Wichita Olympian Nico Hernandez fights his way to a better future

Things were always better this way, when it was just the two of them. The father and the son.

Inside a boxing ring, away from everything that seemed like it held them down. Here, there was just the work to be done. And that never ran out.

Lewis Hernandez put his oldest son, Nico, in the ring for the first time when he was 9. And he let him get the hell beat out of him to see if he really wanted to fight. Nico did.

They’ve told the story of that first day probably 100 times since Nico qualified for next month’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The story of that day and the story of the Northside 316 Boxing Club, an abandoned water plant where Nico learned the sport from his father, with an assist from an old, tattoo-covered, fedora hat-wearing man named Pat Villa who garners Mr. Miyagi-type levels of respect from the fighters who train there.

The two of them moved Nico through his paces, every new trick learned and every new title won pushing all of them toward something bigger than themselves. Toward their own chunk of history and the American Dream.

And now, they’re so close. Close to a gold medal. Close to the millions of dollars that could come when Nico turns pro. Close to getting up and out and away from the gym and the neighborhood and the town and the people that seem like they’ve always held them down.

But that’s the thing about escaping your past.

Sometimes you’re through with it before it’s through with you.

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There’s a tried-and-true Olympic story that gets told, over and over again, every four years.

It goes something like this: (Insert athlete here) toiled away perfecting his/her skill in (insert sport here), far away from the bright lights of (closest big city here) and became so good at it they qualified for the Olympics, despite dealing with (overwhelming personal circumstance here). Now, they’ll do their best to bring the United States a gold medal in (insert sport here).

Rinse, repeat.

Nico, the oldest member of the U.S. men’s boxing team at 20, fits this narrative to a certain point. Then it becomes something else — something with much higher stakes than a gold medal. It becomes about survival, and about Nico knowing that if he doesn’t make it, the odds are stacked against his siblings — two younger brothers, Keanu and Marciano, and a younger sister, Chello.

His life experience has taught him this. He knows what it’s like to lose someone close to him. Best friend and fellow Olympic boxing hopeful Tony Losey was crushed to death by a 12,000-pound tank in an industrial accident in Wichita in 2014.

He knows what it’s like to feel abandoned. His mother, also named Chello, left the family for an extended period of time starting when Nico was in high school.

Earlier this year, Marciano had a gun pulled on him while working at Taco Bell. The incident shook Nico.

“I have to be able to take all that stuff and just put it out of mind right now,” Nico said. “I know it’s there. I’m not stupid. But if I don’t focus and chase my dream, then everything falls apart. I’m doing this for my family and for my brothers and sister more than anything. I want them to have a better life.

“I know things are messed up sometimes. I know we were all forced to grow up a lot quicker than we should have. But that’s not what has to define us.”

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For years, those in Wichita’s boxing scene have talked about Nico as a transcendent talent.

In the summer of 2014, Andover native and light heavyweight Jeff Page Jr. was about to hit the national scene with a string of bouts leading up to a showdown against Artur Beterbiev on Showtime.

Even then, Page joked that the bigger story was down the road.

“This is great, the attention I’m getting,” Page said that summer. “But the real story is a kid on the north side of Wichita. His name is Nico Hernandez and he’s going to fight in the Olympics and be a really, really successful professional. His dad trains him and they’re kind of on a different level.”

Page knew then what everyone else does now — that Nico was different.

“There was never a moment where we were like ‘OK, he’s something different’ or anything like that,” Lewis said. “We just focused on the work, day-in and day-out and when we started getting results, we just worked harder.”

Those results were tangible and continuous, with Lewis and Villa guiding the way as Nico dominated the amateur ranks and traveled the world. Two Junior Olympic championships. Golden Gloves champion in 2013. Golden Gloves runnerup in 2015. A bathroom in Azerbaijan that was really just a hole in the ground.

“Just a hole, for all of us to use,” Nico said, laughing. “You look at it and it’s like, ‘OK, is this for real? What century am I in?’ ”

Then, in March, a unanimous decision over Argentina’s Leando Blanc at the Americas qualifier in Buenos Aires to put Nico in the Olympics.

And that’s where the Olympic story gets thrown a twist.

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Nico bucked back against the U.S. boxing establishment almost immediately. The bone of contention was training. For 11 years, Nico and Lewis plotted and planned out his boxing style in a specific way. That way was to be ready for anything. The Olympic style of boxing is different, as are the coaches.

