Discovery Zone : Recruited at a Hamburger Stand, Whitaker Seeks to Find Himself as Boxer in Pan American Games

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — The story of his big break does not carry the same cachet as Lana Turner being discovered at Schwab’s lunch counter.

But this is boxing and the fast-food generation: The logistics of star-making have changed.

“I was in Burger King one day, standing in line, ditching class,” Lance Whitaker recalled. “This guy came up to me and said, ‘Would you like to make a million dollars?’

“Just like that. ‘Would you like to make a million dollars?’ ”

That day in 1989, when he was a senior at San Fernando High, is when Whitaker, now 23, accepted an invitation to become a boxer.

“I’m an open-minded kinda guy,” he said with a broad smile. “A million dollars sounded pretty good to me.”

Whitaker had caught the eye of trainer Francisco Ortega, who guessed correctly a pretty good super-heavyweight boxer could be made of an enormous teen-ager who now stands 6 feet 8 and weighs 238 chiseled pounds.

Whitaker, who fights Cuba’s Leonardo Martinez here tonight in the semifinals of the Pan American Games, trains with Charles (Blue) Allen at the Broadway Boxing Club in Los Angeles and still talks with Ortega.

Whitaker now talks of a climb to the very top of his field.

“Win the gold here, win the world championships, win the gold at (the Olympic Games in) Atlanta, pretty much dominate the super-heavyweight division, turn pro after that, fight professionally . . .”

Whitaker pauses for only a moment.

”. . . Be the heavyweight champion of the world.”

Tom Mustin, coach of the U.S. boxing team here, doesn’t fault a big man for big aspirations. “I don’t think it’s grandiose to have goals like that,” he said. “I like that in a fighter.”

But he believes Whitaker needs extensive polishing to achieve his goals.

“I’m not sure what kind of training he’s had, but when we got him (in February) he couldn’t throw combinations and he wasn’t in shape,” Mustin said.

“We’ve worked with him every day on using combinations. Using his strength. Getting his body behind his punches.

“And his wind has improved tremendously just since last month. When we started, he couldn’t finish our run. Now he does 10 quarter-miles and asks for more.

“What he needs most of all is more fights, more ring time.”

It is time, Whitaker and Mustin agree, for the former high school football and basketball player to win a high-profile fight.

“This bout will tell,” Mustin said of the matchup with Martinez. “He beats the Cuban, that’s gonna get him some attention.”

Whitaker is 36-4 in his amateur career, but he is 0-3 in big international bouts. He has lost twice to Russia’s Alexei Lezin, including a 17-0 embarrassment in the 1994 Goodwill Games gold-medal match. Said one USA Boxing official: “I’m not sure he threw a punch in that fight.”

Whitaker also has lost once to Martinez, in a meet between the U.S. and Cuba last year.

Whitaker feels confident about a rematch with the man who succeeded world champion Roberto Balardo (killed last year in an automobile accident) as Cuba’s top super heavyweight.

“I’ve watched tape of that fight a lot of times,” Whitaker said. “I could have won if I threw more punches. The one time I got aggressive, I hurt him.”

For much of his life, which included time at a boys’ home in Mission Hills, Whitaker has been afraid he might hurt someone.

“I was always the biggest. I was afraid to fight because I knew what could happen,” he said. “Smaller guys would want to fight me, but I’d just walk away.”

At least twice, he was goaded to fight, and regretted it.

“One time we were drinking beers in a (baseball) dugout at the park and I got into it with a guy. Almost killed him. I was choking him out pretty good when they got me to stop.”

The second occasion came during Whitaker’s days as a security guard at a hamburger stand. He recalls knocking out four rowdies with four punches.

Mustin believes it.

“He hits a ton. When he starts turning his body and getting his power behind his punches. . . . “

Whitaker was a standout without really trying in two sports at San Fernando.

“I liked the games, but I never liked the practices,” he said.

Boxing, however, is different. He likes the individualism of the sport. He likes working out alone.

And he likes the concept of large amounts of money to be won by a man who would be the tallest top-echelon heavyweight since Primo Carnera.

Ample precedent exists of American Olympians going on to hold or fight for the heavyweight title: Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe, Ray Mercer, Duane Bobick.

That was the primary reason, Whitaker said, that he turned down “a million-dollar offer” to turn pro last year.

“I figured it made more sense to fight for $5 million later than $1 million now.”

What would he do with all the money? He shrugged. “Buy more stuff.”

Whitaker has a bronze medal here without throwing a punch; he had a bye into the quarterfinals, and his opponent failed to show.

Defeating Cuba’s Martinez tonight may hinge on him getting sufficiently angry.

“I was just working with him,” Mustin said, “and I was thinking how we’re gonna get the killer in there.

“Some guys can turn it on and off. Some guys have the killer all the time. Some guys you have to get them to picture someone hurting someone they love.”

Mustin recalls a photo Whitaker showed him when they first arrived here last week.

“It was a picture of his baby,” Mustin said. “He was proud of that child. He loves it.

“Maybe that will be the key, mentally: make him think of someone hurting that child.

“If he gets mad, look out.”

If he gets mad, maybe he could earn that million dollars some day.