Torres preparing for Olympic trials

PHARR — Isaac Torres bounced around the ring anticipating his sparring partner when his father Zeke called for his attention.

“Hey, take it easy,” Zeke told his son.

Torres, a 20-year-old amateur boxer from Mission, is preparing for the Olympic Trials July 31-Aug. 6 in Mobile, Ala. Zeke doesn’t want his son to overwork and/or hurt himself ahead of the biggest tournament of his life. If he wins the Trials in the 123-pound weight class, Torres will compete in the 2012 Olympics in London.

Zeke motioned with his hands for calm. With one nod, Torres let his father know he understood. When anyone on what Torres likes to call his “team” offers suggestions, he listens.

Torres admits he would not be on the doorstep of the Olympic Games without his family, trainer and his boxing buddies at the makeshift gym in Pharr.

His team consists of the people who enrolled him in school, who threw him birthday parties when he was younger and who sold barbecue plates to help fund his boxing and martial arts endeavors.

Listen to Torres carefully, and you will hear him substitute “we” for “I.”

“Yeah, we are nervous,” Torres said. “Once that first punch gets thrown, our nerves are gone. We are going to be nervous until the day of the first fight.”

It comes natural to Torres.

“We are a team,” he says. “… That’s what we are. Without my family, this would not be possible. We all have to be up there together on the same page to be able to pull off this whole entire tournament.”

When Torres arrived at the gym last week, his brother Mark, 17, was there to help. Mark is always in his brother’s corner and he has an important job – he works Torres’ mits before a fight.

The water and bucket duties during fights? Yeah, that’s Mark’s job, too.

“We are all in this together,” Mark said. “We started this together and we are going to end it together.”

Torres’ trainer James Gogue, who trained 1996 Olympian and former U.S. team captain Lawrence Clay-Bey and professional champions in a 28-year career, knows all about self-indulged boxers.

So far, Torres is not one of them. Torres credits Gogue for getting him to the next level.

“It is team, baby,” Gogue said. “There is an old saying, ‘I don’t get to the top by myself. I get to the top with the help of others.’ He understands that. I’m just another piece of the puzzle.”

It is a puzzle the Torres family hopes forms an Olympic berth.

“We have always done everything together,” the boxer’s 43-year-old brother and cornerman Tony said. “Even though it is just him in there fighting, taking the blows and throwing the blows, we are there to back him up.

“It’s Team Torres.”

Peter Rasmussen covers sports for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 683-4448.