Dwayne Hairston, Orlando Cordova, Sammy Vega and Greg Cuyler
"The Hartford Courant" July 10, 2005
(Front Page story)
A boxing coach became a mentor to four boys who showed great promise, and many victories followed. But when one was killed in Hartford, it was a terrible blow to John Scully and his “kids.”
The morning Greg Cuyler was shot to death outside a North End nightclub, boxers past and present converged on the crime scene.
John "Iceman" Scully, who once fought for the International Boxing Federation light heavyweight title, was the first to arrive, around 7 a.m. Former amateur champions Sammy Vega, Orlando Cordova and Felix Cruz appeared a little later, as did light heavyweight Eric Harding.
By 11 a.m., Heavyweight Lawrence Clay-Bey, who captained the 1996 U.S. Olympic team, and former featherweight Pepe Vasquez had become part of the group in the parking lot.
There wasn't much to see, except for a couple of spent shell casings and Cuyler's gold Nissan Altima, unmoved from where he had parked the night before. The fight crowd stood around and pawed the ground until the middle of the afternoon, trying to absorb the loss of one of its own.
"We couldn't believe what was going on," Vega said. "It was hard. I was mad at Greg and sad. Mad because I knew what he was doing was wrong."
There was no sugarcoating what Cuyler was doing. He was dealing drugs. And where drugs are found, guns are sure to follow. Cuyler was killed early Sunday morning, April 10, following an altercation inside the Main Tower Cafe at 3229 Main St. Cuyler, 23, was shot once in the leg and once in the chest. His was the fifth shooting death in Hartford this year, and as of June 25, there have been 13 murders, according to the Hartford Police Department. Ten of the people were killed by guns.
"People see black kid, inner city, Vine Street, got shot -- so what? They're numb to it," Scully said. "When you picture a kid -- inner city, urban black kid -- that sells drugs, goes to clubs and gets into fights and gets shot, you don't picture Greg. He's not the guy. That's not him."
But it was him.
And it was especially tough to take for Scully because Cuyler was one of "Scully's Kids." When Scully was still fighting professionally, he began coaching four Hartford youths -- Cuyler, Cordova, Vega and Dwayne Hairston. The group formed a bond that extended beyond boxing. Scully was a mentor and father figure for the four fighters. Together, the "Five-Star Bomb Squad" traveled the country to compete in regional and national tournaments. In between pillow fights, water balloon wars and trips to Disney World and the World Trade Center, "Scully's Kids" won at least 50 state, regional and national titles from 1994 to 2002.Vega was a 1997 National Junior Olympic champion, a feat matched in Connecticut only by Marlon Starling, the best fighter to come out of the state in the last 40 years, and Manchester heavyweight Miguel Ayala. Cordova won the 2000 U.S. Armed Forces Championship and Hairston won the 1998 National PAL Tournament.
Cuyler was a two-time New England Golden Gloves champion and an Ohio State Fair champion, and he earned a scholarship to Northern Michigan University as part of the Olympic training program.
Scully, 37, is still a big kid who enjoys applying shaving cream to the faces of sleeping fighters or rigging the old bucket of water over the door trick. His mentoring and social work (he holds no degree outside of a Windsor High diploma) are byproducts of the life he has constructed for himself.
"John Scully has a way with these kids that I'm envious of and sometimes jealous of," said Brian Clark, manager of Ring One boxing in New Haven. "He's so incredibly effective with his kids. He just has incredible communication ability with his kids."
Though he says he has never drank, smoked or used drugs, Scully, who trains pro and amateur fighters at the Ring 59 (aka The Fight Factory) gym in Windsor, is not a crusader. He lets the discipline of boxing and his easy manner guide his interaction with youngsters. "Last summer," Scully said, "I worked for [a state] juvenile training program with people who went to college for four years to learn how to deal with these kids and they really couldn't. There's not lot that you can read in a book that is going to help you really and truly relate with certain types of kids because kids like this, they know who is real and who isn't. I kind of got it from Muhammad Ali. He would be with the kids and they wanted to play with him. He would shadowbox with them and talk to them and easily sort of befriend them without even trying that hard. That's kind of how it is with me. It just kind of comes natural to me."
