From fist to first

In Odessa, showing your mettle in a Golden Gloves boxing ring always was a way of getting attention and respect. For Richard Abalos, it was a step along the road to becoming Odessa's first Hispanic attorney.

After a kid from Rankin won the lightweight high school division title in the 1962 Odessa Regional Golden Gloves, he found himself meeting a lot of the community leaders who volunteered to help run the boxing tournament.

"After that particular fight, I shook hands with a lot of dignitaries, but the two I remembered the most were Warren Burnett and Paul McCollum," Abalos said. They were two of the heavyweights on not only the local legal scene, but the state and national levels as well.

And Burnett issued the high school junior an invitation to come by his law office for a visit.

Years later, when telling the story, Burnett may have embellished a bit by saying that he was impressed by the scrappy nature of Abalos and was moved to learn more about the teenager.

Abalos suspects that some of the Rankin townspeople who were friends with Burnett, including County Judge Allen Moore, might have put in a good word for a kid who could use some help.

At any rate, Abalos took Burnett up on his offer some months later, entering the law office through a back door and wandering around until he found Burnett's office.

"The son of a gun remembered me, and he asked me if I wanted to go to college," Abalos said. "He asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him I wanted to be a schoolteacher. He said that was a noble calling and that we needed more bilingual teachers."

Never mind that Abalos still had a year of high school to go. His fighting nature took over. He tested into acceptance at Odessa College and then somehow talked his high school principal into waiving his senior year. "Burnett couldn't believe I'd done that," Abalos said.

But soon he had a job as Burnett's janitor and was living in a cheap boarding house where you had to step lightly over lounging drunks. Later, he'd move up in class to the second floor of a former funeral home, a place that had a wonderful array of props around Halloween.

Not far into his college education, Abalos decided to change focus. "I told Burnett I wanted to study law. He said that was a noble calling, and we needed more bilingual attorneys."

And so, with Burnett's continuing help, he finished college, graduating law school and immediately went into the U.S. Army, where he would be a roommate of a well-connected soldier named Al Gore.

And when he mustered out of the military in 1971, Burnett had a job waiting for the city's first Hispanic attorney. Today Abalos has his own practice and is president of the Odessa College Board of Trustees, giving back to the school where he got his first taste of higher education. And he found time through the years to help McCollum with timekeeping duties at the Golden Gloves.

Abalos had become one of the dignitaries.

Abalos said he never got around to following up on his boxing career. But he's glad Burnett was ringside that night all those years ago. "That probably was my best fight."