8 minute read
CASSIUS CHANEY: A Fighter and a Gentleman
By Nancy LaMar-Rodgers / Photos by A.Vincent Scarano
He has the namesake of perhaps the most famous boxer in the world, yet Cassius Chaney didn’t grow up looking up to the heroes of the ring. While his father endowed him with Ali’s name, he never pushed any of his sons toward the sport. Sure, there were the “fight night” parties at the house, and as Cassius and his brothers and friends were outside running around or shooting hoops, inside the house the exten ded family gathered to watch the greats. But Cassius wasn’t paying attention at that time.
Born in 1987 in Baltimore, Chaney says he had a loving but disciplined home. But abiding by the rules was not that easy. His experience in middle school was tough, and Chaney found himself surrounded by friends who were already going down the wrong path. “My home was great, and my mom worked hard to make sure that her sons were taken care of, but by the time I got to middle school I already had friends who were selling drugs, running away, and sneaking out to steal cars,” Chaney explains.
His Baltimore neighborhood was filled with kids, and as Chaney describes, he was either “playing basketball or fighting. “ Chaney recalls running from the bullies and trying not to get jumped in those first years of middle school. At thirteen he finally reached some height and heft, and now the bullies weren’t as intimidating. His younger brother Allan Chaney, the star basketball player in the family, adds to the conversation about Cassius. “He wasn’t so innocent back then, and he liked to fight. I’m younger, and he would try and beat on me all the time.” The two are close friends now, and both brothers acknowledge the fact that growing up in Baltimore was tough and knowing how to protect yourself was just part of survival.
Image by David Spanola/Main Event
Getting out of Baltimore became the focus. After an incident with his older brother, he decided to visit his grandmother in New London. The irony of the move was that Chaney’s father moved from New London back to Baltimore just as Chaney was relocating to Connecticut.
“There’s history with my father’s family in Connecticut, and I knew that I would be with family, but as I was making the decision to leave Baltimore, my father was coming to Baltimore to stay with his father.” Chaney’s father, originally from Philadelphia, made sure his sons were in sports, especially basketball. Chaney recalls those summers with a smile. “It was a great era in basketball with Kobe Bryant and Shaq and my dad always put us in basketball camps and that’s how we spent our summers.”
Once the decision was made to stay in Connecticut, Chaney attended Old Saybrook High School where local basketball legend, Vin Baker had also attended. His experience at Old Saybrook was night and day for Chaney. People held him accountable, and once Baker took him under his wing, Chaney felt that he was on the right path. Basketball was going to be his thing. Scholarships poured in for the dynamic ballplayer, but for Chaney, his college experience was a major disappointment.
“We had no discipline, and the team was really immature. I didn’t party or anything like that, so I disciplined myself. The problem was that I started fading myself out, and even though I was winning all the awards, I was just staying consistent, no challenges for me, and that’s not how you get better at anything.”
Chaney’s foray into the world of boxing came partly because of his disappointment with his college basketball experience and partly because of those early days of defending himself on the streets of Baltimore. “I finished school, graduated, and wasn’t sure what to do. I used to joke with my coaches all the time about wanting to get into boxing because I knew I could fight. I’d tell the coaches, ‘Look at me, I’m big, I think I could do this.’”
The general response as Cassius remembers it, was always the same, “You want to box, you better get in shape.” So, he did.
Cassius first studied the art, spending hours in front of ESPN analyzing the skills of the greats. He understood one thing - this was a thinking man’s sport. “I know I’m named after Ali, but I really appreciated Lenox Lewis because I thought this guy is smart, his style is smart.” Chaney goes on to relay an anecdotal tale about Joe Frazier. “We were in a park in Philly, and Joe Frazier was there.
My dad tells Frazier my name and Joe Frazier, says, ‘Oh, you named him after that guy.’ I still remember that” Chaney recalls, chuckling a bit about the craziness of how his name elicited such a response.
In 2012, Chaney made the decision to put all the studying into practice. “I finally made my way into the gym on Bank Street, and the first guys I meet are Coach Kent and Coach O. and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna train with these guys?’ I’m big, but next to them I felt really small.”
It’s hard to believe that Chaney would feel intimidated given his size, but he knew that boxing was going to be nothing like the street fighting he was used to, nor would his size make him a contender. Chaney concedes that he knew nothing about New London’s boxing history. Hughie Devlin, Rollie Pier, Kent Ward, and Brian Macy were among the names, and yet Chaney upon walking into the gym that day had no idea that in New London he just found his corner.
While Cassius continued to show up at the courts, he would always end up at the boxing gym afterward until he realized that he could no longer keep up with both. He eventually stopped playing hoops and instead put on the gloves permanently. But he kept his training under wraps. “I just wanted to keep it on the down-low at the time because I knew that I wanted to fight, and I didn’t want anyone to try and convince me otherwise.”
Former professional boxer, Brian Macy worked with Cassius in those early days, and as Macy stated, “Cassius jumped headfirst into amateur boxing and was fighting guys with far more experience, so it was sink or swim from the beginning.”
Macy goes on to describe Cassius as one of those fighters that are humble and hardworking, a sentiment that his current coach and trainer, Stephen Edwards echoes. “I’ve been training fighters for a long time, and I don’t just take anyone. I need to see what a fighter is willing to go through, what he is willing to put his mind and body through to be great. It’s not talent that I look for, but attitude and chemistry. Cassius is humble, and he works hard, and that’s why I took him on because I saw something in him.”
Edwards goes on to point out that Chaney doesn’t need to fight. “He’s got a college degree, he doesn’t need this. That’s a unique situation as most fighters come from some desperate backgrounds. Not Cassius though, so that’s how I know he is dedicated.”
Cassius spent three years fighting as an amateur, taking down opponents that technically should have beaten him. He talks about his first fight like it was yesterday. “I went to see this guy fight the week before I’m supposed to fight him, and he knocks the guy out cold, and I’m thinking, oh my God, are you serious? I spent that whole week training, with that picture of that guy knocked out cold, in my head. I knew I had to either get out now or just deal with it.”
Chaney decided to deal with it, and he won the fight, but it was not easy and came with so much trepidation. “By the second round, I was already tired but not so tired that I’m not gonna put my hands up, and I just kept moving.”
Cassius was elated and exhausted after that first fight but also had a renewed sense of commitment to the sport and his pursuit. He went on to win and win again as an amateur, losing twice out of twenty, those losses being to the top guys. For Cassius, the experience at Lake Placid, one of his last as an amateur, solidified his pursuit to go pro. “This guy caught me with an overhand right, and I went down, and I hadn’t had that before so I wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew that if I couldn’t get back up in an amateur fight, there was no way I was prepared to get up in a pro fight.”
Cassius Chaney turned pro in April of 2015 and has never looked back. When he is not training in various cities around the country, you can find him back in New London, helping with the kids down at the gym with the very same people whose names he didn’t know when he first arrived on the New London boxing scene. “It’s all about the relationships that I’ve built and this community of people. I don’t know, I can’t imagine not being part of this and coming back here. I’m so blessed and coming back keeps me connected.”
For information on any of the upcoming fights, follow him on Twitter @ Cassius_Chaney
