Professor Zoom Zoom perfect role model for Pacquiao

If Manny Pacquiao ever wanted a role model outside the ring, he would be well advised to look to a real professor.

This “Professor” is Ghana’s revered national sporting icon, former world champion and Hall Of Famer Azumah Nelson.

When he was a brilliant boxer, usually “teaching” his opponents in the ring, Nelson was also the consummate gentleman when not throwing punches in bunches.

Nelson won the Dennie Mancini Award (2008) presented by the British Boxing Board of Control and the Commonwealth Boxing Council. At the presentation in London, the ex-fighter espoused his current mission in life.

Nelson talked about rising from the streets to wealth and fame and how his Azumah Nelson Foundation helps poverty stricken youth in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa overcome such obstacles. He seeks to provide alternatives to misery and a life of crime.

“So for the rest of my life, the focus will be to create opportunities for them to acquire skills through formal education and sports and for them to be useful to the society,” Nelson told an appreciative audience.

I had the pleasure of working with the gregarious “Zoom Zoom” when I was Don King’s spin doctor.

You could always count on Nelson to show up on time, if not early, for any press conference or weigh in and to always conduct himself superbly. Not to mention that he dressed like a Saville Row dandy in three piece suits.

You never head trash talk or obscenities flowing from Nelson’s lips. He respected his opponents, his sport-business, himself and the fact that he was his country’s sporting standard bearer.

Azumah came to mind as I rode home in a taxi Wednesday night after a lengthy sit down with WOPO, the Wise Old Pinoy Owl, better known to many as boxing, media and political insider Hermie Rivera and his New York real estate agent son, Tony. (The younger Rivera is with the high profile Douglas Elliman outfit.)

We ripped through some steaks, lobsters and adult bevies in fine fashion at the West Side Palm and, I believed, we solved some of the world’s problems in a conversation which ran the gamut from A to B.

My cab driver was a Ghanaian and I asked him if he knew Bronx resident and Ghana native Joshua Clottey who challenges Miguel Cotto Saturday night for the WBO welterweight title at Madison Square Garden.

Pinoy Idol Pacman will be an honored guest seated at the right hand of Grandpa Bob Arum.

“I know Clottey,” the hack said, “he is a crazy guy but he is a tough guy. I hope he wins this big fight. It would make Ghana proud.”

Then the driver told me what several other of his cab driving countrymen have told me over the years. He said “Zoom Zoom’ remains a big man of respect at home in Africa while the less accomplished Ike “Bazooka” Quartey does not have such wide popularity.

“Quartey is a crazy guy also,” the cabbie said. “He gets into fist fights with taxi drivers and others on the street in Accra.”

Nelson, meanwhile, is a prosperous business mogul with interests in many areas including, I believe, a trucking company.

Probably the best example of Nelson’s class is that he always pays homage to the late Mexican icon Salvador Sanchez, whose life ended in an auto wreck at age 23.

A brilliant boxer who may have become Mexico’s best ever, Sanchez remains sort of a holy figure among Mexican fans.

Nelson fought Sanchez in the Garden and lost to him. But it was a classic battle which only ended in 15th and final round.

They became fast friends and, if memory serves, Nelson has even visited Sanchez’s grave. No one lavishes more praise on the greatness of Sanchez than does Nelson.

Ghana had another great fighter in David “Little Poison” Kotei but he never caught the public imagination in the country like Nelson did.

Nelson steered clear of electoral politics. Maybe there is a lesson for Pacquiao in that as well.

If Clottey can upset Puerto Rican hero Miguel Cotto, he will begin his own push for national icon status. Cotto already has that stature as does Pacman.

All three of them could do far worse than to adopt Professor Nelson as their role model.

Maybe he really is a professor of sorts because, as the old saying goes, “class always tells.”

Michael is a former sports columnist at the New York Post. He was a criminal defense attorney and worked for sports legends Howard Cosell and Don King. Marley also operates Boxingconfidential.com. Email him your thoughts. He makes it a practice to always recommend Pacland, Philboxing and feisty upstart Pacfanscorner.