Welterweight boxer Javontae Starks regaining strength in left leg after being hit by bullet

Starks’ leg on mend after being hit by bullet

DENVER — Javontae Starks bounded around the ring, barely even favoring his left leg.

Still, the welterweight was frustrated with his footwork after his first-round win Monday night at the USA boxing national championships.

“Not moving as swift as I used to,” Starks said. “My front leg doesn’t allow me to move as fast as I used to.”

Yet the leg is better than it was, better than anyone ever imagined.

Starks took a stray bullet in the upper left thigh nearly two years ago when an argument led to gunfire at a graduation party in Minneapolis. The doctors feared he would never regain feeling in his left foot due to nerve damage, putting his boxing career in jeopardy.

Steadily, though, the 20-year-old is regaining full strength in the leg.

“I was very, very lucky,” said Starks, who was just a bystander at the party that was thrown, in part, in his honor.

He knows the incident could’ve been worse — way worse.

Starks was hanging out with friends and family when gunfire erupted. He ran away, not even realizing he’d been hit.

Once inside a friend’s car, he felt blood dripping down his leg and began to black out. The bullet had nicked a major artery.

Instead of waiting for an ambulance, his friend sped him to a nearby hospital, a decision that may have saved his life.

“The doctors said if we would’ve waited a little longer, I would’ve bled to death,” Starks said.

The bullet entered his left thigh and exited above his buttocks on the right side, leaving a hole the size of a hamburger bun.

However, he’s more thankful for what the bullet dodged.

“Something had to be guiding that bullet because it missed my hip and pelvis by inches, and my sciatic nerve and my spine,” he said.

Starks said he was one of three hit by the gunfire on Aug. 11, 2007, and that the shooter has never been caught. But he doesn’t give it a moment’s thought.

He’s motivated by recovery, not revenge.

“I have too much going on in my life to handle anybody else’s nonsense or to get myself involved in something that’s going to knock me off track,” said Starks, who trains in Minneapolis with his older brother, Jamal James, at his father’s gym. “I’ve got goals that I’m definitely looking forward to (achieving) by any means necessary.”

The bullet didn’t derail his career for long. By March 2008, Starks was back in the ring, eventually winning the U.S. future stars national championships.

“My philosophy is something’s only hard if you don’t want it,” said Starks, who’s been boxing since 11. “Right now, my lead leg isn’t fast enough, I have to keep working on it. I’m a top name in the game right now, but I have a lot of flaws in my game.”

Starks dissected his win over Manuel Marquez on Monday in detail. He didn’t like his movement, feeling he was back on his heels too much. Starks prefers to be the aggressor, taking the action right at the other fighter.

“I’d give that performance maybe a 4″ on a scale of 1 to 10, he said. “He shouldn’t have even stood there with me. If that was Demetrius Andrade, he would’ve cut (Marquez) off, stepped into him.”

Andrade is a boxer Starks holds in high regard, admiring his mental game and movement around the ring.

“He’s slick and fast, hits you with combinations from everywhere,” Starks said of Andrade, a member of the 2008 Olympic squad.

So, does he pattern his style after Andrade?

“I like my own style — a boxer punching,” Starks said, grinning.

The ever-affable Starks currently has a film crew trailing him and his brother around, capturing images for an upcoming documentary.

“It’s about two Minneapolis kids getting out of some of the badder neighborhoods, doing something with their life, traveling around the world, trying to give some other fighters, some other kids, aspirations to do things,” Starks explained. “It’s going to be a good movie.”

He’s hoping to give the film crew good footage this weekend.

Now if he can only get the leg to cooperate.

That tiny little hitch in his left leg is still detectable — at least to him, especially in practice.

Starks goes through a strenuous series of stretching exercises to loosen up the leg before stepping into the ring, and has the hip adjusted by a chiropractor from time to time.

However, once the bout begins, he’s all business — never giving the leg a second thought.

“My leg is 80 percent,” Starks said. “But I’m beating a lot of these guys with 80 percent of my game right now.”