Ex-boxer in fight of life after cocaine dealt KO

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He says he could have been somebody. The disappointment and anger in Paul DeVorce's voice is as real as a right hand.

He was on track to be a featherweight champion. Small and smoldering, he was a compact Joe Frazier who packed a middleweight's punch into a 5-foot-2 frame.

"He was a good kid. Everybody loved him," said Sal Corrente, his first boxing coach at the Yonkers (N.Y.) Police Athletic League. "He was a tough kid on the street. He took no nonsense, but he would do everything you'd tell him to do. He trained religiously."

He was somebody. DeVorce won two New York Golden Gloves titles. He was a semifinalist at the 1976 Olympic trials. He won his first 21 pro fights. He traveled the world — England, Ireland, Puerto Rico. He fought at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum; in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

"He had all the talent in the world," Corrente said.

Fast forward some 18 years later. DeVorce, now 45, wears an apron and works in the kitchen at the Salvation Army at Seattle's Fourth Avenue South. He is in rehab. He is fighting the most enduring, most difficult opponent of his life. Again.

Paul DeVorce is an addict, in the process of finishing the Salvation Army's six-month rehabilitation program. He has been to hell and back so many times he has lost count. His boxing career is over, but his life still waits to be reclaimed.

"He can't change the past," Salvation Army Major Samuel Southard said this week. "But Paul still is a valuable person and has a lot to give. He has to focus on what he can be, not what he could have been."

What happened to Paul DeVorce? Why didn't he stay in the gym; stay dedicated; stay off the streets? Why did he spin this web of self-destruction that he has been trying to escape for more than 20 years?

"Drugs gave me a false confidence," DeVorce said. "I was pretty shy and the drugs made me feel good about myself."

History tells you cocaine always beats the gym. Doing coke is easier than the daily 5 miles of roadwork. Coke always makes you feel good, until it wraps its hands around your throat and begins claiming your life.

DeVorce would turn big paydays into even bigger parties. He once rented a limousine for two weeks. He stayed in expensive hotels just to impress his girlfriends.

"I got a call once and they asked me if I wanted to fight (featherweight champion) Barry McGuigan in Ireland," DeVorce said. "I told them I needed about six weeks to get ready. They told me I had 10 days. I told them I couldn't do that. I would get killed.

"They told me they would pay me $80,000. I asked them when they wanted me there. He beat me on a TKO in the fifth round, but when I got home I had all this money.

"The way it's been for me, I build my life up and then sniff it away. I build it back up and then drink it away. I'd build it up again and then smoke it away."

For a while, DeVorce thought he owned New York. By the time he realized he only owned a drug habit, he was into it too deeply.

"Once you start using, you spend a lot of time figuring out how to get drugs and who can I rob and who can I sucker in," DeVorce said.

Eventually, he was evicted from his apartment. He would visit the gym only to bum money. He'd go to bars and steal money off the tables and out of the till. He made enemies as easily as he once made friends.

"I was doing crazy stuff," he said. "Dealers would hold guns to my head. Sometimes I can't believe I'm still alive."

He would sleep in parks or in the hallways of crack houses. He roamed the streets, staying awake for three and four days at a time.

"I was heartbroken about it," said Corrente, by telephone from the Yonkers Police Athletic League. "He got to a point where he just couldn't get any lower. He'd come into the gym and bum quarters off the kids. He'd sleep in the trucks in back of the gym. People here who loved him as an amateur fighter, got to despise him."

DeVorce still remembers the date — June 14, 1988 — that he found himself sleeping in New York's Columbus Park. "I just started crying," he said. "I said, `I can't do this no more.' I felt so ashamed."

He went back to the PAL one more time and asked for help. The advisory board raised money to send him to a rehabilitation program in Mesa, Ariz.

DeVorce met his wife Jennifer in Mesa. They moved to Seattle and had two children. He got a job as a cook at Ivar's and even got in good enough shape for a brief boxing comeback.

"I felt so good that I had finally found a women who loved me enough she wanted to have my children," DeVorce said. "I was content."

But, when the marriage began to unravel, so did DeVorce.

He had stayed clean for seven years, but he started using again. He lost his job, his marriage. He couldn't pay his rent and was homeless again. He was arrested after fighting with his ex-wife's boyfriend. He was on the canvas, looking up at what used to be.

Finally, on a snowy day last February, down as low as he could go, DeVorce started walking. From 130th Street he headed south into the teeth of the storm. He had no idea where he was going. He got as far as Safeco Field, when he saw the Salvation Army sign a couple of blocks to the east. Something told him this was the place to go.

"He's open and friendly and has a good chance of succeeding," Southard said. "He's looking to the future."

His completion date is Aug. 18. New dreams are forming in Paul DeVorce's mind. And new fears.

"It's a scary thought," he said. "The thing is, I have nowhere to go. I can get into one of the recovery houses here, maybe work for one of them until I get on my feet. Now I have to build up my stuff again. That's kind of scary. I know it can be done. I've done it a lot of times. I just wonder sometimes, `What the hell's wrong with me?' It puzzles me.

"Now I have to find me a career. I'd like to go back to school. Maybe some day have a gym. Work with kids. I know I'm going to make it, because I'm going to be there for my girls. I never knew my father and I'm not going to be an absentee father to my girls. They're my motivation. I have to be there for my kids."

The toughest bouts are ahead of him, but there still is fight left in this flyweight. Paul DeVorce can be somebody. He can be a dad and a coach and a mentor. He can be a role model again.

All of the sweet spoils of self-conquest remain his to spend.

Steve Kelley can be reached at 206-464-2176 or at skelley@seattletimes.com.