Of the four kids Scully first coached, two have embarked upon successful lives, one is in jail and one is dead.
Cordova, 27, is a staff sergeant in the Marines and due to ship out to Iraq this month. He plans a 30-year career in the Marines. Vega, 23, is a law clerk for Hartford personal injury attorney Jeffrey Dressler. Vega is also heavily involved in the Dressler- sponsored Mega Education stay-in-school program. Hairston, 20, is serving a three-year sentence for gun possession at Gates Correctional Institution in Niantic.
And Cuyler is dead at 23.
Keeping Close Contact
None of Scully's Kids were involved in boxing the last couple of years, though Scully remained in close contact with each. Cuyler was arrested in February with 35 grams of crack cocaine and more than $2,000 in cash during a crackdown on drug dealing near Vine and Magnolia streets, police said. Cuyler's family claims he was set up by a man working for the police and that the same man - Antonio Pena, who is still at large - killed Cuyler.
"You can only be set up if you're in the wrong place doing the wrong thing," Clark said. "Greg could have let that fight go. Instead Greg got himself killed. It sucks that it happened, but Greg did it to himself."
A strong supporter of the San Juan Center boxing gym and other youth activities, Dressler spoke at a hearing and requested leniency for Cuyler following his arrest in February. "Greg was a good kid," Dressler said. "I made an impassioned plea to the court. In the farthest reaches of my mind I don't know how much I believed it. There are people that are aggressive and will turn their life around. Greg `yessed' me to death. `I'm going to do this. I'm going to go back to school.' I said you've got to have a plan. Lay it out for me. It hurts. We've known this kid since he was 12."
Cuyler was 13 when he started going to the San Juan Center, where Scully trained and also served as a coach. That was in 1995.
"Greg was a slow starter," Scully said. "He could move and box, but he didn't have that real technique down and he didn't have the drive. But once he hit his stride ... I remember telling him one day, `You're going to kick in and you're going to be good.' In 1999, he fought a guy from Holyoke, he looked like Sugar Ray Leonard. He really came into his own. Until 2002, he was probably the best kid in the state."
Between 1995 and 2002, the pint-sized, squeaky-voiced Cuyler won thirteen regional boxing titles. It initially took Cuyler awhile to develop, though, because he lacked discipline and was always on the prowl for action.
"Where's Greg?"
Scully said he would call the room where his fighters were staying when they went on a trip and invariably Cuyler and Hairston were out somewhere and Vega would answer the phone.
Scully said Cuyler often lost in the early rounds of tournaments because he weren't rested and had not eaten properly.
"[Greg] liked to have fun," Scully said. "That's part of the reason he didn't excel in the beginning. He would always cry every time he lost and I yelled at him because he didn't have a right to cry. I call the room, Sammy would answer.
`Where's Greg?'
"Out at the mall."
"[I said], `That's why you aren't winning. Until you put something into it, you don't have the right to cry.'"
But it was impossible to not like Cuyler, Scully said.
"Greg ended up having a great personality, a funny way about him."
Scully said he would always remember Cuyler the way he was on a trip to Las Vegas for the Roy Jones-John Ruiz heavyweight title fight in 2003.
"On the Strip they have these golf carts that you can rent," Scully said. "A bunch of us rented them and we had a race up the Strip. We had to get to the Stratosphere and all the way back to the MGM and on the way back I see Greg up in front of me stopped at the light. I pulled up to the light and he's got a whole family of people in the thing with him. He picked them up on the way and charged them $20 to take them to the other end [of the Strip]. He had a big smile on his face. That was the kind of thing he would do."
Cuyler was a hustler.
