TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It’s dinnertime and 9-year-old Deontay Wilder and his three younger siblings take their seats at the family’s six-chair kitchen table.
One of the chairs, where Wilder’s mother used to sit, remains empty. She left the family not long before, temporarily leaving the care of the children to Gary Wilder, a heavy equipment operator trying to hold his family together without a partner and on $635 every other week. They are living in a three-bedroom home in a poor area of Tuscaloosa known as the West End.
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Gary, a hulking man at 6-foot-6, is slouched over the stove, cooking up some magic. Some nights, he would stand there, staring down at a pot of boiling water, not even sure what to make with it. He’d think of his wife, of his kids missing their mother, and tears would fall. But on this night, he is drumming up something wonderful, a concoction of his own making:
Ya-Ya.
He skinned some chicken, put it in the simmering water, threw in some onions, celery, bell peppers and some rice, and as it cooked “you could smell it down the road,” Gary says.
This is a special dinner, and you can see it in the kids’ eyes, from Deontay down to his 2-year-old sister, as Gary delivers their plates to the table. In the Wilder home on the West End, this is a king’s feast.
As Gary takes his seat, he sets an empty plate down at his place. The kids are too busy eating to notice. Gary also ministers at a local church and often talks about “a spiritual effort” to be closer to God; if the kids had noted his empty plate they likely would have thought he was fasting.
Deontay and the others eat and eat, savoring the Ya-Ya. Then they ask to be excused and run off to the living room, their plates remaining at the table.
As Gary begins to clear the dishes, he doesn’t notice Deontay peering into the kitchen from the living room. He doesn’t realize Deontay is watching as he goes from plate to plate, scraping what little food is left – a bit of onion, some celery, a few grains of rice – on to his own.
Gary isn’t fasting. This isn’t some spiritual effort. He’s hungry, and on this night and on many others, Deontay Wilder watches Gary sustain himself on the remains.
A father getting by on scraps.
Deontay Wilder will defend his World Boxing Council belt for the 11th time Saturday night at MGM Grand in Las Vegas when he meets England’s unbeaten lineal champion Tyson Fury in a rematch of their gripping draw in December 2018.
Wilder’s path to this point cannot be charted without considering his father. Boxing is full of father-son tales, of those trying to get back at theirs (Roy Jones Jr.), of those trying to impress them (Floyd Mayweather Jr.) or those trying to keep theirs alive (Leo Santa Cruz), but this is something else, an effort to try to emulate that man in the kitchen, to be that good for his own kids and for a city that has asked him to represent it to the world.
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Wilder’s path to this point was far from a straight line. It never is for a poor black kid from a place like the West End.
Deontay’s mother left the family when he was 9 years old, eventually returned but remained somewhat detached from her family. From that point forward, life was “survival mode,” Gary Wilder says.
The family couldn’t afford brand-name clothing and shoes; Deontay dressed in Wal-Mart sale items and hand-me-downs. Shoes that fit were scarce, and he got painful corns on his feet squeezing into inexpensive, orange Dada sneakers so hideous classmates teased him relentlessly.
“Imagine wearing orange shoes with every outfit you had. That’s some clown shit,” Deontay recalls.
“Imagine wearing orange shoes with every outfit you had. That’s some clown shit,” — Deontay Wilder
His feet hurt so much he would sit in the back of the class so he could take off his shoes unnoticed. But sometimes the kids noticed and they picked on him for that or for something else.
He innately knew how to defend himself, so he could handle those taunts and the fighting that followed. “I remember feeling victory, and victory felt so sweet,” he says. “I wasn’t no coward, no punk. Guys would jump me from behind, and I’d still whoop their ass. I had a true ability to win.”
Deontay tried to live by his father’s words, delivered each Sunday to a small congregation at a tin shack on Moody’s Swamp, which was prone to flooding when the local river overflowed. “Going to church all the time, we were always told to be the bigger person. I was a reflection of my father, so I had to be careful about what I did,” Deontay says.
As a bigger child himself, Gary Wilder knew how others would goad, seeking a conquest that would raise their profile – and respect – in the neighborhood. It went against his beliefs, but he looked the other way as his son stood his ground and unknowingly built a foundation of toughness that would aid him greatly in later years.
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As the now-famed tale goes, boxing was never Wilder’s intended sport. He played basketball and football and enrolled at Shelton (Ala.) Community College intending to make a final push toward his dream of playing in the more manicured section of town, as a member of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide.
He surrendered that dream at age 19, when he and his girlfriend learned their child, daughter Naieya, was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that occurs when the spine and spinal cord don’t form properly.
Wilder soon found himself rocked mightily by the vicious combination of his daughter’s perilous health and being told by the child’s mother that she was leaving him. (But she would remain a significant part of Naieya’s life.)
