Constantine “Cus” D’Amato (January 17, 1908 – November 4, 1985) was a boxing manager and trainer. Cus D’Amato guided American heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson to the top. At 21, Patterson became the youngest man to win the world heavyweight championship.

30 years later, D’Amato met a troubled Brooklyn teenager who had drifted into a life of petty crime and thuggery. This teenager was Mike Tyson. Tyson was sent to a reform school, which looked to set him up for a life in and out of incarceration, with every possibility that his felonies would become more and more serious as he reached adulthood. D’Amato sought to rescue him from that. Not only did he see potential in Tyson, who had a large physic for his years, but he saw a person in need of a mentor, a confidant, a friend and a father figure. He took Tyson into his home which gave him stability for the first time in his life and also installed some family values and morals which kept on the straight and narrow. For a long time it worked perfectly.

D’Amato died shortly before Tyson became the youngest world heavyweight titleholder in history. Among the advice D’Amato gave Tyson was this oft-cited lesson of the hero and the coward: “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.”

D’Amato also handled the career of Jose Torres. In 1965, Torres won the light heavyweight championship of the world. Several successful boxing trainers, including Teddy Atlas, Kevin Rooney, and Joe Fariello, were tutored by D’Amato.