Herald News, 1/22/07
by Andrea Gurwitt
Raging Bull
A boxer-turned-state trooper-turned-writer wants to inspire kids, and others.
He's a former boxer.
He's a cop. And now he's a writer.
But he doesn't want
to make a big deal out of it.
He's just Kevin
Vieldhouse. Neighborhood guy. Husband. Father. Friend. Writing
about what he knows and eager to tell a good story that will
inspire kids to act responsibly and have faith in their
abilities.
Really, writing the
book, titled "Turning Pro," is no big thing. He just worked on
it in the morning when everyone was out of the house. Or at
night, after everyone went to bed. Maybe slipped away from the
family for an hour on a day he wasn't at work.
He had a goal and he
was going to reach it. That's just who he is. Took him maybe
three months.
"I'm very
disciplined," Vieldhouse says.
Well, three months
plus all those years thinking about it, his wife, Caprice, says.
"He had put it on hold for a while. When you have three kids you
put everything on hold for a while."
Vieldhouse's low-key
demeanor notwithstanding, it is noteworthy that a full-time
worker feels committed enough to finish a freelance project and
then devote even more time to selling it. Noteworthy, but also
not that uncommon. Even when people have jobs they like, like
Vieldhouse, they may still search out ways to channel their
creativity.
"The reality is, in
most of our day-to-day life there is no need to be creative and,
if anything, we get in trouble for it," says Roni Reiter-Palmon,
an expert on creativity and director of the
Industrial/Organizational Psychology Program at the University
of Nebraska at Omaha.
Experts are still
debating whether everyone is creative or only certain people,
but are leaning in the direction that we are all born with some
degree of creativity, Reiter-Palmon says.
However, people with
a creative personality type tend to be more willing to take
risks (not only writing a book, for example, but then sending it
off to publishers), Reiter-Palmon says. They also tend to be
independent thinkers, and see creativity as an important aspect
of who they are. They tend to be persistent, willing to overcome
obstacles and accepting of rejection.
Which is a fair
description of a certain boxer-policeman-writer.
Vieldhouse, 45, is a
detective sergeant with the New Jersey State Police's drug
trafficking unit. He's been a state trooper for 14 years.
Before that, the
suburban kid from Wayne boxed. Turned professional after eight
amateur fights, he says, and was represented by Main Events in
Bloomfield. Three years later, after losing a bloody,
crowd-pleasing match that went seven rounds, Vieldhouse put away
the boxing gloves. He retired with 10 wins, two losses and three
draws. He was 24.
Vieldhouse trained
at Lou Costello's Gym on Gould Avenue in Paterson, in the
white-brick building that now houses the Islamic Fashion Center
and Baraka Grocery & Deli.
It "initially was
intimidating. I was a blond-haired, blue-eyed suburban kid.
Nobody else there was," he says. "But if you can fight you can
fight. There's no social status. No pretentious people there."
You proved yourself
by your abilities, not by the breaks you got or the knocks you
took as a kid. Vieldhouse liked that.
His boxing days
became the springboard for Vieldhouse's first novel. The book is
not a thinly veiled retelling of his life, he says, but a fresh
angle in boxing fiction.
"Turning Pro" is
about a white guy from the suburbs named Billy David who trains
at a Paterson boxing gym. He spars with James Morgan, a black
guy who lives in Paterson. David and Morgan become good friends.
They help each other through rough times. Each hopes to win the
National Golden Gloves Tournament, which will lead to a
lucrative professional boxing career, but only one will ...
Vieldhouse doesn't
like prejudice. He doesn't like bullies. He doesn't like
pessimists. And he doesn't like people assuming things. Like
that a white suburban kid can't box. Or that gangs are cool. Or
that you have to be a writer to write a book.
He thinks if you
have your health and an average intelligence, you can accomplish
anything you set your mind to.
You just have to be
disciplined. And humble. And you shouldn't brag about yourself.
Vieldhouse
self-published his book with a Christian publishing company. The
manuscript had been rejected by several publishers without any
explanation, he says. He figured if he turned his manuscript
into a self-published book, then mainstream publishers would be
more likely to pay attention.
After Vieldhouse
self-published "Turning Pro" in late last summer, he was sitting
by the pool in Wayne with one of his best friends and biggest
fans, Michael Koropsak.
"It probably took
him two beers," Koropsak says, "and he said, 'Oh, I wrote a
book.' Me? I'm the opposite. I'm telling everybody."
He's not
exaggerating.
Koropsak saw
Vieldhouse's father-in-law, and said, "Hey, Pat, you read
Kevin's book?"
"What book?"
Vieldhouse's father-in-law answered.
Koropsak says,
almost proudly, "He didn't tell his father-in-law and his
father-in-law lives with him!"
"I just like to get
things completed and accomplish them before I let people know,"
Vieldhouse says.
Then Koropsak saw
Mark Lepselter and said something like, "Mark, I got a friend
who wrote this book. Can you do him a favor, take a look at it?"
Lepselter, whose kid
plays football with Koropsak's kid, owns Maxximum Marketing, a
company that represents athletes and broadcasters in media
deals. Lepselter knows people, and likes Vieldhouse, and figured
he'd help him out.
So Lepselter passed
the book on to people he knows in television production, and to
other people he knows at publishing house Simon & Schuster.
Which is where "Turning Pro" currently sits, waiting to be given
a big, publishing-world welcome.
It's also sitting
with people in the Paterson school system, recommended for
consideration by Paterson Board of Education member Joseph
Atallo. Atallo's best friend is a state trooper, who is friends
with Vieldhouse. Vieldhouse asked Atallo to look at his book.
It's "a very
interesting read," Atallo says.
So in a low-key but
persistent way, Vieldhouse is doing all he can to get the book
in print and into people's hands. Because although he doesn't
brag, he does believe strongly in what he wrote.
"Kids as well as
adults can enjoy the read and finish it leaving them thinking
about a lot of things: racism, family, life and death, and
what's important in life. I still believe the book belongs with
a major publisher," Vieldhouse writes in an e-mail.
Vieldhouse has ideas
for more novels. He can't wait to get going on them. But he
doesn't call himself a writer because it sounds like he's
bragging.
What if he never
completes another book? Then he'd be a liar.
He doesn't tell
people he's a state trooper, either. They tend to get suddenly
nicer.
"I don't like the
attention," he says. "Everybody likes to be admired. I like to
be admired from afar."
The former boxer
still boxes, although he doesn't fight. When he wants to spar he
goes to Randy and Ike's Boxing Gym on Park Avenue in Paterson.
He trained with the owner, back in the day.
The gym is a modest
place down a paved alley. It's got a ring, it's got bags and
it's got a devoted following.
"The world would be
a better place if it operated like a boxing gym. Anybody can
walk through one of those gym doors," Vieldhouse writes in his
e-mail. No one "cares what color you are, how rich you are, how
old, poor, if you're a convict or a cop."
All they care about
is whether you can fight, and if you can't it doesn't matter,
Vieldhouse says. Because they understand what it takes to step
through those ropes and face an opponent whose only intention is
to hit you and hit you hard.
Which is kind of
like what it takes to write a book in the found hours between
raising kids and working, and then have the guts to send it out
to strangers, who reject manuscripts more often than they
publish them.
* *
Reach Andrea Gurwitt
at 973-569-7159 or gurwitt@northjersey.com
