John "The Iceman" Scully compiled a 38-11 record as a professional boxer with 21 knockouts to his credit, but it is his contribution to the sport as a trainer that he might be best known for these days. In the ring, Scully only lost to formidable opponents and suffered seven of his 11 defeats near the end of a nearly 13-year career. He was only stopped once, by Drake Thadzi at the end of his career, in a fight held in Boston in 1998 that saw him severely depleted by drastic weight loss. Along the way he fought legends like Michael Nunn, Henry Maske, and Graciano Rocchigiani in some incredible 12-round slugfests, and he used what he learned in all those battles with some of boxing's best to develop a unique and effective method of training.  

In addition to his training duties, he also finds time these days to work on his book: The Ice Man Diaries. "I've always, since I was a kid, been a writer. In grade school I wrote two or three book reports a week," he said. "When I started boxing, for whatever reason, I used to keep notes. I'd go to a tournament and write down who was there, who fought who, who did what, who I met. As I got older, I first went on-line in 1999 and used to go to message boards, and I'd talk about people that I knew, and people I met like Muhammad Ali, what it was like to spar with Roy Jones, Jr., and people loved it. They'd eat it up, and people used to email me and tell me I oughta' turn it all into a book, because people would pay for these kind of inside stories."

He went back and looked over his notes, and since he'd been keeping a diary since he was a kid, he realized he had an incredible amount of great content. "I've probably got 400 pages done already," he said. "People say you're supposed to cut it down, but this is a different kind of book. I've got a lot to say, and it's hard to cut down. Realistically, I'm done with the majority of it. Now I'm just trying to edit, shape it up, and delete and add stuff. Basically every chapter's about done. I'm just figuring out what to take out." 

The key for the project is to raise some eyebrows. "I want it to be interesting," he said. "I want people to read it and say, 'Wow, man, that's crazy!' I want people to read it and get a sense of what it is to be a boxer, to be in a fight. People watch fights, and they second-guess what the guy does in the ring, but people don't realize what it means to be a boxer. That's why I wanna' give my insight into it."  

He's read plenty of boxing books, including "Raging Bull," (Jake LaMotta's story) and while he found them all entertaining, he never found one that truly explained what it was really like to be a fighter. He had a feeling people would enjoy the kind of book that would truly describe what it was like to be hit, what he was facing in fights, and the other aspects of the fight game people would love to read about.

He also decided to include some aspects of his career some other authors might try and obscure or gloss over. "Most people are not that honest, and they don't wanna' admit the things that I would admit in a book," he said.  

As far as the fighters he's training, he's working with two amateur boxers as they get ready for the Golden Gloves final in late February. He also trains Mike Oliver (17-0, 8 KO's), the USBA Super Bantamweight champion. Scully's scrawny, but powerful, knockout artist will appear on Showtime in February when he takes on Gary Stark, Jr. who is also undefeated at 18-0 with 8 knockouts. The fight will be aired on SHOBOX on February 16. Scully also trains Jose Antonio Rivera (38-5-1, 24 KO's), who just lost his WBA Light Middleweight title to Travis Simms (25-0, 19 KO's).  

Rivera showed true heart against Simms, getting off the canvas after a particularly brutal knockdown when most fighters would have taken the ten-count and given up. Scully hasn't spoken to Rivera since the loss. "He's been laying low, and he's back at work now," said Scully. "We'll see what he does. I haven't talked to him." He was able to really appreciate the style Simms brought to the fight and said it was "perfect to exploit Jose's style."  

One of Scully's best moments as a trainer came in February of 2006 when Mike Oliver fought for the USBO title against Castulo Gonzalez. “I call him Mike-Mike, and the thing about him is since he was a little kid, he always had the talent and skills to be good fighter, but he had no discipline and no focus," said Scully. "When we started training for that fight, I went to work on his mental game. I worked hard on him being a professional, and I wanted him to be a sharp professional. He looked like a world class professional in that fight, stopping Gonzalez in the ninth. In that fight he was finally able to do things people didn't think he could. We knew Castulo would be a tough fight, so we had to put him on another level, and I could see my influence in that fight."  

Scully also used to work with another undefeated fighter: Chad Dawson, who is now ready to fight for the WBC title on February 3^rd. Dawson will battle Tomasz Adamek (31-0, 21 KO's) in a battle of unbeatens with Adamek's belt at stake. "I got with Chad, and I could see he was naturally gifted and very skilled, but he was lacking some things as a pro. Things he hadn't developed yet," said Scully. "I really worked hard with him, and I feel I was responsible for some of his success, in particular with sharpening his jab, body shots and his overall approach to the professional game. In the fights I was with him, he showed great improvement. I look back on those days, and I feel proud of that."  

His toughest moment as a trainer is harder to define. "Probably in a lot of fights, not just with Jose, in several fights, the toughest thing about being a trainer is just being in the corner feeling frustrated, knowing what a guy can do and he just doesn't do it," said Scully. "You know the guy's talents and strengths, and you see him do things in the gym a million times. But, in the fight, for one reason or another, it just don't come out."  

It also gets Scully bent out of shape when he hears the crowd booing and hurling insults at a fighter he works with. He wishes sometimes he could tell the fans what his guy can really do and explain that it's just not his night. "Fighters you see on TV, you might think, 'yeah he's ok, nothing special,' but in the gym he's often spectacular," said Scully. "It just shows you how tough it is to actually perform under the bright lights. I get frustrated when a guy isn't really reaching his potential."