10 to watch: Why Olympian Jahmal Harvey gives USA Boxing hope to end gold-medal drought

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — Kim Harvey said she got used to all the phone calls informing her that her son, Jahmal, had gotten into another fight. She remembers driving back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to Flora L. Hendley Elementary School in southeast Washington − never actually witnessing the fights, but always seeing the aftermath.

On one occasion, she recalled, a classmate decided to dry his hands off in the bathroom by shaking water on Jahmal, who was usually one of the smaller kids in his grade.

"I got to the school and there was blood all over," Kim Harvey said. "But then I saw (Jahmal) walk in. Ain’t nothing wrong with him."

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Perhaps it's no surprise that same kid, whose mother described his elementary school behavior as "a little rough around the edges," found a home in the violent world of Olympic boxing.

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But it's not his anger and aggression that have made Jahmal Harvey, now 21, one of most promising young featherweights in the world.

"It was just keeping my cool," Harvey said in an interview earlier this summer at his training gym, a no-frills garage space next to an auto body shop in an industrial part of Prince George's County, Maryland.

"Once people would get me out of my character and I would fight with aggression, I was just more liable. ... I was putting myself in a bad position to lose. And I don't like losing."

Less than a decade after giving up football to give boxing a try, Harvey arrives at the 2024 Paris Olympics as perhaps the best shot Team USA has to end its unusual Olympic gold medal drought on the men's side of the sport. While the U.S. has historically been the epicenter of boxing, certainly at the professional level, it has not produced a male Olympic gold medalist since Andre Ward in 2004.

Harvey's recent results and style, however, give USA Boxing reason to hope. The 5-foot-6, 126-pound fighter doesn't win many fights by knockout but is technically and tactically sound, capable of switching his stance from orthodox (right-hand dominant) to southpaw (left-hand dominant) midway through a fight as needed. He won gold at two of the most competitive tournaments over the past three years: The 2021 world championships and the 2023 Pan American Games. (U.S. athletes did not compete at the 2023 world championships due to ongoing issues with the sport's international federation and its ties to Russia.)

"My dream has always been the Olympics," Harvey said. "To get to the pros, you can weave your way, pick and choose who you want to fight to get your world title. There's no picking in the Olympic game. You fight the best."

How Jahmal Harvey went from football to boxing

It's an overused cliche, particularly in the world of combat sports, but Harvey's mother said it's true and important to know about her son: "He’s been a fighter his whole life," she said.

Harvey, who has three siblings, was born about six weeks prematurely and weighed about 4 pounds at birth, his mother said. His lungs weren't fully developed when he was born, she explained, and he went on to struggle with asthma and allergies as a kid.

He was also on the smaller side, which Kim Harvey thinks might have led other kids to believe they could pick on him − and probably led to some of those elementary school fights.

Growing up, Harvey said his favorite sport was always football, where he primarily played cornerback and running back. His coach, Darrell Davis, likened him to Tyreek Hill − a dynamic, explosive athlete who could get the ball three times in a game and score three touchdowns. But when Harvey was leaving middle school for high school, he saw all his teammates start to pack on weight while he hovered around 80 or 90 pounds.

Davis recommended that his one-time football player go all-in on a different sport − one in which his size wouldn't hinder him. And he committed to continue coaching Harvey.

"I knew his potential and I knew his heart," Davis said. "We didn’t know we were going to get this far. We just kept moving."

'I wasn't scared'

Kim Harvey laughs now when she thinks back on her son's start in boxing. She said she didn't know whether or how much Harvey, who was about 12 years old at the time, was training. She just knew that he was being looked after by Davis, a longtime family friend who said he has known Harvey since he was 3 years old. "I’m like, 'he’s with Darrell, he’s good,' " she said.

Then she got a call from Davis telling her that he had scheduled Harvey's first fight, at a boxing gym in Palmer Park, Maryland, named after legendary local boxer Sugar Ray Leonard.

After receiving all those calls about Harvey fighting in school, she said, that 2015 bout was the first time she actually saw him fight for herself. And she could tell he was serious.

