As Gervonta Davis prepares to be sentenced on Friday for a November 2020 hit-and-run that injured a pregnant woman, his mentor and coach Calvin Ford says that the fighter will use the experience as an opportunity to grow and become a better person. Speaking to the Showtime Boxing Podcast, Ford pointed to his own life, when he served a decade in federal prison for his role in Baltimore’s drug trade before turning his life around, as an example that Davis can follow.
“Look at my life,” he said. “Let's keep it real. Let's look at my life. Prime example. I made my mistake. And sometimes I feel as though I'm still being held accountable for it, but I did my time. I've given back to my community. I'm giving back to society. I'm just trying to do the right things. You know what I'm saying? These things that happened, you have to be accountable for them. He's been accountable for them. You know, whatever the outcome is going to be, we have to deal with it. But at the end of the day, these are lessons to make him a better person in this society.”
Ford insists that the image many people have of Davis is far from the whole picture.
“Nobody can tell me they didn’t do no wrong as a kid,” he insisted. “I look at me when I was his age. He’s real quiet. He keeps to himself. He's still trying to figure things out as a young man, as a young fighter, as a fighter just doing what he’s doing. And I'm satisfied with what I'm seeing, you know? He's got his family coming along. He's just trying to figure his way in this world, and who he is going to become.”
