Lives saved by punches / East Oakland boxing center keeps kids off the streets and teaches them how to thrive

By Joshunda Sanders, Chronicle Staff Writer | Nov 25, 2002

Oakland — The paint-chipped facades of the warehouses at 98th Avenue and San Leandro Street look like many of the abandoned warehouses on the fringes of East Oakland. But inside there are sounds of life, of heavy gloves smacking against bags.

The punches start flying around 3 p.m. on weekdays, and the aroma of sweat permeates the air inside the gym where more than 50 youths come after school to learn the fundamentals of boxing -- discipline, dedication and focus.

It's a world where physical contact is contained to the ring, where youthful scores are settled indoors and students are taught to keep their fists to themselves once they go back out to the sometimes dangerous streets.

With Oakland's homicide rate at a 10-year high, the East Oakland Boxing Association is an oasis of safety. About 1,000 youths come each year to a haven that is part amateur clubhouse and part neighborhood drop-in center for meandering kids.

"For some reason, boxing gets their respect," said Stanley Garcia, who opened the center in 1989.

"The gym gives them a place to belong to. And if they start fighting with each other, we just get out the headgear, put them in the ring and let them go at it until one of them passes out," he added, joking.

At the center, youths from 6 to 20 years old come from 3 to 6 p.m. Smartmoves, a tutoring program, is housed in one room with long tables dusted with glitter residue. Snacks consist of juice and gooey treats donated by the Alameda County Food Bank.

NO-FRILLS OPERATION

The center has a small computer room, a stage that doubles as a classroom behind a curtain and a library with an old brown couch that was recently trashed by local miscreants.

It's a basic operation at best: Hand-painted signs outside that read "Free Youth Program" have faded. The plastic chairs rock back and forth from body weight. A portable toilet, in the pathway between the academic building and the gym, serves as a bathroom.

Some of the youths stay for a few months, others a few weeks, said Garcia, 54, an Oakland native who began boxing at age 13 and founded the center 13 years ago.

The high turnover rate among students makes it hard for Garcia to gauge his overall effectiveness in saving kids from Juvenile Hall or prison. But when successful adults who were once wayward kids wander in to say thanks, he figures the program must be working.

The ones who trouble him most are the ones he tries to save but can't: good and sometimes great fighters who succumb to the seduction of street life.

"We try to pay more attention to those kinds of kids," Garcia said. "But all we can do is try."

Lajoya and Devon, best friends and sixth-graders, began coming to the boxing association in recent months. They like school well enough and have resisted wandering the streets.

Devon, who boxes every other day, said confidently: "It's just my thing."

Lajoya has friends who take drugs and hang out on street corners, but she says she has better things to do after school.

"It's a fun place," she said. "It's sad because we know some people's parents don't care enough about them to send them here, but it's a good place for kids to come to learn more."

Two years ago, Sen. Barbara Boxer awarded an Excellence in Education honor to the Smartmoves program, the academic component of the center. Neil Sims of the Firedoll Foundation, a Walnut Creek nonprofit that funds community organizations, said the center was "the only thing the kids in that area really have. It instills self-esteem and gives them something to do instead of just being latchkey kids on the street."

Even with community recognition, the center survives on a shoestring. The city of Oakland's Fund for Children and Youth gives the organization about $50, 000 each year -- one-fourth of its annual operation costs of $200,000. The organization makes ends meet on private donations.

Garcia holds a few fund-raisers every year, but they aren't very lucrative: An amateur bout last month drew just 75 people and raised $400.

Still, Garcia welcomes the attention that after-school programs have been getting in recent months. He plans to seek as much help as he can get financially, including money when it is available from Proposition 49, the successful statewide after-school program funding measure backed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

With more money, Garcia could renovate the rusty space and expand the program to accommodate more youth.

FISTS, BUT NO FURY

Learning how to box would seem to be a natural aspiration for kids in this tough part of East Oakland, but Garcia doesn't teach self-defense in the physical sense. Instead, he urges them to think about the power their fists don't have.

"Boxing doesn't transfer to the streets," Garcia said. "It's a different kind of fight than a gun or a knife that could put you away forever."

There are unspoken rules that are sometimes tested, but not often. Kids who fight each other are encouraged to box out their frustration, which usually leads to mutual respect.

"After they've let out the pent-up energy, they usually laugh," Garcia said.

Garcia and his head coach, Paul Wright, said that giving kids the confidence to fight teaches them that fighting without gloves is usually not worth the trouble.

"They know there's nothing to it but a lump in the head," Garcia said. "They don't have to prove themselves to each other, and they learn that they can walk away from a fight because it's not of value to them."

Garcia, who grew up in the Fruitvale district, wasn't that different from the youth he serves: His affection for boxing was inspired by a common thug.

An ex-convict named Vincent spent most of his time boxing at Babe's Gym near Garcia's home and was widely respected in the neighborhood, even though he'd just been released from jail.

"He got all the girls, and he got so much respect that I wanted to be just like him," Garcia recalled. "I used to say I wanted to go to jail, just so I could be like him."

Garcia turned professional at 18 and won prestigious tournaments -- the Golden Gloves and Diamond Belt among them. When he retired from the ring, he dreamed of starting a program that would enable him to pass down some of the life principles he learned as a pugilist.

Joshua Jones, 22, found the center before it was too late. He started cutting school in junior high school and hung out on street corners. After being arrested for stealing a pager, he realized he could end up like some of his uncles -- living in and out of jail.

"I wanted to avoid all that," he said.

The gym was pivotal in changing his life, he said. When his older brother discovered the boxing association, Jones said he joined and found a release for problems that he felt his family wouldn't understand.

"(Fighting) really kept me out of trouble," Jones said. "Whenever I felt like doing something negative, I'd come in here and get it out."

Jones, a second-year student at West Valley College in Saratoga, teaches kids at the boxing association as a volunteer. He said he hopes to pursue a job in law enforcement after college.

"It takes a village to raise a child, but in Oakland, everyone's so separated," Jones said. "A lot of people in the neighborhood act like they don't care. But when kids come here, they feel like there are people in the world who care about them."

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Originally posted on https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Lives-saved-by-punches-East-Oakland-boxing-2750401.php