VOORHEES — Pick a fight with Bobby Leach in a dark alley and you'll win.
Meet him on the mat, however, and you won't stand a chance.
With stealth blows, fancy footwork, and a deafening wail that intimidates even the country's top karate champions, Leach is a human lethal weapon.
So how is it that you could beat him in that fight in the alley?
He'd just walk away.
"I have that much confidence that I could walk away," said Leach, 25, a third-degree black belt.
And it's confidence that has become Leach's strong point, driving him to become the nation's top Tae Kwon Do fighter in his weight class (118-128 pounds), an 11-time Pennsylvania state champion, and the one to watch in the World Championships in Manila next month. He left last night to prepare for the World Games at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
"It's possible for him to win a medal in this world championship," said Robert Fujimura, executive director of the U.S. Tae Kwon Do Union, which is based in Colorado Springs and is the nation's governing body for the sport. ''He's coming back as (a member of) a two-time world championship team. He probably has less to prove this time. Less nerves. He stands a better chance
because he has more experience."
Fujimura said people from all over the world would be watching his progress: "He has a good reputation."
Born in Northeast Philadelphia as the oldest of three children, Leach began his karate career at the age of 4. His father, Bob Leach, a sixth-degree black belt, introduced his son to the martial arts in 1974 at his own karate school in the Holmesburg section.
"Bobby was phenomenal," Bob Leach, 52, recalled of his son's ability to learn quickly. "He got his first black belt at 12 and it just kept snowballing and snowballing. And at age 13 and 14, he was winning every tournament.
"Just as kids played at baseball and football, he played at this."
While the elder Bob admits that he pushed his son like a stereotypical parent of a young star athlete, he said he had no regrets.
"I was a very strict traditionalist," he said. "I wanted him to learn the right way. And he truly became the best of the best."
Young Bobby Leach agrees that his father was pushy, a quality that often angered him while growing up because he frequently missed out on parties and other social activities. But he now admits that he owes his current success, including graduating with honors from Archbishop Ryan High School, to his father.
