Fallen Boxer Had Known Risks

July 9, 2001 -- When boxer Beethavean "Bee" Scottland stepped into the ring last month to fight for a $7,000 purse — the biggest of his career — he knew the risks he was facing.

"I know it's a 50-50 chance that I could die in the ring," he had told an interviewer in 1997. "It's known that people die in the ring. But that's a chance I take. You've got a family you got to take care of financially, that's your job."

In the 10th and final round of the fight — which was held aboard the USS Intrepid in New York and televised on ESPN2 — Scottland was knocked out by his opponent, light-heavyweight George Khalid Jones. He entered a coma and died six days later. He leaves behind a wife and three small children.

One of the legions of hopefuls who dream of getting a chance at a televised bout or a major purse, Scottland was not the kind of boxer sought out by reporters for interviews.

But a free-lance journalist, David Snider, had followed him for two weeks in 1997, interviewing him several times for a project that was never completed. Snider's footage was shown on Nightline tonight.

Four years later, Snider happened across the Intrepid fight while he was flipping through the channels. He was horrified at the punishment Scottland was taking, and devastated to see him knocked out and, later, learn of his death.

He thought of Scottland's family, and how the young boxer had spoken of them in their interviews.

"He talked openly and honestly about his life as a boxer," Snider remembers. "We discussed the risks and dangers, and his dedication to his wife and children, to whom he was totally committed. Bee was only 22 at the time, but I really admired him for his maturity and discipline."

'Boxing Is My Second Life'

Scottland had had a tough life, but boxing had helped him turn it around, Snider says.

One of eight children born to a corrections officer and a classical pianist, Scottland had grown up in Brentwood, Md., a low-income suburb of Washington, D.C. (His given name, Beethavean, was inspired by the composer).

As a young teenager, he began to skip school and, he told Snider, he briefly sold drugs. His mother kicked him out of the house for not attending school, and he went to live with his first trainer, Derek Matthews.

Scottland turned professional in 1995. When Snider interviewed him two years later, he was training hard at Round One Boxing under Adrian Davis. He had married a childhood friend, Denise Lewis, and they were raising two children and had another on the way.

"I achieved a lot of things in my life," the 22-year-old told Snider. "I don't party … I get up at 5 in the morning to run. I train, I be in the gym every day, and I come home and be a father to my kid and a husband to my wife. That's it."

He called boxing his "second life," but confessed that the constant anticipation of fighting was a nervous strain that he felt every day. When Snider asked if he had butterflies when he stepped into the ring, Scottland said: "I wake up having butterflies, it's something I have to do."

Scottland was aware of the dangers in the ring, but proud of the life he had built.

"Let's say that I would pass away right now, that I would die," he told Snider. "I would like to have my kids say that he done it the honest way: He stayed away from drugs, he tried to live a good life, not for himself but for us, taking care of the family first."