"When he was 15 he had a little candy business," Scully said. "He would go to Sam's Club and he would buy big boxes of candy. He had Sammy's cousin, Alex, and Dwayne working for him. He would send them out on the corner. One would have the corner by the Civic Center and the other would be on Main Street somewhere. He would go by later on his bike and check up on them. He would give them a percentage of the candy profits. He was making $70 or $80 a day. He was a little hustler. I always looked for Greg to eventually open up a store or maybe a barbershop. He was always looking to do something. He was always looking to try and get some." Cuyler graduated from Weaver High in 2000. He became the first state fighter to be accepted into the Olympic boxing program at Northern Michigan. Cordova said Cuyler was always in a hurry to get back home and back to the neighborhood after being away on a boxing trip.
"Greg was an awesome kid, but he loved the street life too much," Cordova said. "Greg wanted to live that street life. He was always rushing to get back. He wanted to see what was going on back on the block."
Wasted Opportunities
Cordova feels Cuyler wasted his talent and his opportunities.
"He went to college. He was a smart kid," Cordova said. "All that feeding the family crap, you can go right out the door with me. He was an elite athlete. Going to college and boxing at the same time - how can you beat that?"
But Cuyler felt isolated in the cold of Marquette, Mich. He missed the streets. When a friend known as "Buddha" was killed, Cuyler returned to Hartford for good after one year in college. Buddha had encouraged Cuyler to make college work and had sent money to him. Cuyler fathered three children in the last two years of his life and maintained he needed to hustle to help support them.
"That's when everything changed," Vega said. "Greg wanted to live good, have nice cars. He wanted to live in a good way, but it was hard."
Cuyler's family encouraged him to continue boxing and renounce the street life.
"He was trying to get himself back together," said his mother, Evelyn Cuyler. "I was pushing him as much as I can."
Evelyn Cuyler said she trusted Scully with her youngest son, who still lived at home.
"He was my baby," Cuyler said. "There were loads and loads of people at the funeral. I knew he knew people, but I didn't know he knew that many people. It was like he was a rock star.
"It's hard to live here without my son."
Scully said he worried more about Cuyler and Hairston because of the tough neighborhoods they came from. "I felt like Greg could make it," Scully said. "My reservations were about Greg and Dwayne because of where they grew up and the influences they had. Sammy and Orlando seemed to take to the gym more, the people and the resources that were available. The other two wanted to, but there were so many other things going on outside."
Cordova said once Cuyler and Hairston left the gym, trouble followed.
"Greg was ranked No. 2 in the nation and Super D Hairston had won national tournaments. How do you go from that to doing what you're doing now?" Cordova asked. "I had a lot of potential. I know I had a lot of skills, just like they did. But they had even more, because they started so young. They could have been something."
Cuyler admitted to Scully that he was selling drugs.
"I told him to stop," Scully said. "Greg knew I was anti-drug more than you can imagine. But I could understand how a kid with no money would say, `Man, this is unbelievable.' As strong as my influence is, it's hard to beat that money. It's like trying to get someone to go on a diet and they live in a supermarket. You can't help it. I tried just about every way that was possible."
All of his friends, from Scully to Dressler to Vega, feel they could have done something to prevent Cuyler's death. But Clarke said there's only so much that can be done.
"Greg was almost there," Clark said. "Greg was a kid that Scully tried real hard. I don't think you do anything for them. You kind of give them a hand up over the wall. You provide some sort of lift or push, but in the long run you've got to stand on your own."
Scully said he talked to Cuyler the day he was killed and that Cuyler had been in Scully's gym only four days earlier. Scully implored him to return to the gym.
"That's when I was telling him he could still do it," Scully said. "With any of these kids, I'm not only concerned with them making it as far as boxing goes. I know none of them are going to turn pro. It would be a rare kid that I would ever turn pro. If he's here, he can't get shot in the gym."
Orlando Cordova never backed down from any challenge, in the ring or out, and he’s now headed to Iraq.
