jerry Rosenberg, Louisiana Boxing Commission physician. "By May 1, it should be required."
DeCuir said that he had been trying to get legislation passed for three years to require testing in California, which held 89 fight cards last year, but that no legislators were willing to sponsor a bill because the issue was politically charged among AIDS activist groups.
"We are hoping that the Tommy Morrison situation will persuade somebody in the legislature to carry the commission's bill." DeCuir said. "To date, the legislators we have contacted have not been interested in carrying this issue because, in this state, it is very volatile."
Lane said he supported mandatory testing for fighters and praised Nevada for standing firm last week when Morrison refused to take the test.
"My belief is that it goes beyond referees and boxers and into any part of life," Lane said. "If a person is carrying a disease or a virus that impacts other people, then that person owes it to those people to cough it up."
Teen-age swimmer's suspension raises questions about drug testing
The Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. — American swimming's governing board yesterday punished a promising teen-ager for steroid use, but the decision opened debate about how international anti-doping rules should be interpreted.
The United States Swimming Federation banned 15-year-old freestyle swimmer Jessica Foschi from national and international competition for two years after a urine test last August turned up positive for steroids.
"We are deeply disappointed and offended at the decision of the board of directors of U.S. Swimming," said Jessica's father, Robert Fosehi, who will appeal the ban and fight it in court.
Jessica was composed as she and her
father checked out of a hotel to return to their home in Old Brookville, N.Y. Her only comment was, "It's a real shame."
In its finding — issued in the early hours of yesterday morning after two days of testimony and about seven hours of deliberation
— the board adhered to international swimming rules, but there was considerable debate about their interpretation.
The Swiss-based group known as FINA governs the sport worldwide for national affiliates such as U.S. Swimming and the U.S. Olympic Committee. FINA regulations say a positive drug test mandates a two-year suspension, regardless of circumstances surrounding the test result.
In her testimony before the board, Foschi didn't dispute the positive test but said she had no knowledge of how banned drugs
could have gotten into her system.
The board's decision allowed for modification of FINA-mandated penalties in certain cases, but the 14 directors of the 23-member U.S. Swimming board who considered the Foschi case determined that the evidence presented wasn't sufficient to do that.
The board members did not respond to reporters' questions and left Orlando shortly after the decision was handed down after 3 a.m. The vote tally was not made public, but several directors reported they were deadlocked for some time during their long deliberations.
The board's decision is significant because the United States was at the forefront of a move to strengthen international rules in the wake of positive drug tests for seven Chinese Olympic swimmers in 1994.
Last November, a swimming review panel found Foschi was either given the steroids without her knowledge or sabotaged by another swimmer or coach. She was placed on two years probation, which would have allowed her to continue competing.
But U.S. Swimming president Carol Zaleski appealed the ruling, saying the board must follow FINA regulations and ban Foschi.
Zaleski brought the appeal, she said, because, "I thought it would be very embarrassing to the United States to have FINA force U.S. Swimming to apply the sanctions."
Foschi said some of the board members viewed the situation objectively, "And then there were those who couldn't separate themselves from their political ties to the
On Monday, Foschi sobbed when she testified she was "bewildered and shocked" by the drug test that ultimately crushed her hopes for next month's Olympic trials and interrupted her budding career.
Jessica and her parents contend that her food or drink were tampered with or that the urine testing was improperly performed or incorrectly handled.
Foschi's father said the family's overriding concern had been to have his daughter's urine sample retested, for her to continue swimming and to repair her reputation.
The Foschis have filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court trying to force the UCLA testing lab to turn over the unused urine sample for testing by an independent lab.
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