Thursday-Saturday New Mexico Golden Gloves championships, Raymond G. Sanchez Community Center, 9800 4th NW, 7 p.m. each day. Admission: $10 general, $8 for GG boosters, $5 for kids 12 and under

Early in his career, he was blessed with a coach, Charles Cord, “who taught me how to think.

“(Cord’s) philosophy,” Valdez says, “was that if you can win by sticking and moving, do that. If you can win by punching and staying inside, then do that. He taught me that you have to learn all the different styles in boxing. You have a puncher; you have a boxer; you have a counterpuncher. He taught me how to do all those things.”

In 1964, as a member of a United States team that toured Africa, the teenage boxer and his teammates were granted an audience with Pope Paul VI during a layover in Rome.

Eight years later, Valdez’s talent and skill earned him the Olympic bronze in the welterweight division.

While in the U.S. Air Force, before his medal-winning performance in Munich, he had met and married his wife, Jackie. They would have two sons, Jim and Jeremy.

As blessings go, the above might seem difficult to top.

There’s one that does.

After choosing not to fight professionally, Valdez became a TV cameraman – first in Houston, then in San Diego. There, he doubled as a boxing trainer, working mostly with people from other walks of life who were merely looking to get in shape.

At age 32, Valdez was recruited by a San Diego boxing coach named Junior Robles to fight on an amateur show. Valdez won, outboxing a  U.S. Marine who outweighed him by some 40 pounds.

Valdez then was persuaded to compete for the California state amateur middleweight title in Sacramento. Again, he won.

Jesse Valdez, left, currently of Rio Rancho, rejoices after beating the Soviet Union’s Anatoly Kholov, right, to win the welterweight bronze medal in the 1972 Munich Olympics. (COURTESY OF JESSE VALDEZ)

Later, Robles approached Valdez about competing for the U.S. in a dual match against a Polish team in Katowice, Poland.

That January, President Jimmy Carter had announced that the U.S. would boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics if the Soviet Union did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. Still, it widely was hoped the situation would change.

In Munich, Valdez had lost in the semifinals by disputed split decision to Cuba’s Emilio Correa – costing him a shot at the gold medal, won by Correa. Was there unfinished business?

After getting permission from his news director at San Diego’s KGTV, he told Robles he would make the trip.

“I kept thinking, the Olympics, the Olympics,” he says. “Maybe I could get a gold (medal).”

Yet, another voice in his head told him this was not a good idea.

“(It’s) telling me, ‘Why do you need to go?’ ” says Valdez, 65. ” ‘You’ve got a good job; you’re making good money; you’ve got a house; you’ve got two kids; you’ve got a wife.’ ”

Ultimately, Valdez called Robles and told him to find another middleweight.

On the morning of March 14, Valdez was watching the morning news on Channel 10, his station, to see what stories he might be working on later in the day.

Breaking news: a plane crash near Warsaw had claimed the lives of 87 people – including the U.S. boxing team.

Valdez’s friend, Robles, was among the dead.

“My wife and I got down on our knees,” he says. “We prayed and thanked God that I didn’t go.

“My whole life changed after that, my faith and just my way of living.”

Valdez retired in 2006, hoping to stay in the San Diego area. But the family had a two-story house, and the former boxer’s bad knee made climbing stairs painful. Buying a new home there was financially unfeasible.

The Valdezes settled on New Mexico, as a compromise, because Jackie had family in Arizona and Jesse’s family was in Texas.

One day, looking for a place to work out, Valdez wandered into the Raymond G. Sanchez Community Center on Fourth Street, north of Alameda.

He began talking with Ray Sanchez III, coordinator of the boxing program at the center. “I used to do a little boxing,” he told Sanchez, but said no more.

Eventually, Valdez began helping Sanchez with the boxing program. At an amateur show, his name was announced. Two and two were put together.

His cover blown, Valdez found himself recruited for a position on the New Mexico Golden Gloves board.

Remembering his own childhood, when amateur boxing provided him the first of many blessings to come, the former Texas Golden Gloves champion accepted.

“I told them,” he says, “I’ll do whatever I can.”
— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal