Steven Badgley's day job makes his new night job a lot less intimidating.
The 30-year-old chief warrant officer, who joined the Army to straighten out his life, will make his professional boxing debut on Saturday night when he fights four rounds on the undercard of Ivan Calderon's world title defense at Madison Square Garden.
It will be the realization of a dream that Badgley had long ago let slip away.
``All of my buddies are going to make the trip down, West Point has boxing down there, a bunch of them will come down to support me,'' Badgley said. ``It's going to be pretty exciting.''
Badgley has already done two tours of duty in Iraq, one a part of the initial invasion in 2003 and the other a peacekeeping affair two years ago. He's seen friends wounded or killed, been in more hostile situations to count, and witnessed the devastation of war firsthand.
He isn't done yet, either, with a trip back to the Middle East on the horizon.
``The Army is my full-time job, it's what I do every day,'' said Badgley, who flies a Kiowa Warrior armed helicopter on recon and ground support missions. ``Boxing is just something I love doing. I can't believe I have this opportunity. You can't throw it away.''
Throwing it all away is precisely what Badgley was doing before joining the army. He started boxing at 16 but never took it seriously, instead getting himself into and out of trouble.
His brother Scott had joined the Marines and things were starting to go better for him, so little brother started pondering where his own life was headed. Badgley was still working at a restaurant back home in Poughkeepsie, the Hobnobbin Pub, and contemplating whether to join Scott in the military when the attacks on the World Trade Center happened.
Like so many others all across the United States, Badgley finally signed up.
``Best thing I've ever done,'' he said. ``Had a whole bunch of little arrests for probation, house arrests. When I reached the 20-year-old point, I started to see the light where I wanted to straighten out and get a career where I could be successful.''
It was in the army that Badgley got back into boxing, joining the amateur team at Fort Carson, Colo. He juggled sparring and gym time with on-the-job training to become a helicopter pilot, then was sent to New York's Fort Drum and ended up at the Watertown Area Boxing Club.
``We were having a show in Watertown, the prior one got rained out, and we decided to have a free show,'' recalled Johnny Pepe, the club's head coach. ``We had 13 fights and I was running around, working both corners, and Steven came up after the fight and wanted to help out coaching and he told me about his experience. So he started coaching with us.''
Badgley gravitated toward troubled teenagers, just like himself, and as a light heavyweight he could climb into the ring and spar with anybody, regardless of size or ability. He tried to help the kids follow his own path to success, rather than a path that might lead to jail.
``He has a soft spot for the troubled youth,'' Pepe said. ``But he makes them work. I think it does make a difference. We see a lot of kids go back to school or their grades get better.''
It had been about five years since Badgley had first gone overseas when he received word that he would be deployed again. He was going back to Iraq, back to the dust and dirt, where constant concerns about safety away from base were juxtaposed with intense boredom on it.
Badgley had an idea, though.
He gathered some donated equipment from the boxing club - heavy bags and speed bags, mits and gloves - and took it all with him to Iraq, setting up a makeshift gym in the sand near Kirkuk. Rope was strung around four posts, and plywood formed the ring. Badgley would return from reconnaissance missions and work out by himself under the insufferable sun, day after day.
Then something curious began to happen: Soldiers started waiting for him to arrive. At first it was just one, then a couple, and before long a dozen were standing around the ring waiting.
``It got bigger and bigger, and then we'd have Wednesday night fights,'' Badgley said. ``We talked to everyone on the base and we had them give us the USO stage for the night, we set up a whole ring, we had judges, awards. We had 12 fights and almost 600 people showed up.''
By comparison, only about 200 people came out to see the rock band Filter perform.
The army was supportive of Badgley, who was careful to explain what he was doing to the proper chain of command. Boxing and the military share a history that goes back decades, and the sport fosters a sense of morale and camaraderie that the U.S. Army has embraced.
``That mental toughness and dedication to be a good fighter, if something were to happen, if we were to go down overseas, you have that confidence to take care of yourself,'' Badgley said.
Earlier this year, Badgley came to the realization that if he was ever going to turn pro, time was quickly running out. He already has a 4-year-old son, Mason, and his wife Amanda is pregnant with their second child. By the time he returns from his next deployment, Badgley will be another year older than every other fighter just starting out.
So, he worked his connections and eventually got in touch with promotional giant Top Rank, and vice president Carl Moretti remembers being struck immediately by Badgley's story.
``I couldn't believe what I was listening to,'' Moretti said. ``His dream was to fight in New York and Madison Square Garden. That was really a no-brainer to put him on the show.
``You don't get the full gist of it until you hear the resume and what he's done and what he's doing. The times we're in today, it's the least we could do.''
Badgley will be fighting for plenty of people when he takes on Angel Gonzalez on Saturday night. He'll be fighting for his family, and his brother Scott, who died recently between tours after spending 18 years in the Marines and reaching the rank of master sergeant.
More than anything else, though, Badgley will be fighting for all of his fellow soldiers, many of whom will be inside the Garden to see his big debut.
``I can't thank my wife enough. When I go away, she stays home and has to deal with the day-to-day stuff, the house, the kids, the bills,'' Badgley said. ``My parents, same thing. They're proud where they saw me going down this one path and all of a sudden the last 10 years things have changed full circle. It's just going to be a perfect night.''
