By Brian Zanzonico
The 22-year-old Elmont middleweight stepped back, glared at his opponent, tapped his glove against the padded headgear over his forehead and countered with two left jabs and a straight right that sent his opponent to the canvas.
As the referee raised Duroseau's right arm skyward in victory, the tiny mob of friends who had hurried to the bathroom moments before the fight were just returning to their seats. Their minute-long pit stops were too long. Fifty-two seconds from bell to victory, Duroseau had hit a man so hard he either couldn't, or wouldn't, get up. Not bad for his first fight.
Duroseau is 1-1 since that June 4 fight at the Kennedy Memorial Park gym in Hempstead, his only loss a controversial one in the South Bronx, an outdoor fight on a sultry July afternoon when it was hard to breathe, let alone box. With the sun beating down on his neck and shoulders, Duroseau knocked his opponent down three times, but couldn't knock him out, and lost a decision.
Duroseau is a novice fighter, meaning he has had fewer than 10 fights and no more than two major tournaments. He was set to fight last Saturday, but his trainer and manager, Kevin Collins, couldn't find an opponent to match his weight, age and experience, so Duroseau went home without throwing a punch.
Those are the breaks in amateur boxing. But all is not lost. Duroseau doesn't lament a single drop of sweat shed, or the hours upon hours of jumping rope or running in circles at the Elmont Memorial High School track, or taking time away from his girlfriend of five years to get ready for a fight that never came. There'll be others.
He has set his sights squarely on the Daily News Golden Gloves, a 78-year-old tournament in which amateur boxers showcase their talents. But that's in the winter. He needs to get some more fights under his belt, to gain more experience. Confidence, however, which is as vital to a fighter's success as a solid defense, is not in short supply.
"My mother always said there's a difference between confident and cocky," Duroseau said, ordering water for lunch at a Franklin Square restaurant earlier this month. "Cocky people don't follow through."
Herve was born to Haitian immigrants Jean, a school bus driver in the Elmont School District, and Michelle, a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He was the eldest of their three children, and they gave him French name meaning "ready for battle." In high school, he was a two-year starter at midfield for the Elmont varsity lacrosse team. As a senior, he was a two-way starter at tight end and cornerback for the football team.
"There's one play that I remember in particular, against Port Washington," said John Capozzi, the principal of Elmont Memorial High School, who was then the football coach. "We were heavy underdogs, but we were ahead by two points with about 20 seconds to go. They were getting close, but Herve recovered a blocked kick and ran out the clock."
After graduating from high school in 2000, Duroseau got a job as a sanitation worker at Sanitary District Number 6, where he met Collins, an ex-fighter who was 8-8-2 in 18 career bouts as a middleweight and welterweight from 1997 to 2001. For five years, Collins tried to get the then 6-foot-tall, 180-pounder to come to the Westbury PAL. Duroseau "yessed me death," Collins said, but never showed.
"You've met him, right?" Collins said about why he wanted to get Duroseau into the gym. "He's 6 foot 2, 165 pounds -- his proportions are perfect for this game."
Finally, last October, Duroseau and a friend went to the Post Avenue gym. Duroseau impressed Collins immediately with his athleticism, and under the tutelage of the former welterweight champion of Long Island, he started training. He began the regimen that he has followed religiously ever since, one that would leave even the most conditioned athlete panting.
For starters, he does five three-minute rounds of jumping rope, shadow boxing, hitting the heavy bag, hitting the trainer's mitts, and working the speed bag. He follows that with 100 situps, 100 pullups and 100 pushups. He spars three times a week, and runs three miles almost every day.
But that work is nothing compared with having to tell your parents and girlfriend that you plan to use your head as someone else's punching bag. "All my mother said was, 'Don't get your teeth knocked out,'" Duroseau recalled, noting that his family has come to all three of his fights.
His girlfriend, Nathalie Saint-Pierre, 22, was more concerned for his face, but took the news well. "I told him, 'I just want to let you know I don't like it,'" she said. "'But I support you.'"
Over the next eight months, Duroseau trained for his first fight, spending his mornings on the garbage truck, his afternoons in the classroom -- a student at Nassau Community College, he plans to attend law school -- and his evenings at the gym. He dropped 15 pounds to get into the middleweight class, and on the night of June 4 was ready to brawl.
He arrived at Kennedy Park in Hempstead at 6:30 p.m. but had to wait almost four hours before his named was called, which, he said, can do a number on the psyche. "You need the stomach," he said. "Before the fight there are butterflies. You wonder why you're doing this. Once the bell goes off, you know why."
And it took less than a minute for his opponent to find out why. Collins said the composure Duroseau displayed after taking a punch to open the fight belied the fact that it was Duroseau's first fight. "It wasn't the knockout that impressed me, but the way he went about it," Collins said. "He set it up. He didn't overwhelm the other fighter with a flurry of aggression. He listened to his corner to calm down and set up beautifully."
Duroseau said he was simply doing what Collins had preached to him for six months. "If you get too excited and come out throwing a lot of punches, you'll punch yourself out," he said. "Take deep breaths. Get as relaxed as possible. If not, then you're going to lose."
He would love to make boxing a career, he said, but will finish at NCC and apply to John Jay College to become a defense attorney, because, he said, he "always roots for the bad guy."
Whichever way life takes him, said Assemblyman Tom Alfano, a friend, Duroseau is destined to succeed. "Herve is a close friend whose confidence and drive make him a force in everything he does," said Alfano, whose campaigns Duroseau has worked on. "Whether it's in the ring or the classroom, he brings a style that says, 'I settle for nothing but the best.' He's somebody I'm proud of, and a leader in Elmont for our young people to look up to."
Duroseau is now training for the prestigious Spanish Gloves tournament in November. Collins said that will be a good primer for the Golden Gloves.
Boxers traditionally start their amateur careers much younger than 22, but the average age of last year's finalists in the New York Daily News Golden Gloves novice division was 21. Last year's runner-up in the 165-pound novice class, Alexis Chaparro, was 25.
Of Duroseau, Collins said, "As a novice fighter, with the level of skill he already has, he should do very well."
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