12:00a.m. 2nd September 2008

| By Damian Bathersby

Scott Carroll has to get two-monthly skin cancer check-ups after he had a melanoma cut out of his lower leg. Photo: Michaela O'Neill/172049e

To describe Scott Carroll as a fighter would be stating the obvious.

Everything about him screams that this is a bloke who can handle himself.

But not all the champion boxer’s big fights have been in a ring.

Just two years ago Scott’s dream of representing Australia at the Commonwealth Games was shattered when a small lump on his leg turned out to be a malignant tumor.

Fighting of the pugilistic kind was set aside while he embarked on a fight for his life.

“It was a level four out of five – it was right up there,” he says in typically understated fashion.

“If I’d left it even a few months it could have spread and I would have been in trouble.”

But he got the small, itchy spot checked and within weeks was sporting a nasty round scar where surgeons had done their lifesaving work just above his left ankle.

It was a cruel blow for a bloke who has devoted his life to healthy living as a boxer and personal trainer.

He admits there was a period of time when he wondered if he would ever get back in the ring but with a Golden Gloves title already under his belt, he never considered giving the game away.

“I was always determined to keep boxing,” he says.

“I just love this sport.”

Coach Murray Ropar pushed him hard at his Diddillibah gym and late last year their determination paid dividends when Scott won a Queensland super heavyweight title.

He backed that up in Caboolture on Sunday when he won his second Golden Gloves title in the same division.

But Scott knows he wouldn’t have had much to celebrate if he hadn’t treated the lump on his leg seriously.

“I didn’t think this would ever happen to me. I really didn’t give it much thought,” he said.

“So yeah, it can happen to anyone.

“I was never really sick, more worried about what was going to happen.

“When there’s something not in your control that can take away everything you’ve worked for, you do get a bit nervy.

“I was just lucky the people I had around me at the time were level-headed and kept me positive and in the game.”

Now 30 years old, Scott reckons he’s got about five good years of boxing left in him and while he would like to turn pro at some stage, his first goal is the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

“I have to talk to my coach about it, but it’s a serious ambition,” he said.

“I really want to represent Australia, that’s my dream.”

No matter how many bouts he wins in the future, he says he only has to look at the scar on his ankle to be reminded of the biggest fight of his life.

“I see that scar and know it means that I’m lucky to be alive.

“It reminds me to appreciate every day.”