Dermot Gascoyne reflects on his athlete mentor role at the Sky Sports Living for Sport awards

Dermot Gascoyne was brimming with pride as he gazed across a deserted Wembley stadium last Thursday. Teenage boxer Nick Wood had thanked the former heavyweight for transforming his life after being named as the national winner of Sky Sports Living for Sport 2011.

Nick was a trouble-maker and skiver when Dermot, a Living for Sport Athlete Mentor, arrived at Lancaster School in Leicester last year but his attitude and aspirations took a seismic shift when Dermot spotted his boxing ability and urged him to take up the sport.

“Being an Athlete Mentor is a privilege but it comes with responsibility,” reflects Dermot, a former British number one in his division.

“I want to go into schools and I want to have an impact. I want to get kids to think about their lives; I want kids to think about what is going to make them a good person and what is going to make them succeed.

“One of the difficulties of being a retired athlete is you look back on your career and think that your best days have gone; one of the best things about Living for Sport is that I get opportunities to have fantastic days at work.

“This awards ceremony has been an amazing experience for Nick, but it has also been an amazing experience for me. It’s incredible to think that throughout his life there might be a little bit of me that walks alongside him.”

If Dermot wasn’t as reserved as Nick at 16 – he boxed for the first time as a second-day recruit in the Royal Navy – he does recognise his teenage self in Nick’s athletic build and potential.

“The first time that I saw Nick punch, I thought he was the most naturally gifted boxer that I had every come across,” says Dermot. “I was amazed to discover he’d never boxed before.

“Sometimes the mechanics of boxing can take years to perfect but he was doing it all quite naturally. It was clear he had ability.

“I remember sitting down and having this discussion about what he was doing with his life, the decisions he was making, because I thought he’d got potential, not just as a boxer but as a person.

“To be told months later that he had gone on to make some fantastic choices – that he was attending school and even teaching younger children how to box - was amazing to hear.”

It’s a short jump from mentee-turned-mentor to role-model. Dermot’s idol has just turned 70 but remains a constant source of inspiration.

“People often view athletes as a one-dimensional person - they judge you on whether you win or you lose as to whether you are good or you are bad – but Muhammad Ali, the most fantastically-gifted heavyweight boxer there has ever been, recognised that there were things in life that are more important than sport,” he says.

“One of the things I admire him for most is his stand against the draft when they asked him to go into the Vietnam conflict. He didn’t believe in it even though he knew the majority of the public would probably hate him for it. That strength resonated with me.

“I always tell kids that they should try to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Sometimes the right decision is the tough decision; that’s what Muhammad Ali did and that’s why I hold him in such high regard, as a boxer and a man.”

Dermot, who boxed with six heavyweight world champions in his career, is as committed to breaking new ground in his fourth year as an Athlete Mentor as he was in his first.

“Last Monday I visited a group of girls who had low self-esteem and didn’t know anything about Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis or Frank Bruno. In that situation it’s easy to think ‘what common ground have we got?’

“But that’s actually one of the great pleasures of working on the scheme. It is so flexible and fluid that we don’t have to go into schools and deliver the same thing. We can adapt our stories to any particular group in a way that they find engaging.

“I hope that some of those girls will have gone home and said it’s one of the best days at school that they’ve ever had because Living for Sport is not just about the award-winners, it’s about all those that take part in the programme.”

Find out more about the Sky Sports Living for Sport awards by clicking here.