Oscar De La Hoya was born on February 4, 1973 in East Los Angeles, California. His parents had immigrated to the United States from Mexico. De La Hoya's family was poor when he was growing up. His father, Joel Sr., worked as a warehouse clerk for a heating and cooling company and his mother, Cecilia, was a seamstress. De La Hoya had two siblings--an older brother named Joel Jr. and a younger sister, Ceci...>>> Book Oscar De La Hoya for Your Event

Boxing was a tradition in the De La Hoya family. De La Hoya's paternal grandfather, Vincente, was an amateur featherweight in Durango, Mexico, and his father had a brief professional boxing career in the United States with a 9-3-1 lightweight record. As De La Hoya told Interview magazine, "Boxing has been in my blood since I can remember. It comes naturally to me, and I've enjoyed it ever since I started, at the age of six." As a child De La Hoya would join his father and older brother at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena. The family had assumed that Joel, as the oldest son, would continue the family's boxing tradition. De La Hoya himself admitted that he was an unlikely candidate to become a boxer. "I was a little kid who used to fight a lot in the street--and get beat up," he told Sports Illustrated.

De La Hoya continued his success as an amateur boxer. In 1991 he won the U.S. Amateur Boxing National Championship in the 132-pound division and he was named Boxer of the Year by USA Boxing. During this time De La Hoya changed trainers because of Stankie's problems with alcohol. His next trainer was Robert Alcazar, an ex-boxer who had worked with Joel De La Hoya, Sr.

While he easily made the U.S. Olympic team, De La Hoya was not expected to make it past the first round of Olympic competition. His first opponent was Cuba's Julio Gonzalez, a 27-year-old four-time World Amateur Junior Lightweight champion. De La Hoya won the match in a 7-2 decision, which was considered the biggest boxing upset of the Olympics. His second round match against Korean champion Hong Sung Sik was close, with De La Hoya winning by only one point. De La Hoya also beat Adilson Silva, Dimitrov Tontchev, and finally defeated Marco Rudolph of Germany for the gold medal. De La Hoya was the sentimental favorite of the Games since the media had promoted his story about a son trying to fulfill his dying mother's wish. However, his victory took everyone by surprise. De La Hoya celebrated by carrying the American and Mexican flags around the ring. He told Los Angeles Magazine, "The American flag was for my country; the Mexican flag for my heritage." After this accomplishment De La Hoya was nicknamed the "Golden Boy" by the media and that name has stayed with him throughout his career.

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