Reluctant fighter

MAMOU -- Brandon Arvie didn’t like to fight.
The now 24-year-old was known as a good kid growing up in Mamou, but a quiet kid who avoided confrontations at all cost. Arvie had no desire to take part in school yard fist fights or even heated arguments for that matter.
That passive nature though would all change when at the age of 15 years old a good friend of his, Cole Lavergne, asked him to come work out at a local gym. It was there that Arvie showed off his boxing skills -- a skill set unbeknownst to him.
“They had a heavy bag in the back,” Arvie remembered. “I don’t think I ever hit a bag in my life. He told me that I was a natural and asked me if I ever had fought and I said no. I don’t like confrontation or violence. I was always a quiet kid and I tried to avoid confrontation but apparently I was a natural at boxing.”
“He was always a good boy, quiet and shy, always to himself,” mother Brenda Zachery said. “That’s when he got more open is when he got into boxing. He found something that allowed him to come out of his shell.”
Boxing not only instilled confidence in Arvie but it also led him down a path to become a championship amateur boxer, and now a serious contender to win the 132-pound title at the National Golden Gloves tournament being held this week at the Cajundome in Lafayette.

A reluctant fighter
Arvie was raised by his mother who supported her family by working at the Popeyes Fried Chicken in nearby Eunice for 18 years. Despite the community and long work days, which sometime including having her kids at work with her coloring and doing homework in a booth, Zachery always made sure to create a loving household but just as important dole out discipline to her children when needed.
“She was very hard and when we got out of hand she didn’t hesitate to pull out the belt,” Arvie laughed. “I even tried to hide that belt. But I am so thankful for that discipline. I have never been to prison or done drugs and that was because of my mama.”
After that fateful day at the gym, Arvie would soon find his way to the Ragin’ Cajun Amateur Boxing Club in Lafayette, owned and operated by famed trainer and Golden Gloves champion Beau Williford, a one-time sparring partner of Larry Holmes and Muhammad Ali.
The experience of working out in a gym with hundreds of other fighters and trained by the likes of Williford and other members of his staff was a bit overwhelming.
“It was new to me,” Arvie admitted. “At first I didn’t understand the magnitude of it all. That whole environment was so new to me. It was something to get used to.”
It didn’t take long for Arvie to get used to that.
He won his first amateur fight at age 16 and then would win the 126-pound weight class title at the 2009 Louisiana Golden Gloves championship and would then compete at the Junior Olympic Championships that same year in Shreveport. Arvie was off and running with his boxing career.
“That was the biggest milestone in my life to that point,” Arvie said. “I never imagined that. It was a big turnaround in my life. When you don’t come from much it makes you feel like someone.”

A career setback
That confidence though would be tested when he suffered a shoulder injury in his third fight.
“The guy I was fighting throws an uppercut right into my shoulder,” Arvie remembered. “It may have dislocated for a split second but I couldn’t even lift my arm.”
For the next two years, Arvie attempted to get his career back on track as he was forced to have not one but two shoulder surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation for a torn rotator cuff, fractured bone and another hairline fracture.
It was a difficult time for the teenage Arvie.
“I even dislocated it in my sleep one time,” Arvie said. “I saw a doctor in Shreveport and he said that there was a good chance that I would never fight again and that if I did go back to boxing that I could lose the feeling in my shoulder.
“I didn’t want to hear that,” Arvie said. “I cried. I went through a little depression for awhile. When you have something that puts so much confidence and pride in your life and then it is taken away from you -- it is depressing.”
With her son in tears, Arvie’s mother did her best to keep encouraging her son.
“I remember the day like it was yesterday,” Zachery said. “He cried all the way back from Shreveport. I just told him that he had to have faith.”

The furious
comeback
That faith would be rewarded as Arvie would be seen by a specialist from Boston who saw that he would need another surgery, but had no hesitation in proclaiming that Arvie could and would return to boxing.
Arvie did just that as he has been on a tear as a amateur the past few years since returning to action with a win in Rayne in 2012. The past few months has seen Arvie win a narrow decision over Victor Hernandez to win the Louisiana Golden Gloves championship (where he was named Outstanding Boxer), then winning the Mid-South Regional Golden Gloves in Little Rock, Arkansas with a unanimous decision over Simon Pengrande.
Arvie hopes that his week in the Cajundome will end with a title which would be the best way to celebrate turning pro this summer.
“How do you know when you are ready to go pro?” Arvie asked. “You just feel it. You know when its time to make that jump. If you can fight, you can fight and I feel that I can fight at the professional level.”
Regardless of how he fares at the Golden Gloves or what happens with his professional career, Arvie knows that the once reluctant fighter was meant to be just that -- a fighter.
“I don’t want to go back to being that person with no confidence,” Arvie said. “It is what keeps me going. Everybody here is designed for a specific craft. That everyone has a tool that helps you define your purpose in life. Boxing is that tool for me and it will be my way to helping my community and helping future generation of kids. When I go into the next world I want my influence to stay.”