CHRIS KELLY staff Monmouth Beach resident Dustin Fleischer, 14, is hoping to make his hobby a career as he trains as a member of the U.S. Boxing Team.
14-year-old is youngest member of U.S. boxing team
BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer
Like most 14-year-old athletes, Dustin Fleischer has dreams. Big dreams.
But if his come true, the Shore Regional High School freshman could find himself on the other side of the world shortly after he graduates.
You see, Fleischer’s dream is to box in the 2008 Summer Olympics in China.
And while he admits it’s a long, bumpy road to get there, the Monmouth Beach teenager so far appears to be traveling the right path.
In fact, it wouldn’t be the first time Fleischer fought in another country. He recently traveled to England for a competition with the USA Boxing Team, of which he was the youngest member.
The road that led to England and hopefully someday to China began when Dustin was only 3 years old and he used to accompany his father, Phil Fleischer, to the gym.
"I fought when Dustin was little," the elder Fleischer, 45, said. "I used to work out with sparring partners in the gym and Dustin used to come with me. He was no bigger than the spit buckets back then."
"I went to the gym with my dad a lot back then," Dustin added. "Sometimes I would mess around and put on some gloves and hit the bag."
That was Dustin’s introduction to the sweet science, and although he grew up in Tewksbury, playing a lot of different sports like baseball and wrestling, he always kept an interest in boxing.
"But then he woke up one day and said he wanted to box," his father recalled. "I couldn’t believe it."
"I think I was 9 years old and I don’t know what happened but I woke up one morning and I felt like doing it," Dustin said. "I used to do karate a lot growing up and I think I just got a little tired of it and wanted to box."
The best part was he already had a trainer right in the same house.
"I used to train him," Phil Fleischer, a former middleweight known as "Difficult Phil" back when he fought as an amateur and pro in the late 1970s, said.
"We used to live in the country and there were no gyms around, so I used to train him."
Even Dustin’s early training in karate helped him in his new endeavor.
"I think the karate really helped me mentally in boxing," he said. "It taught me how to focus."
That and his father’s training proved to be a successful formula early on. By the time he was 10, Dustin boxed in a junior tournament and won the Northern Region championship in the 70-pound weight class.
"What was unique about him winning, though, was he was a kid from the country," his father explained. "Boxing is usually a sport dominated by inner-city kids and gyms way out in the city."
Recognizing this and seeing the early potential his son had, Phil Fleischer arranged for Dustin to start training in a gym in Newark.
"Newark is the real heart and soul of inner-city boxing," he said. "I knew he would get the chance to spar against a different level of fighter there."
He was right. The move there helped Dustin’s career tremendously, but there was a tradeoff. The gym in Newark was well over an hour away from the Fleischer’s home in Tewksbury.
"He would come home from school around 3:30, head for the gym, get there around five and train to seven, and then travel home," Phil Fleischer explained.
"And then he would have to do his homework. It was a sacrifice."
It paid off, however. Fighting at 112 pounds, Dustin is a boxer/puncher with a good right hand, who possesses "a lot of hand speed and could read opponents well," his father/trainer said.
He even has his own nickname: Dustin "Razor Sharp" Fleischer.
But Dustin’s career got another boost in September when the Fleischers moved from Tewksbury to Monmouth Beach, just 10 minutes up the road from the Long Branch PAL boxing club where Dustin now trains.
"When we moved, I wanted to get away from the father/son training," Phil said. "I still go to the gym with him and help other fighters, but I wanted Dustin to work with somebody else."
That turned out to be John Durkin, who’s been working with Dustin for the last two months.
"Training there now has helped me for two reasons," Dustin noted. "One, John has helped me a lot with my boxing. But also at Long Branch a lot of pros train, so I watch and learn from them, too. Sometimes they work with me."
"Dustin is actually sparring with one of the professionals there, Carl Johnson, who is a 125-pounder and is 14-1 as a pro," Phil pointed out. "Dustin has come to another level in that gym. Now he has professional trainers and experience with different fighters."
Meanwhile, Dustin continues to shine in the ring. This past summer, he finished runner-up in the country in his weight class in a National Junior Golden Gloves tournament in Syracuse, N.Y. That helped earn him a spot on the USA Boxing Team that went to England.
The youngest of the 11 boxers on the team, Dustin was one of only four Americans to win that night, scoring a unanimous decision in the opening bout.
"That was very exciting," he said. "The styles are very different over there.
"Everything is so much different, but that will help me more in national competitions or if I go pro."
Or make it to the 2008 Olympics in China.
"Ever since I started boxing I’ve always said I wanted to go to the Olympics," he said.
"He told me one day, ‘I want to go to the Olympics in 2008,’ " his father added.
"And he said, ‘I know what I have to do to get there.’ "
The next thing he has to do is get ready to compete in the Silver Gloves competition, with the New Jersey tournament set for Dec. 15. If he’s successful there, he’ll move on to the regionals and then the nationals.
"It’s a big tournament," he said, "but if I train hard and put my mind to it, I can win nationals."
Dustin’s confidence is easy to understand. He has already had more than 30 fights and won a majority of them, and the future looks even brighter.
But while he now trains in a new gym with a different trainer, the man who first exposed him to the sport of boxing is always close by.
"He pushes me a lot, but in a good way," Dustin said of his father. "Some days when I don’t feel like training, he explains to me why it’s important I do. And he still shows me tapes of old fights. I enjoy doing that with him."
So does dad.
"Boxing is just one of those sports," Phil Fleischer concluded, "that once it gets into your life, it never leaves."