Some things you can see coming from a mile away and some things never change. For an example of both, consider boxer Ryan Coyne.

Here's his high school football coach, Mike Thorne: "This is a workaholic, a total athlete who lives in the weight room, doing everything he can to make himself better. He has total dedication, a tolerance for pain."

And here's his boxing trainer, Jose Ponce: "Anyone who knows Ryan Coyne knows they're going to get 110 percent out of him. He's an animal. I have trouble kicking him out of the gym. He's the only fighter I've trained I've had to talk into taking a break. He'll stay in the gym three, four hours a day if he needs to. That's the type of guy he is."

Thorne made his assessment of Coyne in 2000, when Coyne was a senior at St. Charles High. Ponce made his comments on Monday. Ten years later, there is little difference in the drive of Ryan Coyne. That he would parlay that determination into athletic success was inevitable.

But what Thorne and others couldn't see — and that would have to include Coyne as well — was how that success would take shape. In high school, Coyne starred in football, wrestling and weightlifting, and only his size — 6 feet 1, 211 pounds — could hold him back on the football field. As it turns out, he found his niche as a boxer. He will take a 14-0 record into his fight with Warren Browning (12-0-1) on Saturday on the undercard of the Devon Alexander-headlined show at Scottrade Center.

At stake is the WBC USNBC cruiserweight championship, which as title belts go is as impressive as the black and brown reversible belt hanging in your closet, but it comes with some nice benefits: If he wins, Coyne will be ranked in the top 15 in the world by the WBC, and his next fight will be against someone else in the top 15. A win there would put him in position to get a shot at either the WBC champ or one of the top contenders. If Coyne keeps winning, a title shot is not that far away.

"I have a great opportunity to fight and kind of piggyback on Devon Alexander's success," Coyne said. "He's bringing HBO to town, bringing a big show to Scottrade Center. I have a chance to do my part and step into the void of other great champions from St. Louis who have come before. As those guys fade away, new guys will have to take their place, and I'm going to be one of the guys."

"He's a different breed," Ponce said. "To get from where he started to where he is now is incredible. His career might have been short as an amateur, but he's making up for it in the big leagues."

If Ryan Coyne could join Devon Alexander and Cory Spinks in the years ahead as another championship boxer from St. Louis, it would be by a most different road. While Spinks and Alexander grew up in tough parts of north St. Louis and got into boxing at young ages and worked their way up through the amateur ranks, Coyne grew up in the comfortable suburb of St. Charles and didn't really get into boxing until after his football career ended. When Spinks and Alexander trained at the Marquette Recreation Center south of downtown, they'd have to walk through a metal detector to get to the gym. Coyne trains in a gym on the mean streets of Clayton.

"Divergent starts," Coyne said. "Convergent paths maybe."

Coyne was a football star in high school, a second-team All-Metro selection as a linebacker and an honorable mention selection at fullback, as he never left the field as a senior. He was too small to play linebacker at Mizzou and went as a safety. A series of shoulder injuries put an end to his hopes of playing college football and he returned home to St. Charles, enrolled at Lindenwood, got a job at a pizzeria and eventually decided to take a swing at boxing, something he had dabbled in when younger.

A lot of people try boxing, but that all changes the first time they get hit in the face. "I call it the truth serum," said Michael Shipley, a St. Charles police officer who runs the St. Charles Boxing Club. "These guys get in there and look like a million dollars and you think you've got a good one, and they get hit a couple times and it's all over."

Shipley knew that wouldn't be the case with Coyne, since he had come across Coyne a few times in the line of duty and knew he was familiar with getting hit. "I was always a little bit of a knucklehead," Coyne said. "I got hit in the face doing a lot of things. I have a history of letting my fists fly; sometimes I had gloves on, sometimes I didn't."

Coyne was big at the time, about 250 pounds Shipley remembers, and while he was raw, he was also a quick learner. "If you told it to him, he put it to work right then and there," Shipley said. "You didn't have to work over and over."

And naturally, the other thing that stood out to Shipley was Coyne's work ethic. "He will outwork anyone, any time, any day," Shipley said. "He was an animal in the gym."

Coyne made his amateur debut after only about a month and a half working with Shipley. He fought only about 70 amateur fights, mostly as a superheavyweight, before turning pro as a heavyweight. Eventually, he became a cruiserweight (with a limit of 200 pounds, the class between light heavyweight and heavyweight), which turned out to be a pivotal move.

His big break came in a quintessentially modern way: He got on a reality TV show. He was seen on a local card and was chosen for the fourth season of "The Contender," which is like "America's Next Top Model," only with bleeding and bruising. Coyne was an obvious choice for a show that featured boxing and talking: In addition to being a good boxer, he's outgoing and loquacious, the perfect person to draw a crowd on cable TV. He spent four months in Singapore in 2009, where the show was taped. He reached the quarterfinals of the competition, but in his win over Tim Flamos, he suffered a cut over his eye from a head butt and was medically disqualified from future competition. Coyne readily acknowledges the boost that gave his career.

"That was a chance a lot of boxers don't get," Coyne said, "and it allowed me to skip a couple of levels where guys have to put their time in on the circuit. I got to fight some of the best guys out there, beat some of the best guys out there, get my name out in the boxing world and get my ranking up there."

Coyne, who at 28 is five years older than Alexander, also admits to the value of marketing. He has played up his Irish heritage — he goes by the nickname "The Irish Outlaw" — and his sponsors include a brand of Irish whiskey. "You have to be creative so people know you and are interested in you and are drawn in by your story so when they turn boxing on, they don't change the channel and watch NASCAR. They say, 'I know that guy.' We've got to go the extra mile to market ourselves," he said.

The ultimate marketing ploy, of course, would be winning a world title, and his next few fights will determine whether or not that happens for Coyne. Everyone agrees if it doesn't happen, it won't be because Coyne was outworked.

"You won't catch me out of shape," he said, standing alongside his practice ring in the basement of the Clayton gym. "It derails too many fighters. They (throw) away the opportunity of a lifetime. I can't fathom that in my wildest dreams. So many fighters work so hard to get that opportunity, and others let it go by the wayside. Not being in the gym every day would be doing a disservice to my fans, my family, myself, to everyone who's helped me come this far."

"He was a tremendous worker," Thorne, his former football coach, said this week. "He was one of the great leaders we had. His work ethic was unbelievable. He went beyond what everybody wanted. He was a very intelligent kid, a good student. He could do anything he wanted to do. He had that fortitude, that desire to be that good. His motivations came from within."

Is he surprised that Coyne has found success as a boxer?

"Not at all," Thorne said.