Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”
By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
At the 1971 National AAU Tournament in New Orleans, the scrawny, scrappy, 17-year-old had already beaten three other fighters.
The Bossier High School junior needed to defeat one more to win the title.
More than 50 years later, the soon-to-be 70-year-old (March 14th) still remembers his opponent’s name.
Jessie Trujillo.
“The bell rung for the first round. I had never done this before, but I just decided to do this. I ran over there real fast, jumped on him, and threw a whole bunch of punches. Real fast. He wasn’t hurt, but the referee stopped the fight and gave it to me. He thought I hurt (Trujillo) or outmatched him. I walked back in the dressing room after the fight and said ‘I want to apologize for the referee stopping the fight. I didn’t think he should have stopped it.’ (Trujillo) wouldn’t shake my hand. He said, ‘I’ll whoop your ass right here.’ I said, ‘I take back what I said.’”
Tim Dement, former Olympic boxer (1972) and retired Bossier City police officer, told me that story, and his story, during lunch at a place he chose, BeauxJax Crafthouse. Tim had the Loaded Crawfish PepperJax Mac, and Iced Tea. I enjoyed a half Veggie Po-boy, a half house salad, and water with lemon.
For Tim, sitting in this particular restaurant had special meaning.
“Back in 1936, it was Barksdale Drug Store. My father was 16 years old. He went to work here as a soda jerk and delivery boy. My mother and her father – my grandfather – came in and ordered something. My father ended up spilling an ice cream sundae on her lap. That was how they first met, and that’s when I became the twinkle in my daddy’s eye.”
Tim grew up in Bossier with 3 brothers and a sister. His mother, Sunshine, was a school teacher. Tim’s father, George, was in the restaurant and hotel business, before serving as Bossier’s mayor for 16 years. The Dements were married 64 years.
“I had the best parents you could ask for. Even as a small boy, I recognized that my parents were good. I recognized that they did the best they could. They had their hands full dealing with us. I actually had sympathy for them at an early age.”
Growing up, Tim, a self-described “average student”, wasn’t so mischievous as he was curious. Though sometimes, Tim walked a fine line.
“Curiosity keeps me moving. It can be entertaining, or it can be dangerous, depending on how curious you want to get.”
Tim loved to hang out with his older brother, Steve. Often, that meant being on the receiving end of a little “fun”.
“I was at one of his friend’s houses, and the next thing I know, his friend stuck my head in the toilet. Thank goodness it was flushed.”
But the fun turned serious when Steve, along with several others, was arrested for street fighting. A judge suggested Steve’s father take his son to the Irish McNeil Sports for Boys Boxing Club. He did, and, of course, Tim tagged along.
But as quick as a one-two jab, Tim was in the ring.
“I liked it right off the bat.”
Though it wasn’t like Tim was oozing the urge to hit someone.
“I don’t recall ever starting a fight, but I didn’t walk away from very many of them, either. Some, I should have walked away from.”
12 years old and 75 pounds (he fought in the paper weight division), Tim thought about walking away from boxing when he couldn’t score a win.
“My sparring partners the first year were all guys who could beat me. I remember working out a full year, and I was getting beat every time I sparred.”
But Tim stuck with it. In 1971, at the age of 16, he blossomed into one of the country’s best amateur fighters. Tim won the Pan American Trials. He later went to Poland, and beat the 31-year-old national champion, as well as a highly-regarded 26 year old.
“I was like Elvis Presley for a minute. I got off the bus and girls and guys both gave me flowers, hugged me, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.”
At the Olympics in Munich, West Germany, Tim won his first fight. But to hear Tim talk, he may have been more excited about what happened after the fight.
“Howard Cosell asked me, ‘Do you want to come with me and go watch that fight again?’ He had his limo pull up in the back. Howard and I got in the back of his limo. He lit up a big ‘ol cigar. We’re riding through Munich, and we go to the ABC studio which was right next to the Olympic Village. We walked in the back door, and he hollers at somebody, ‘Play little Timmy’s fight back.’ I got to watch my fight that I won in the Olympics with Howard Cosell. I floated back to my dorm.”
The medal hopes of “Little Timmy” were dashed when he lost his next bout. After sitting out the fight game four years, Tim made a brief comeback, before hanging up his gloves for good.
“Boxing gave me an opportunity to exercise my faith. When you’re boxing, you don’t have anybody in the ring with you but the Lord. You’re fighting on your own, with the Lord’s help. Without it, you’re on your own. I wasn’t that brave where I was scared most every time before I fought. The few times I wasn’t, I got beat.”
As Tim began his 25-year career in law enforcement, he continued to fight – against child abuse.
In perhaps Tim’s biggest bout, he delivered a knockout punch to a very well-known, well-respected, well-liked youth baseball coach.
“This one boy he had molested was at a Christian college in Texas, studying to be a preacher. He came back to his home in Shady Grove to visit. He saw (the man) pull up at the Circle K with a bunch of little kids in the back of his truck. He remembered what (the man) had done to him. He got up the nerve to come tell me what happened. How he molested him – took him to the camp house. I worked on this case for two months. I ended up arresting (the man) for something like 32 counts of sexual abuse of children.”
These days, Tim lives with his brother, Steve, on the 300-acre family farm in DeSoto Parish. Tim has been married three times and has two children (both boys). He proposed to his current significant other, and she said, ‘Yes’. But 45 minutes later, “we started arguing about something like we had never argued before. So, I took it back. I told her I loved her too much to marry her. We’ve been getting along great ever since.”
When not taking care of cows and horses, you can find Tim helping out his son, Jacob, at the Dement Brothers Boxing Club. Knowing young men were waiting to get a lesson from a local Olympian, I asked my final question. As always, what is it about his life that he would like to pass on to others? Without hesitation, Tim answered.
“I would like people to know they can have a relationship with God that will always be there. He never leaves you alone. When you’re on your own, by yourself, in trouble, God is there with you. He’s faithful. Jesus is truly faithful. He’s helped me in situations where I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I just trusted him and moved forward. He’s led me in the right direction. He’s working behind the scenes all the time. We think we have to figure it all out. We don’t. God knows everything.”
Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.
The Journal’s weekly “What’s Your Story?” series is sponsored by Morris & Dewett Injury Lawyers.