One evening, Orlando Cordova found himself in a dice game with boxing luminary James Toney that got a little testy. There was disagreement over the point Cordova needed to roll. Cordova said it was six. Toney said it was eight. It went back and forth for several minutes. Six. Eight. Six. Eight. Six. Eight. The tension was palpable. Cordova, who was only a teenager (age 15) then, stood his ground (actually going nose to nose for a moment with the champion) until the scowling Toney finally conceded it had been a six. Cordova won the point and put Toney's money in his pocket.
"I was always somewhat of a tough kid," Cordova said. "I never backed down from any challenge, even when I wasn't boxing."
That's still the case. Cordova, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, will be deployed to Iraq this month. Cordova could have stayed in New Haven, where he commanded a Marine truck maintenance garage, but he wanted a piece of the action. "I volunteered to go to Iraq," he said. "They were looking for a platoon sergeant. No hesitation: `I'll do it.'"
Cordova said boxing was what made him stay on track. With nine years already behind him at age 27, he said he wants a 30-year career in the Marines. John Scully, who trained the four fighters called "Scully's Kids," isn't surprised Cordova, who lives in East Hartford with his wife, Auri, and their two daughters, Crystal, 8, and Destiny, 2, has done well.
"He was my second in command," Scully said. "He really took everything to heart. He graduated from Prince Tech with honors and went right into the Marines."
Cordova credits his mother, Maria Lopez, with giving him the foundation for building his life. He wasn't an angel, but he recognized the dangers that life in the city presented. "I was in trouble as a youth, stealing cars and doing this and doing that," Cordova said. "They told me the same thing they tell everybody else: You're going to be in jail or dead. I was always a level-headed kid. I don't think I would have gone that route. I would have caught myself. The gym was just a step ahead. Eventually I would have found my way. I always knew right from wrong, but I decided to do the wrong thing. Boxing just happened to be one of the good things I did in my life. Boxing happened to hit me in the face: Here you go. You don't need to be doing this and here's your chance right now."
Cordova was 14 when he went to the San Juan Center for the first time. He was fascinated by the way Scully could work the speed bag. Cordova just stood there with a scowl on his face until he finally asked Scully if he could try.
Cordova quickly found out it wasn't as easy as it looked.
"The first time I got in the ring I got my butt whipped," he said. "The kid had no skill at all, but he was in the gym longer than me. The kid lit me up. Boxing brings the toughness out of you. You don't have to look tough to be tough in boxing."
But with practice, Cordova excelled. He won the 1994 Region One Junior Olympic title in Lake Placid and the 1994 National Boxing Foundation tournament in Cincinnati. In 1995 he took home a Western Mass. Golden Gloves title. He was U.S. All-Marine champion in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and he won the 2000 U.S. Armed Forces championship.
When Cordova was in basic training, he called Scully to complain how tough it was.
"He told me it's just like boxing," Cordova said. "You've got to keep going forward with it. Keep throwing punches and at the end you'll be a champ. Three months I had to gut it out every day. Every time I found a speed bump, I always related it to boxing." Cordova said his goal is to become a sergeant major, the highest ranking for an enlisted Marine. He is already one of the youngest staff sergeants in the corps. He was stationed in Okinawa for three years and has been to Austria, Korea, Croatia and, very briefly, in Afghanistan. In Iraq, Cordova is expected to help supervise maintenance of the 1st Marine Division Truck Company. He is a member of the MOS (military occupational specialists), which is a combat unit.
"People say, `Why do you box? It's the hardest sport. Why you join the Marines? It's the hardest branch.' Once you put on this uniform very day... I'm proud of it," Cordova said. "Everybody looks differently at Marines. They look at Army, Navy and Air Force a little different. When they see a Marine, it's like, `Wow, that's a Marine, that guy."
Sammy Vega traded in boxing trunks for brown suits and ties, working as a law clerk and going to college.
When Sammy Vega was a fighter, he went by the nickname "Suave." The handle still fits, but he has traded in his boxing trunks for snazzy brown suits and color-coordinated ties.
