As a kid, Karlos Balderas liked to get in trouble. His uncle, Emiliano Balderas, a pastor, took him to a gym to help him work out energy in a more focused way. What nobody knew at the time was that with that one simple action—redirecting a troubled 7-year-old child’s energies—a fateful path was set in motion. A motion that would lead Karlos to a place on the U.S. Olympic boxing team.
“So they took us to the gym because they felt it would calm us down. But little did they know I would like it,” he said.
The 19-year-old Santa Maria boxer admitted that he had a penchant for getting in trouble at school in his youth, but being in the gym gave him something to focus on. It was also an outlet for his love of a good fight. He laughed when asked exactly what it is about boxing that he finds so appealing. “I guess it’s the sort of sport that you can fight and hit someone and not get in trouble,” he said. Then he added, “I love the feeling of winning. Winning sort of shows you that your hard work pays off.”
Karlos grew up in a family in which boxing was all around. They even liked to put on gloves and box the kids in the street, he remembered. From early on, Karlos showed promise. He would often get compliments on his skill and he was told he was talented.
“People always told me I was good and I can become something in life. I always thought maybe they were just saying that to make me feel better,” Karlos said.
Then things got serious. He began to win. A lot.
Last year, at just 18 years old, he embarked on a whirlwind boxing tour during the World Series of Boxing (WSB) facing seasoned opponents from various countries and, one by one, beating them.
He remembered the first opponent he fought during the WSB as an Italian boxer in his mid 20s.
“There I was just barely 18 and he was like 25 or 26. The best boxer in the country of Italy. And I beat him,” he said.
He said he went on to beat opponents in Poland, Argentina, and Asia. The WSB ran from February through May, and he got to visit a lot of countries but rarely outside of the ring.
“We just went there for what we had to do. We didn’t have time to be on the street. That wasn’t the reason we went,” he said. He said being out in an unfamiliar country also increases the risk of something happening to him or of him getting hurt, something that as a boxer could be detrimental to his career.
Karlos keeps that caution about him even back home. There’s too much at stake after all, for a boxer who relies on his body being in top condition. Most of the time, if he gets free time, he prefers to stay close to home. He’ll hang out with his brothers, cousins, or friends. Maybe they’ll play some baseball.
Going out and searching for fun the way other people his age do isn’t on his mind. “I stay off the streets. I don’t want anything to happen to me,” he said.
He doesn’t have much time off these days anyway. When he’s getting ready for tournaments, he doesn’t do much else other than train, he admitted. And that’s a full-time job. He gets up at 6:30 a.m. to run 5 miles. Then he does some swimming. He’s done by 10 a.m. when he gets to rest, eat, and shower. Then at 5 p.m. he’s ready for a second round of training. He’ll do some sparring, some strength training, shadow boxing, and work on the bags. “Then I go to bed and do it all over again the next day,” he said.
In fact, this training schedule goes on six days a week.
Karlos stopped to reflect on what keeps him motivated on those cold mornings when the alarm seems to go off too early. Or the days when his body just doesn’t seem to recover as well as it should.
“Mentally I know the fight is going to be hard, whether you train or not. So imagine if you don’t train,” he said.
Often Karlos will get up a little earlier and get in an extra mile on his run, or a little more swimming. Or he’ll fit in a bit more training somewhere.
“I know my opponent will do it [train harder]. Maybe that edge will help me,” he said.
It helps that usually his brother Jose Balderas, 20, is by his side the whole time. Jose, who himself is now training to become a professional boxer, gets up with Balderas and runs alongside him and trains with him.
Jose said his brother is dedicated to the sport. “He’s one of the hardest working athletes around,” Jose said.
He said training with Karlos helps push both of them toward their dream—a dream that comes from a place of poverty, crowded living conditions and a desire to make sure their family has its needs met.
“Even when we train with him, it’s like a motivation for us. It pushes us closer to our dreams,” he said.
In addition to his brothers, the whole Balderas family lends support. His younger brother, Isaac, helps him with his gym workouts. He credits David Balderas; his dad, Zenon Balderas; and his uncle Emiliano Balderas as his coaches. Family, Karlos said, is his biggest motivation, simply because they believe in him enough to provide their full support.
Karlos has a tournament coming up in December. Then in February he goes through the WSB again. And then it’s the Olympics—something that he never even dreamt would be a possibility when he was just a young kid fighting in the street. He said looking to the future, if he does find success—both in athletic achievement and financially—he wants to give back to the community. He said he would like to buy his uncle, the pastor, a church. Then he’d like to do something for the city. “How could I be that selfish? It would be greedy for me to get money or fame, or something like that, and my city is struggling. Definitely doing something for the community would be on my mind,” he said.
Editor Shelly Cone can be reached at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 3, 2015.