“Nothing was going right for me. It seemed like I lost my family because we split up,” Wilder says. “Child support started coming and you’ve already got bills. You’re making money, but just as fast as you’re making it, it’s leaving. There was a point in time I just broke down, especially not being able to see my daughter every day.
“It just fucks with you in the head, and I remember having a gun in my hand and really contemplating (suicide) … ‘this is it.’
“Something just drew me to go take a shower, to sleep it off,” he said. “The next morning, I woke up and I was ready to approach the situation and handle it.”
As a younger teen, he had worked at IHOP, rising from dishwasher to waiter. He delivered beer. Then in fall 2005, he decided to explore whether his athletic prowess had earning power.
Knowing that boxing offered a flexible training schedule and the promise of some purse money, he ventured to Skyy Gym and met with local trainer Jay Deas. He says he never expected to be more than a journeyman fighter.
Deas had met aspiring boxers who vowed to take it seriously, but “95 percent of them don’t stick with it,” he says.
(Michael Owens / Getty Images)
Deas wasn’t aware of Wilder’s desperation to care for his daughter. The trainer implemented his own commitment test, instructing Wilder on some footwork drills, then sneaking away as if he were busy, only to watch from a distance.
“Almost all of them aren’t as diligent when you walk away. They throw punches when you haven’t gone over punches,” Deas says. “But here was Deontay getting frustrated with himself going through the steps. I was standing there, thinking, ‘Wow! He’s really trying to do the right things.’ This was a good sign, and so was when he came back the next day. He kept coming back – all legs and arms and heart.
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“By no means was he a phenom, and the people who try to make it out like he dropped in here from outer space aren’t giving him credit for the work he put in.”
Three weeks in, Deas pitted Wilder against a journeyman heavyweight. Wilder unleashed a raw version of what has developed into his signature power right hand. The veteran crashed to the canvas, raised his head and smiled.
“Whatever you do,” the fallen fighter said to Deas, “keep him.”
Wilder’s promise was such that Deas discouraged him from turning pro immediately, even if the money was sorely needed.
“You’re looking at $500 a fight. But you can be really good at this. Let’s slow down and go through the amateur programming and learn your trade,” Deas told Wilder.
Wilder rose through the Golden Gloves competition and won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics. That savvy maneuvering emboldened Wilder’s trust and loyalty toward his trainer, a bond tightened by their long car drives to Southern locales like Atlanta for quality sparring while the broke fighter skimped by with a “dinner” of peach gummy rings and Sprite.
“It just fucks with you in the head, and I remember having a gun in my hand and really contemplating (suicide) … ‘this is it.’ — Deontay Wilder
They persevered as critics noted Wilder lacking fundamentals, and again later as Wilder’s increased fame spawned questions about why he’d remain so true to Tuscaloosa and Deas, who’s assisted by former welterweight champion Mark Breland.
Deontay reconnected with one of his father’s lessons: “No matter how much God increases you, don’t forget about the people who saw you when you were invisible.”
In December, after Wilder knocked out Cuba’s Luis Ortiz to clinch the lucrative Fury rematch that will be offered on pay-per-view jointly by Fox and ESPN, he bought his father a new GMC truck.
“I’ve never wanted Deontay for anything,” Gary says. “If he became a billionaire, I’d never ask him for this or that; I’ll always wait until God fills his heart. And when he did something like that, I knew it was coming from that soft place that God has touched.”
On the banks of Tuscaloosa’s Black Warrior River, amidst the weeping willows, cypress pines and aspens, a concrete slab awaits the arrival of a sculpture being cast in Italy. The statue, which will stand 6-feet-6 high, is of Deontay, shirtless with a firmly committed facial expression. He is holding his arms downward toward his trunks with his hands clenched in fists.
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“When people here first meet him, their mouths are wide open, their eyes as big as saucers, but even after all those championship fights, he’s still so down to earth and real. This is a genuine guy who represents so many of the things that are great about Tuscaloosa,” said Don Staley, the Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports president and CEO.
When residents were burning off those holiday pounds last month, they sweated alongside him, grinding through his cardio and strength work at Crunch Fitness on busy McFarland Boulevard. Between fights, he funds family gatherings at local parks, offering bouncy houses and free food and drink for all.
At the parks and when he visits foster-care centers, kids ask to tug on his goatee, others hold his leg when it’s time to go.
“This place is magical. I have so many places in the world I can go, but Alabama is my home,” he says. “This, to me, is humble beginnings. I’ll never leave. I started here, and I’ll end here.”
One can’t be a famous son of Tuscaloosa and not reckon with its history. The lynchings and the high-profile standoff with Gov. George Wallace at the University of Alabama and the 1964 “Bloody Tuesday” attack at the First African Baptist Church.
(Lance Pugmire / The Athletic)
Wilder’s high school, Central, was effectively re-segregated for his senior year after the school board built three new high schools across town following the expiration of a 1978 federal integration order.
