Life After Boxing
In May, 2007, O'Sullivan's apartment was broken into and the thieves made off with nine rings. They included: a world championship ring with a diamond signifying a second title — he won in both 1981 and 1983; rings from the Commonwealth Games; one from his high school, St. Mike’s, in Toronto; a Canadian championship ring; a cheap childhood ring bearing his initials, S.O.S.; and a claddagh ring, bearing an Irish symbol of two hands clutching a heart topped with a crown. Since retiring from boxing, he has been diagnosed with brain damage, as a cumulative result of blows to the head during his boxing career. During an interview, he said that he suffers from boxer's dementia, commonly known as "punch drunk" syndrome. On February 10, 2010, O'Sullivan carried the 2010 Olympic torch on a stretch through Vancouver. He is currently living in Belleville, Ontario where he can be seen walking his dog (a boxer) and offering a friendly greeting to fellow dog walkers.
Read more about this topic: Shawn O'Sullivan
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or boxing:
“It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers,—when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, “Child, you must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other aspect.””
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“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing—for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”
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