Nico put his feelings out there on his Twitter account — a constant stream of tweets which can take on an almost stream-of-consciousness flow on most days — and got a little blowback.

“We wanted to make sure we could always adapt,” Lewis said. “We wanted to be able to match up with anybody. The Olympic style of boxing is very different. I didn’t want him to put his feelings out there like that, for public consumption, but he also has the right to speak his mind.”

Nico struggled away from his father, a full-time truck mechanic who couldn’t be with him in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. The plodding, international style of boxing was frustrating to learn and didn’t seem like real boxing at all sometimes. Three rounds, with almost all of the action done in slight jabs with more ducking and hiding than anything.

Nico spent most of May and June going back and forth between Colorado Springs and Wichita, with a promotional trip to New York in the mix. The problem was, in Wichita, training didn’t always seem to be at the forefront, and that was where Nico was spending more and more time and getting more and more attention.

He showed up to interviews with an entourage. A video and photo shoot at Northside 316 in early June that was supposed to double as a training session took on a circus-like feel, with Nico’s ex-girlfriend sulking in one corner, shooting daggers at him with her eyes as friends and hangers-on milled about the gym.

Nico was out a lot when he was in Wichita — maybe too much — and his social media accounts seemed more and more like a college kid on summer break than someone training for the Olympics. At his mother’s house, he fought with his siblings — mainly over decisions they were making in their own personal lives.

“It’s frustrating because I see my brothers and sister making the wrong decisions and getting in this cycle,” Nico said. “I get upset because I think they’re hard-headed and my mom is too lenient, but I can’t be the one who makes them understand what they’re doing is wrong. That doesn’t work. I can get mad at them, but they have to figure some things out on their own at some point.”

He also fought with his mother, with whom he has an incredibly complicated relationship. Last week, she said Nico told her she wouldn’t be welcome to go to Rio for the Olympics after learning of an interview she did in which she gave details of her relationship with Lewis, from whom she has been divorced for several years. Community fundraising efforts brought in over $8,000 to send Chello and Lewis to the Olympics.

Lewis was 25 and Chello was 16 when the two were married, and she dropped out after completing one year of high school. By her 18th birthday, they’d already suffered the loss of twin sons, born prematurely. Their relationship, both said, was always tumultuous.

And when Chello finally left the family, when Nico was 13, she said she descended into a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol. Nico won’t say much about that time.

“Opening presents at Christmas without her,” Nico said. “That’s what I remember. The presents.”

“I think Nico still has a tremendous amount of anger toward me for leaving when I did and for what I did,” Chello said. “I wasn’t there for my family when they needed me. I’ve done everything I could to get my life back in order in the last few years, but it’s hard. Nico and his father have always had boxing and they’ve always bonded over that. In their eyes, I’m the problem. I’m the one that screws things up.”

Lewis finally had enough.

“I saw it, I didn’t like it, and I held my tongue as much as I could,” Lewis said. “It just got to the point where we had to go and I took him to Texas. (Chello) can say whatever she wants about what I did way back when. I wasn’t perfect. I did a lot of things wrong. But when it comes down to it, she left and I stayed. I’m the one, all those years, who asked to take my lunch break at 8 a.m. so I could get all the kids to school on time.

“She wants to throw a pity party, fine. Just don’t try to ruin your son’s life and future in the process.”

Father and son headed south, to Texas to train and make promotional appearances for Team USA. Things started to fall back into the natural order they’d established on the way up the boxing ranks. Lewis’ employer granted him time off to go train with Nico in Colorado Springs until Nico left for Rio on July 19. Lewis will join him there Tuesday.

The first Olympic draw is Friday and fights begin the next day — the gold-medal fight for the light flyweight division is Aug. 14.

“We think Nico can win the gold medal,” Team USA coach Kay Koroma said. “He absolutely has the ability to do that. He has what it takes, it’s just a matter of it all coming together at the right time.”

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Things were always better this way, just the father and the son. Just like it will be in Rio.

Just medaling would almost certainly guarantee Nico a lucrative professional contract and, more importantly, endorsement money. He fights at 108 pounds right now and will certainly move up weight classes in the future — both Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. were close to his weight when they were his age.

And there is always a market for a good-looking, charismatic boxer to make boatloads of cash.

So far away from home, they are so close to everything they ever wanted.

There are a lot of different ways someone can achieve the American Dream.

Sometimes, you have to fight for it.

This story was originally published July 30, 2016 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Wichita Olympian Nico Hernandez fights his way to a better future."