“We were a powerhouse (during integration). All my friends in all my classes were there and we clicked – all different races, all different walks of life,” Wilder recalled. “That was the beauty part of it. To this day, I have friends – brothers — all over the world. I love being around different people and different cultures, because you learn from them.”
Central High School today retains a near 99 percent black student population and has languished in the past decade as a “failing school.”
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How can Wilder change that, bring more change to Tuscaloosa?
“(Wilder’s) life is written in celebrity, media cultures, great wealth, but he writes with a local pen (and) wants to frame it in a local culture,” said John M. Giggie, a University of Alabama associate professor of history and African American studies who directs the first-of-its-kind Summersell Center for the Study of the South at Wilder’s former high school.
“He doesn’t just see the world differently, but he wants to live in the world differently. He’s trying to live in Tuscaloosa and imagine a world in which color and class don’t determine every aspect of your future.
“That’s a powerful message to a young person. You hope that message transforms one life and there’ll be a critical mass that thinks that way to help move things forward. He’s dedicating his life in beautiful ways to try to do that, and that’s hard to do: giving your time, your money, your effort, your soul. That’s his message: He’s living his words.”
Adds Charles Carter, a parishioner at First African Baptist Church: “His whole goal in starting to box was just taking care of his daughter. You can’t expect any more of a man than to take care of his kid.”
Not that Deontay hasn’t tried broader gestures.
Deas made four requests (between 2015-2016) asking the University of Alabama to host a Wilder title defense, including what would’ve been a powerfully symbolic Wilder entry into historic Foster Auditorium, where the late Gov. Wallace stood (and failed) to block two black students from enrolling in 1963. Deas was first told “it hadn’t been done before,” then was denied on another occasion because of a scheduling conflict with a cheerleading camp.
“That’s a lame excuse,” said Carter. “If the Pope can recognize him, why can’t the university? He’s the most celebrated athlete in the state.”
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“I was never raised to dislike anyone,” Wilder said. “I was raised to love everyone, even though a lot of things have happened, with things being done wrong to others. My parents didn’t teach (bitterness), nor do I teach that.”
Nor did they teach him to stay silent.
Before the first Fury fight, Wilder responded to Fury’s remarks that Irish gypsies were greatly persecuted in the U.K. It came at a time when police violence against black citizens was generating headlines in the U.S.
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Agitated, he told a black video reporter, “You know what I’m talking about. Don’t sit up here and try to bait. I don’t have to explain what’s understood. Go look up your history. Go Google that shit. We’re still fighting. ‘Til this day!”
Whether Wilder wins or loses against Fury, his legacy in Tuscaloosa should remain unchanged. The statue will still go up. The children will still flock to him at public appearances. But winning creates momentum, and not just for his boxing career.
Some believe Fury out-boxed Wilder and should’ve won the first bout 15 months ago despite being dropped twice. But rematches have been good to Wilder following his impressive second looks at Bermane Stiverne (first-round knockout) and the seventh-round finish of Luis Ortiz.
“I’m going to display my power and my skill,” Wilder says. “You need skill to have eye coordination and timing in order to hit the target. That is what I display: the coordination to be able to put a man’s head in the perfect position to deliver. I can speak things into existence. That’s why you always hear me talking about the knockout.
“I don’t get full credit for all that I do. (That’s) always been an ongoing task, which is OK, because life has been like that for me and I’ve proven them all wrong. I get a sensation from having something to prove. I’ve done it over and over. So how can anyone doubt me after all this? We have to deal with it, though, and we’ll deal with it right on the job.”
(Steve Marcus / Getty Images)
The job today is to cook.
Wilder is in the kitchen of his spacious home. It is tucked at the end of a back road that winds through the deep woods surrounding Lake Tuscaloosa. This is not the West End. Not the kitchen of his youth. Back then, the stove’s hood light was the only bulb allowed on, an effort to keep down the electric bill. Now, Wilder’s kitchen is flooded with light, as if he’s making up for the lost wattage from his childhood.
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The night’s menu includes mashed potatoes that Deontay peeled himself. A stack of corn on the cob. A pile of green beans. And then there is the chicken. This meal is a tribute of sorts to Ya-Ya – and it is Deontay’s specialty.
Deontay’s eight children, including Naieya, who can run and move like any teen girl, filter in from other rooms, drawn by the smell of the food, and they find barstools at the vast kitchen counter. They look on as Deontay works around the kitchen.
Finally, the steaming dishes are placed in front of each of the kids. They say a blessing, and then the children begin devouring the chicken and all the sides, bite after bite after bite.
Deontay will eat later, a plate all his own, but for now, he stands and watches his children. Maybe he is remembering his father and those table scraps. Maybe he is looking forward to what the future might hold for him and those kids and Tuscaloosa. Whatever it may be, he has the look of a man who is full.
(Top photo: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)
