Solo success inspires Niles' Lyell

The Youngstown State student will fight Wednesday at Mountaineer.
By BOB ROTH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- Billy Lyell could be anyone's son or brother as he strolls the Youngstown State University campus in pursuit of a degree as a history major.
The 21-year-old Niles resident is the son of Robert and Mary Kay Lyell and the brother of 24-year-old Katie and 14-year-old Pat, who, unlike his older brother is seeking an athletic future at Warren JFK, where he wrestles and plays freshman football.
For Billy, an athletic effort has gone into the sport of boxing where he fought more than fifty amateur bouts. Since turning pro on July 1, 2003, Lyell has gone 8-2 with two knockouts.
Lyell went to Mt. Carmel grade school and graduated from Niles High in June 2002. He admits to being an average student, but said he had above average curiosity and a reaching intelligence.
He enrolled at YSU in September 2002 and carries 15 credit hours as a junior this semester. He's majoring in history and said he might run for political office someday.
Individual accomplishments
Lyell loved basketball but he was too short to play, so he turned to boxing.
"I never had a liking for team sports," he said, "but I always had a feel for boxing because it defined individual accomplishment."
When he was 12, he rode his bike to Tony Mariana's gym in McDonald, announcing that he wanted to train to be a boxer. After several Junior Olympic fights, veteran trainer John Hobart came to the gym and took Lyell under his wing, picking him up at his house to take him to a training facility.
Twelve fights later, Lyell looked for new horizons. When he turned 16, he started driving to Jack Loew's Southside Boxing Club in Youngstown.
"I went there because all the good fighters seemed to be there and I wanted to work with the best," Lyell said.
Loew worked Lyell with his crowd of fighters. Billy's enthusiasm for the sport always struck a chord with Loew.
"You could stick him in and have him spar with anyone and he never said no," Loew said. "He would work hard and he could take a punch as well as anyone in my gym."
Moving up
After fighting some Junior Olympic bouts at 139 pounds, Billy moved up to 147 pounds, finishing second at the National Junior Golden Gloves in Las Vegas. In 2002, when he was 17, he won the Cleveland Golden Gloves 156-pound title.
Lyell took just about any fight available, which might have hurt his amateur record. He finished with a 32-15 mark.
After turning pro, he won a unanimous welterweight decision over Christian Nash in an undercard bout at Cafaro Field. He improved steadily, but making the weight as a welterweight became a problem for Lyell, so he moved up in weight class.
Lyell wanted more fights, so, eventually, Youngstown's Pat Nelson was brought in to help with his career. He's got a six-round bout at Mountaineer's "The Harv" Wednesday night.
"I feel I am heading in the right direction" Lyell said. "I am happy to have Pat Nelson as part of my team and I am looking forward to fighting more often and more locally."
Sparring with Pavlik
Lyell trains with ranked middleweight Kelly Pavlik at the Southside Boxing Club.
"Sometimes our sparring sessions are good and at other times it is bad," he said.
Lyell learns during the good times. As for the bad times ...
"One thing about my sparring with Kelly is that I know I can take a shot from just about everybody," he said. "[Loew] has been very good for me. He makes me work hard and has done a lot to develop my work ethic."
Nelson is working on getting Lyell on the undercard of the Bernard Hopkins-Jermain Taylor return bout for the middleweight title Dec. 3 at the Mandalay Bay Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
Lyell's opponent that night could be 2004 Olympian Andre Berto.
Lyell will fight Vince Garvey at Gray's Armory in Cleveland on Dec. 16. He'll have a Mountaineer show on Dec. 30 and will be on a card in Indiana in January, Nelson said.
His boxing career seems to be falling into place and some major earnings could be in his future. For now, he's using the money for tuition.
"That's what counts for the present time," he said.