Vega works for Hartford attorney Jeffrey Dressler as a law clerk and program director for Mega Education. The transformation from puncher to young executive took place over time. There have been some false starts, but Vega has had the grit and the guidance to push through them. That underpinning became magnified when Vega's good friend and former boxing teammate, Greg Cuyler, was shot and killed in April.
"Greg tried. He tried hard. But he gave up too quick," Vega said. "If you want to be someone, you've got to give not a little; you've got to give it all."
Vega, who has about two years of college credits and is taking classes at Capital Community College now, spends a lot of time and energy trying to motivate kids to stay in school. Mega Education is an incentive-based program that rewards students for attendance, homework completion and other achievements. Mega also provides assistance in test preparation and awards numerous scholarships. Vega, 23, became involved when he met Dressler, who has been a strong supporter of the Hispanic community, including the San Juan Center. Vega speaks regularly at middle schools in the city and tracks the progress of students. Mega Education, founded by Dressler, has erected sharp-looking signs on the grounds of participating schools.
"Sammy is in charge of making sure things happen in the schools," Dressler said.
Vega, who makes about $40,000 a year, is an example of what education and mentoring can do for youngsters.
"Our program is similar to the boxing program," Vega said. "Sometimes as a student I need someone to tell me I'm doing well in school. Someone to encourage me, just like boxing."
Vega won a 1997 National Junior Olympic title, the Silver Gloves Nationals in 1998 and National PAL championships in 1996 and 1997. Marlon Starling is the only other state fighter to win a national Junior Olympic title. Starling went on to win the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council welterweight titles as a pro.
Vega had thoughts of trying to make the 2000 Olympic team and going on to a pro career, too, but decided to attend college instead. His mother, Lenore Cotto, who urged him to play baseball, learn how to ride horses, start boxing and do well in school, heavily influenced Vega.
Scully was also a big influence. Scully is not in favor of young boxers turning pro unless they have a chance to make it big. He didn't think any of the fighters he trained were the right size to have lucrative pro careers.
"Scully was like a dad," Vega said. "He guided me to become a man."
Vega, who graduated from Prince Tech in 1998, lasted only one year at Central Connecticut. He was not prepared for the various demands of college life. When he told Scully he wanted to resume boxing, Scully said "No" and drove Vega to Manchester Community College to enroll in classes.
Dressler took a liking to Vega and gave him an opportunity to work in his office. He regrets he could not save Cuyler. Cuyler asked Dressler for a job, but Dressler did not have a position available.
"I have a little guilt," Dressler said. "I could have taken this kid by the collar and walked him down and said, `Hire this kid.' But you can't be everywhere."
Vega has been working for Dressler since he was sixteen.
"There are no hours for him," Dressler said. "It's just responsibility. He does for a love of doing. That is part innate. That's not taught. We can work with kids and we can home in on their skills. But we're all born with a blueprint."
Dressler sees Vega as a protege. "I tell Sammy, `I don't want to give you a fish, I want to teach you to fish,'" Dressler said. "Sammy will be and is a very marketable young man."
Vega said that when he speaks at schools, parents come up to him and tell him that his story will help motivate their kids. "It feels good," Vega said. "When I was little, I wanted fame and nice cars and money and I'm getting that now. I was walking down the street and a lady said, `Hey, I know you. I saw you on TV.' And it feels good. People recognize me not just as a boxer. That's what I need to keep me on track and motivate me."
Dwayne Hairston, serving time in prison, is sobered by the death of his former boxing colleague.
When Dwayne Hairston was just a tyke, barely 50 pounds soaking wet, he'd enter John Scully's basement to the blaring music of the theme from "Rocky." With Scully down on his knees to even up the size factor, they'd box until they almost collapsed in exhaustion.
As Hairston got older, Scully would take him to boxing tournaments where his machine-gun work on the pads scared the living daylights out of opponents. Before long, folks around the country knew all about "Super D." Along the way, someone saw a resemblance to Mike Tyson and started calling Hairston "Baby Tyson." Unfortunately, the resemblance to Tyson didn't stop with the punching power and the face. Today, Hairston, the amateur boxer Scully called a prodigy, is in Gates Correctional Institution, where he is serving a three-year sentence for unlawful possession of a firearm.
