A regular Otis
While Otis Grant, BA 93, was once in the professional boxing stratosphere, the former world champion has always kept his feet firmly planted on the ground. Calling up his early years, Grant recounts, “Other kids had part-time jobs while boxing. But boxing was my part-time job. It helped pay my tuition and keep my little car on the road.”
Grant rose to international fame following 42 professional fights, a world title and an impressive 38-3-1 record. At 39, he decided to hang up his gloves and was the guest of honour at an emotional farewell ceremony December 2006 at the Montreal Casino. By then, Otis and his older brother, Howard, had launched Grant Brothers Boxing, a club in Montreal’s west island district of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. “I always had plans to open up my own gym and start an amateur program to teach community kids,” he says, “perhaps even develop a couple of champions along the way.”
Otis Grant, above right, at a 2008 boxing workshop in Sutton Que. Grant is a former boxing champ and current partner in Montreal's Grant Brothers Boxing Club He says: "When our professional fighters make a little bit of money, we use it to develop our amateur program for the kids."
Grant Brothers Boxing trains both professional and amateur fighters even though its focus is mainly on the amateur program. The club has 35 young boxers registered with the Quebec Boxing Federation and pays the expenses for youths to travel to provincial competitions, including prestigious Golden Gloves tournaments. “We now have enough members that the club is not costing us out-of-pocket money like it did at the beginning,” Grant says.
Born in St. Ann’s, Jamaica, Grant moved to Montreal with his family in 1977 at age 9. He began boxing two years later. After a successful amateur career—he was a member of the Canadian team at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Ind.—he turned pro in 1988.
At about the same time, Grant enrolled in leisure studies at Concordia. Although he was becoming increasingly well known, he kept a low profile on campus. “If you didn’t know who I was, I didn’t tell you,” he says. When Grant graduated in 1993, he was already the world’s No. 3-ranked middleweight (up to 73 kg). He then snatched the ultimate prize: the World Boxing Organization middleweight title on December 13, 1997, in Sheffield, England, with a gutsy, 12-round decision over Ryan Rhodes of the United Kingdom.
The resolve and tenacity Grant displayed in the ring helped him recover from a horrific car accident in 1999 that left him in a coma for seven days. Grant broke five ribs, punctured a lung and shattered his shoulder blade. Doctors said he’d never fight again.
Yet, he miraculously stepped back in the ring four years later and became the World Boxing Council’s top-ranked, super-middleweight (up to 76 kg) in 2004. Eventually, he dropped to No. 4, then to 11, then out of the rankings altogether. After discussing his future with his wife and two children, Grant decided to retire in 2006. “Too many fighters believe their press clippings,” he says. “I’ve seen boxing use and abuse so many fighters who earn millions of dollars but end up either broke or in prison.”
Instead, Grant chose to move on and serve as a role model to young boxers. “I tell kids that you might think that you know me because I had a job a little bit different than your parents,” he says. “But I am a regular guy.”
—Perry J. Greenbaum
If you have any comments about this article, contact
Howard Bokser, (514) 848-2424 ext. 3826, Howard.Bokser@concordia.ca
