A dark horse in the run up to the 1980 Moscow Summer, boxer Michael Anthony Parris, now 63, emerged as Guyana’s only Olympic medalist—an honour that he holds to date, although he would like to see that change.
Speaking about his life after he returned from Moscow, Parris says even though he was a winner he felt at a loss at times as no one approached him about training, coaching or mentoring other young athletes although he had—and still has—much to share.
“I don’t think I was treated too nice,” he says.
“I always say, you got an Olympic champion. You are supposed to guide him to encourage aspiring sports people in your country so they would want to become an Olympic medalist like me and not only in boxing but in other sports. You just don’t leave your champion just like that on his own and only when is Olympics time you check on Parris. No,” he told Stabroek Weekend in an interview. “After 41 years and still no more medalist? I would have been most happy if someone could have brought home another medal or medals.”
As he grew older, Parris would drive around and meet young people, who he would show the bronze medal he won “exactly 41 years ago on August 6, 1980, so they could hold and feel it, and, hopefully, be inspired.”
Though he offered his services in coaching, he said no one took him up. “You can use my knowledge. I am willing to train youths. I am willing to give of my service,” he added.
A husband and father of two sons and six daughters, Parris is now a taxi driver although he had to come off the road due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of his daughters, a doctor, advised him to get off the road because of the seriousness of the coronavirus threat, particularly as he has an underlying health issue. “So, I am at home doing nothing. My kids are encouraging me to open a gym.”
Born in 1957 to a family that loved boxing, Parris grew up in Lodge, Georgetown, where his father and uncles were known for boxing. “We always had gloves. We always had sparring sessions in the bottom house. The house was always full. I had plenty siblings but we were six brothers and six sisters from my old lady’s side.”
One day, Parris said his late father, Raphael, advised his sons to join a gym. At the time, he said, “I was soft and easy going. My brothers were always in some brawl or fight so everyone thought they were more tough than me.”
After they joined the boxing gym and started taking part in competitions, Parris said, his brothers did not take the training seriously. “You can’t want two sweet out of one joint. Is like they wanted to do the boxing but they still wanted to be running on the road, liming with girls and drinking. I stuck with boxing and did what was necessary. I won my competitions and moved on.”
Sacrificed
One of his coaches, Joe Spencer, he said, “used to tell my father ‘This boy is going to be the best of the others’. But my father dismissed him. He would look at the rest of them instead of me because they always showed the roughness and toughness.”
While they limed, Parris said, “I sacrificed some recreational activities because I knew what I wanted to achieve. I was winning competition after competition. I used to tell people I have to go to the Olympics. Muhammad Ali was my idol so I adopted his style. I used to do a lot of boxing but some people say I used to run. That was a strategy to protect myself. I ain’t protecting nobody in the ring.”
A sports enthusiast from school days, Parris enjoyed school sports and later on enjoyed running in goat races. As an employee of the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), he represented the corporation in the then Guyana State Corporation (Guystac) Games. When he worked with the GMC, he said, its then general manager, Hugh Saul, would give him time off to train. “I used to go to work at nine instead of eight and come off at three instead of four. I made use of the time they gave me. As an athlete, you putting in your work in training, at month end you feel nice when you draw your salary. Something similar to this I recommend other managers do for our athletes.”
When boxers were being selected for the Olympics, three in the bantamweight division in which he competed were called to train. “My grandfather used to tell me, if you sparring with the other two always try to look better than them. I always tried to do that.”
When the day came for selection and they were sparring, Parris said, no one knew they were going through a selection process to represent Guyana. They were asked to go another round and the other two backed out. “I say I would go for it. I thought that the one more round I did, gave me the selection. I even thought I looked better than the guys in the other divisions although I was smaller.”
Once selected, Parris said he became nervous so he had to steel himself to be focused, was disciplined and made personal sacrifices. He experienced some bouts of nervousness again in Jamaica and Cuba where, the boxers went to train en route to Moscow.
“On the flight to Russia, it was intense because there was heavy security on the plane because of the boycott.” The United States and some 60 countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest the USSR’s earlier invasion of Afghanistan.
Parris arrived in Moscow with three other boxers, Dansford Brown in the featherweight division, Martin Cambridge in the welterweight, and Alfred Thomas, middleweight. “No one looked at me, Mike Parris. I was the underdog. Dansford Brown was the big thing.”
While the other boxers would go exploring, Parris said, he would go to the dining hall to eat, walk the camp to digest the food and go back to the hotel room to train. “Night time I couldn’t sleep studying the boxing. I used to turn the AC high to get accustom to the cold climate. When I arrived there I could not breathe properly because of the cold. I did not even go to the opening ceremony of the games because I knew it would have been exhausting. I stayed in the hotel room and exercised. That was the one time I disobeyed the orders of the team’s manager.”