"A lot of people see me in here and say I should be world champion right now," said Hairston, wearing light-brown prison garb in the visitors' room at Gates. "I chose the wrong path."
Hairston, Greg Cuyler, Orlando Cordova and Sammy Vega became tight while boxing under the tutelage of Scully, a former light heavyweight contender from Windsor. On April 10, the day Cuyler was shot and killed in the early-morning hours outside a bar in Hartford's North End, Scully, Vega and Cordova took turns talking to Hairston on the phone.
Scully recalled his conversation.
"I told him, `I'm standing at the crime scene and if you weren't locked up, there's a good chance you'd be here, too, and I'd be here visiting your crime scene.'"
Hairston, 20, was resigned at the other end, saying simply "I know."
Hairston had a tough upbringing. Both of his parents were drug addicts and his grandmother, Nanny Hairston, who is in a convalescent home in Bloomfield, raised him as best she could along with 11 other grandchildren. From the time Hairston was 4 until he was 15, he lived in a dozen homes, including a couple of foster homes and, briefly, with Scully.
Hairston was reluctant at first to even set foot in the Bellevue Square Boys Club. He was so little then and the heavy bags scared him. They looked like hanging bodies, he said. But Johnny Duke, long involved in Hartford boxing as a coach, was a benevolent dictator and the club was a safe haven for kids like Hairston. It was there that Hairston met Scully.
"I was training for my pro debut," said Scully, who became a trainer shortly after retiring as a fighter in 1998. "He didn't box. He was just in the gym. When he was four he probably weighed 40 pounds... nothing. He would come in the gym every day and just wander - aimless. He used to ask me for a quarter every day. I said, `Carry my bag from the car and I'll give you a quarter.' The bag was literally bigger than him."
The relationship grew from there and by the time Hairston was done with boxing he had won national titles at the PAL, Ohio State Fair and National Boxing Foundation tournaments. He also won numerous state and regional championships along the way.
"Dwayne was a prodigy since he was a little baby," Scully said. "He was like a little machine. Kids would refuse to fight Dwayne when we would go to tournaments. He could punch very hard for a ten year old. He would hit the pads. We'd be at a tournament. We'd hit the pads near the kid and you'd see the kid sit down. Other coaches and fans and other fighters would come over to watch Dwayne hit the pads. They used to call him Baby Tyson when he was 10 years old. He was famous. To this day I go to New York and people say, `Whatever happened to Baby Tyson?'"
Like Tyson, Hairston got into trouble as a youth. It was often comical, nothing major.
"He got arrested when he was 10," Scully said. "He was spray- painting something downtown. I asked how they knew it was him. The police officer said he went to spray something and the nozzle was pointed in the wrong direction and he spray-painted his own face. He wasn't a good criminal. Another time he came in the gym... soaking wet. He had jeans on. I asked, `What happened to you?' He said, `I went swimming.' I said, `Where?' He said, `Downtown.'
`Did they put a pool downtown?'
"He said, `Constitution Plaza.' I then realized that he had jumped in the fountain and tried to get the money."
Boxing gave Hairston an identity and a purpose. Eventually, however, he drifted away. He dropped out of Weaver High in his sophomore year after getting expelled for mooning a class. Despite Scully's influence, Hairston had so little structure in his life that he couldn't help being a "knucklehead" and running the streets.
"The streets took the best of me," Hairston said.
He said he plans to get his life straightened out when he is released from prison, possibly later this year. He said Cuyler's death has brought him to that realization.
"That could have been me," Hairston said. "Bullets don't got no name."
"The wait in the dressing room before a boxing match - that last hour - could be enough to strip a man that never boxed before of whatever pride, desire and heart he thought he had."
- John Scully, April 2002
