How Errol Spence Jr. fell in love with boxing as a teenager

There was no running water, no electricity, no indoor plumbing in the modest home located in Axe and Adze, Hanover, a remote part of Jamaica where Errol Spence Sr. grew up.

This was the 1970s, and boxing was very popular among the seven brothers in the Spence household. But the only way that the Spence boys could see legends like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman box was with the power of their minds.

Spence, his brothers and some of the neighbors in the city that had no paved streets used to gather around a tiny transistor radio and listen to the blow-by-blow accounts of the fights.

Even though he wasn’t a fighter himself, Errol Spence Sr. always had boxing in his blood.

And so it somehow seems appropriate that his only son, Errol Jr., fell in love with the sport just like he did.

EJ, as the family refers to Errol Jr., didn’t pull on a pair of boxing gloves for the first time until he was 15. He’d been a football player to that point, so good that as a 9- and 10-year-old, he was signing autographs for those who’d come to watch him play.

His father saw him slap boxing with friends in front of his house when he was 15 and suggested EJ go to the gym and give the real thing a try. His mother, Deborah Spence, said that created a love affair with the sport that exists to this day.

“At first, I thought boxing might be just something that came and went,” Deborah Spence said. “He had a lot of energy and he needed something to keep him busy, so I thought maybe boxing would give him that outlet until he found something else.”

But, she quickly found out, it was more than that, far more.

EJ was not only good at it, but he was completely obsessed with learning as much about his new sport as he could.

“I would see him watching tapes of some of the great boxers,” she said. “Roy Jones, Muhammad Ali, the guy Sugar Ray [Leonard], anyone who was great that he could get a tape of to watch. No one told him to study them or watch, but he was so dedicated to it. He’d watch video at night and then in the morning, he’d wake up Errol and say, ‘Come on, Pop, it’s time to go to the gym.’ ”

EJ is only 26 now, and is on the verge of becoming one of the finest fighters in the sport. On Saturday, he faces the biggest test of his fledgling pro career when he takes on veteran Chris Algieri in the main event of a card at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn that will be televised nationally by NBC.

Spence was regarded as one of the best pro prospects on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, compared by many to Leonard.

He’s now 19-0 with 16 knockouts and eager to prove himself on the biggest stage.

“As far as physical abilities, he’s an ‘A’ talent and has pound-for-pound potential,” promoter Lou DiBella said.

DiBella, though, knows better than anyone that Algieri is no pushover. He survived six knockdowns to go 12 rounds with Manny Pacquiao, was in an outstanding back-and-forth match with Amir Khan and won a world title with a rousing win over Ruslan Provodnikov.

Algieri is more than battle tested and won’t be intimidated by Spence’s talent.

“I think everyone knows I’ll fight anybody,” Algieri said. “Spence is a guy people didn’t want to fight, so they brought him to me.”

A win over Algieri Saturday would put Spence in position by the summer to fight for the welterweight world title.

It would cap a remarkable rise in a sport that usually requires years of amateur training and then a long, slow slog through the pro ranks.

His father got an idea quickly that he might be dealing with something of a boxing prodigy. Two weeks after first walking into a gym in a Dallas suburb near his home, EJ won the Dallas Silver Gloves.

“Right after that, he went to a tournament in Little Rock and he was just one fight away from going to a national tournament,” Spence Sr. said. “I think that’s when I realized he might be special.”

Spence earned his berth on the Olympic team at the 2011 world championships in Baku, Azerbaijan.

His inner resolve, family members say, traces back to his 92-year-old grandmother, Ivey Spence.

When she arrived in the Bronx, she got a job as a nanny and didn’t get the children until she’d got her immigration status taken care of and she had earned enough money for them.

She is a religious woman who insists on doing things the right way. Errol Spence Jr. is so close to his grandmother that he named his first child, Ivey, after her.

“My grandmother is the head of the family, no doubt, and I thought it would be a good tribute to her,” Spence Jr. said. “Everyone in the family goes to her if they’re in trouble or if they need advice and I just thought I wanted to honor her for what she means to our family by doing that.”

Ivey Spence said she was thrilled to have a great granddaughter named after her, but she’s even more thrilled about what her grandson has accomplished – and may accomplish.

She said it’s too difficult for her to watch him fight, so she’ll simply pray while he’s in the ring. EJ will make the trek to the Bronx on Sunday, the morning after the fight, to pay respects to his grandmother.

“I’m so proud of him and what he has done,” she said. “He might be a champion, they tell me, and it’s so great. But the thing I am most pleased about is the person he is. I’ve a very religious woman. I’m a Seventh Day Adventist, and it’s important to me. And [Errol Jr.] is a great young man and I’m most proud of him for that.”