Brown was the first boxer in the ring and he won his fight. “We felt good. Next night was me. I won that match. There was excitement in our camp. Cambridge and Thomas lost their fight. Two of us were moving to the next round. Brown went back and lost his second fight. So now all eyes were on me.”
Parris’ first fight was against Nigerian Nureni Gbadamosi. His second fight was against Syrian Fayez Zaghloul. “My opponent was very aggressive but I took care of him. Both of us got cut but his was more serious. They stopped the fight. I won on points.”
His third fight, in the quarterfinals was against Mexican Daniel Zaragoza. “I took care of him. It was against he that I won the bronze medal. He saw the cut I got in the second fight and his camp probably told him to come after it. I realised that he was coming after the cut. I gave him my head in such a way that I could pull it back. I set him up.”
Parris lost his fight in the semi-finals to Cuban fighter Juan Hernandez, who went on to win the gold medal.
“I felt great that I won the first medal for Guyana because no one had looked at me to win a medal.”
Overcome
The day he went on the podium to receive his medal, Parris said, “I don’t know if I stand up, sit down, jump up or cry. I was just overcome with joy and happiness.”
When the team left Russia, he said, there was a hurricane in the Caribbean so they stopped in Iraq, where they spent a few days.
“When we arrived in Guyana, nobody really knew. The next day there was a big motorcade in Georgetown. It was nice.”
Parris was given a house in Shirley Field-Ridley Square, where he still resides.
“Thank God. I don’t have to pay a rent. All I have to pay are rates and taxes. I do taxi work around the place. Who knows me, knows me. Lots of the boys working around Bourda Market know me as Parris but not as Parris the Olympian.”
Parris subsequently received a gold chain promised by the Burnham government from then President Janet Jagan, and in 2011 he was given the national award, the Medal of Service, for his outstanding performance at the 1980 Olympics.
The gym in the National Park was also named in his honour. He says he was called to the gym after “They done name it after me.” It was supposed to be for national athletes but as he sees it, it is opened to anyone. “The athletes do not use it as they should or I don’t know,” he said
He related that one day he visited and asked someone what was the name of the gym and the person said it was named after somebody named Michael Parris. “I didn’t say who I was. I don’t go around saying that I am Michael Parris. The gym is there. They need to put a sign or something on it.”
Through taking part in boxing competitions regionally and internationally at the amateur and professional levels, Parris has travelled to a number of countries in Europe and the Caribbean as well as the US and Canada.
“I could have stayed and get away like some of the other guys. I did not. I came back and the only person that offer me a little job was Juman Yassin, the President of the Guyana Olympic Association. He called me and used to give me a stipend to assist the Guyana Defence Force.” Some of the army’s boxers were surprised that he was not a coach.
Parris said in the past he has approached government officials about his availability for coaching but no one has taken him on. “Right now, if government or anybody ask I am available.”
One of his wishes is to go back to the Olympics as a flag bearer of Guyana’s Golden Arrowhead.
“I never know what it was like to be in the Parade of the Nations. I see it on TV. I had the chance but I was focused on what I was supposed to do. I am glad I did not go but at the same time I would like to know how it feels. I know that one day before I die I will get to carry Guyana flag at the Olympics. I hope that at that time we come back with more medals.”
He continued, “Names do count in sports. When Guyana’s contingent passes in the parades, you hear the commentators saying Guyana has won only one medal, a bronze, by Michael Anthony Parris in boxing. A lot of people who carry flags are Olympians. I ask a couple of times but I have never had a positive response. Sometimes it makes me feel like is better I had jumped on a plane and gone to another country. I might have been a big coach or somebody.”
He recalls that on return to Guyana from the Olympics, an athlete was given a sports scholarship. He, Parris, was not considered for it but the recipient who benefitted has not returned to Guyana. “I am still here,” he said.
He advised selectors of athletes representing Guyana “Not to send an athlete because me and you are friends. Let them go on merit. This friend thing in sports needs to stop. When these guys go because of friends or who owes who, then you hear, ‘We should have sent John Jones’. These kinds of things in sports break the spirit of the athletes who really have potential, especially when they know that they are better than the ones selected. It breaks their spirit and make them go do other things.”
Advice for boxing prospect Keevin Allicock
“Now that young Allicock was there, and he performed,” Parris said, “I could tell that it took a lot out of him. He would have been nervous. That is the Olympics. He might have thrown his hands but not score enough. He has learnt, now he has to move on from there and look to the future. No one goes out to lose. Everybody goes out to win. The other boxers were more experienced, even their coaches were more experienced than his coach. See it as a learning experience and build on it. The other coaches went to several other Olympics and this is the first time that this coach has gone.”
Allicock, he said, should not blame or beat up, himself. Knowing that he wants to go to the next Olympics, Parris said, is good as long as he gets the guidance and support to prepare within the next four years.
“I think he and the other athletes should be accorded a high profile welcome home because they need the encouragement. We should not forget about them when they are coming back. When they were going there was this big hype about them. Do the same when they return. They represented us.”
