UNLV gives shot in arm to aspiring doc’s career

Dean Juipe

Thursday, July 15, 2004 | 9:30 a.m.

Yevgeniy Korshunov prefers not to talk at length about his past, maybe because the path he's on seems so much brighter than the one he has already walked.

Korshunov, 25, is a native of Russia and a just-graduated member of the UNLV club boxing team who competed in this year's NCAA championships. He's also a month away from beginning medical school at the Brooklyn campus of the State University of New York.

Polite and calm, Korshunov smiles the brightest and is most enthused as he discusses stumbling upon the UNLV team and the relationships it fostered.

"I heard about the team and I showed up here the next day," he said Tuesday in the team's bunker-like gym on campus. "It was great and it's been a lot of fun.

"Everyone's been so nice to me."

The pleasure of those acquaintances has been mutual.

"Yev exemplifies just exactly what we're trying to do," said head coach Skip Kelp. "He's good testimony for us. He's very bright and the successes he's had have been great for all of us to see."

When he joined the boxing team in January, Korshunov quickly gained the special attention not only of Kelp but of one of his assistants, Frank Slaughter. A microbiology technologist at UMC, Slaughter steered Korshunov toward the classes and experience he would need to be accepted into medical school.

"This guy is the pinnacle of what we do," Slaughter said of Korshunov. "When he told me he was into pre-med, I hooked him up with the doctors at UMC and made sure he was taking all the right classes.

"We have a diverse group of students on the team and having them hold jobs, keep their GPA up and graduate is very important to us. Yevgeniy did all of those things and it's been wonderful to see."

Korshunov is an emergency room volunteer at UMC who starts medical school in August and plans on becoming a trauma surgeon after completing school and its residency requirements. He said moving back to Las Vegas after obtaining his medical degree was in his plans, as was the possibility of becoming a ringside physician at boxing events in the city.

While he still trains with the UNLV team, he realizes his days as a boxer are just about over. "Maybe I'll still be able to train here and there, but I know I'm not going to have much time for it anymore," Korshunov said.

He had been training at Barry's Boxing gym prior to learning of the UNLV team.

"I liked it because I got four (college) fights after only having fought three other times in my whole life," he said of his brief career, which culminated in the national championships when he was beaten by the eventual 195-pound national champion from Navy.

"The minute I saw him, I was excited," Kelp said. "He came to us and was very skeptical about boxing, but I saw a guy with some ability that I could work with. He was real noncommittal at first, but once he had a fight that changed and he became very committed."

As Kelp and his fellow coaches and the UNLV team members came to know Korshunov, they became aware of his difficult past. A native of Russia who calls himself "half Russian and half Ukrainian," Korshunov was once hospitalized after being attacked by a group of Russian youths and he later fled his homeland after balking at mandatory military service and being sent to war-torn Chechnya.

As a result, he is no longer able to visit his homeland, nor are his parents allowed to leave. He has not seen them in five years and their contact is limited to the occasional phone call or letter.

"Living in Russia is not safe," Korshunov said. "I had problems there."

Those problems are diminished only by his penchant for studying and working out.

"I feel much better here," he said, adding that he moved to Las Vegas because he has an aunt who has lived here. "There are a lot of advantages.

"Plus, I can box and it helps my stress reduction."

Finding it a pleasing thought, he smiles again.

"Yev is one of those guys whose story is heartfelt and touching," Kelp said. "You hate to lose someone like that, but it's great to know where he's going."