As a child, he was bullied and ostracized. But he didn’t give up; he fought for respect and recognition—and boxing helped him do just that. Today, Alexander Okafor has become an ambitious young professional at the start of his career.
He was frail, almost fragile. He was ostracized and bullied—partly because of a speech impediment, and partly because he couldn’t express himself or make himself understood. It wasn’t an easy time for a little boy in the heart of Frankfurt am Main, in the middle of the metropolis with its financial centers and skyscrapers. Young Alexander Okafor grew up in Gallus, a neighborhood north of the Main River and east of the main train station. Without a father, with his mother and brother.
But how do you fight back, how do you hold your ground, how do you break free from the role of victim? It’s difficult. “I lost my childhood,” says Okafor. He says he felt lonely and abandoned. He didn’t want to feel that way anymore; he wanted to belong, to connect with others. The solution: “I started boxing,” he says. A kind of self-defense in a personal crisis—at the age of ten.
“I’ve screwed up a lot”
What followed was training, training, training—at the Gallus Boxing and Table Tennis Camp, a haven for kids like Alex. “It was like an inner compulsion.” With anger and tears in his eyes. Then came the setback in 2014: a loss in the final of the German U15 Championship—the cadets’ tournament—with consequences.
He said he “got into a lot of trouble with the wrong crowd.” For years, he no longer hung out at the gym but on the station plaza. Worse still: he had lost his love for his mother and his self-respect. “I was very selfish, and my mother suffered greatly because of it.”
He learned that he had to figure a lot of things out on his own. The turning point after hitting rock bottom came when he was 18. “I realized I couldn’t go on like that.” Eventually, he came of age, and he wanted to grow up—or as Alex puts it: “I wanted to become a man.” The logical next step: a comeback as a boxer, a return…
You can find the full article on Alexander Okafor in the latest issue of BOXSPORT! Now available in the BOXSPORT app! Click here to subscribe!