"I was competitive. I always compete. I wasn't scared," Harvey said. "And I liked boxing. I liked the fact that it was something new, to where I wanted to get better at it and perfect the craft of it − not just fight off of pure aggression and anger."

By the following summer, Harvey was competing in − and winning − the 80-pound weight class at a national boxing tournament in Dallas. Two years later, at 16, he won a youth national title at a USA Boxing event in Salt Lake City.

Harvey said he couldn't pinpoint a specific moment when his ability in boxing surpassed his talent on the football field, just that it happened over time with boring, repetitive hard work. He would wake up at 5:30 a.m. to run around the neighborhood before going to school. He'd train with Davis at odd hours or on weekends, sparring at times when he could've been on vacation or hanging out with friends.

Davis said he also regularly signed his star pupil up for fights against taller kids who were 20 pounds heavier, or otherwise book him bouts that Harvey was expected to lose. And many times, Davis said, he would in fact lose − though it would ultimately shine a light on a potential weakness and benefit Harvey in the long run.

"It’s not mathematical stuff to this boxing stuff, like people think it is," Davis explained. "You train hard. You train beyond your level so when you fight your level, it’s always easy."

Outlasting a losing streak

Harvey described his fighting style as aggressive but straightforward, revolving around his desire to throw the first punch of every fight and the last one, without letting his emotions derail him along the way. He's grown accustomed to winning big bouts, like the final at the 2020 national championships, by narrow decisions based largely on grit.

The biggest hiccup in Harvey's career to date came after he won the 2021 world title, which made him the first U.S. men's world champion in 14 years. From April 2022 to February 2023, he lost three fights in a row − a significant skid in a sport where athletes often go several months between competitions.

That rough stretch prompted him to be more diligent at managing and preventing injuries and re-evaluate his nutrition plan. He had been struggling to make weight, he said, and found that his vegetarian diet had left his body deficient in a few key vitamins and minerals. "I was eating healthy, but I wasn't getting that nutrition that I needed," he said.

In the months leading up to Paris, one of Kim Harvey's biggest concerns has been how her son will deal with the pressure. "It's almost like everyone is expecting him to bring home the gold, right?" she said. But he told her, as he's told everyone else, that he isn't going to be phased.

He said he's enjoying the international travel that elite boxing has provided him − Harvey has already competed on four different continents − and has recently gotten more invested in reading, specifically thriller and mystery books. In late May, he said he was reading "Good Half Gone" by Tarryn Fisher, a thriller about a woman who sees her twin sister get kidnapped.

"It’s actually kind of, like, therapeutic," he said. "Take your mind off everything."

Out to get the gold

Regardless of what happens in Paris, Harvey said his current (but not finalized) plan is to turn pro after the Games − just as Olympic silver medalists Duke Ragan, Keyshawn Davis and Richard Torrez Jr. all did following the previous Olympics. He could theoretically return for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, but it doesn't help that the future of Olympic boxing is currently up in the air.

The International Boxing Association, which previously governed the sport, is no longer recognized by the International Olympic Committee because of its close ties and financial reliance upon Russia. The decision has fractured the international landscape in amateur boxing and left the IOC to run the competition at the Paris Games.

"I'm going to get my chance," Harvey said. "But if these other kids don't get their chance to go achieve their dream, it’s really going to be detrimental and heartbreaking. So I just hope that they can get everything together and get things straight."

The fleeting, once-every-four-years aspect of the Olympics is part of what's made Harvey chase this goal so diligently. He said one of his coaches on the youth national team, Augie Sanchez, once told him there are lots of pros out there in the boxing world − and even a lot of very successful ones. But there aren't many Olympians. And there are even fewer gold medalists.

"That stuck with me because like I said, I'm competitive and I wanted to go for the hardest goal there is," Harvey said. "I accomplished (qualifying for) the Olympics. Now all that’s left is to just go get the gold medal."

Contact Tom Schad at [email protected] or on social media @Tom_Schad.