A cold and
dark winter’s night is falling over Newburgh, but the Newburgh Boxing Club on
the corner of Route 9W and Broadway is filled with light and heat.
A steady
stream of kids between the ages of 8 and 18 pass through the door hauling
massive gym bags, some as big as themselves. Those already inside are joking
with one another; their laughter occasionally drowned out by the percussive,
staccato thrums of punching bags and the salsa music of Victor Waill blasting
over the loudspeakers.
Teens inside
the club’s elevated boxing ring shift so fluidly between jumping rope, dancing
and sparring that it’s sometimes difficult to tell what exactly is going on at
any given moment. Everyone is loose, relaxed and carefree.
All that
changes when the door opens and Coach Ray Rivera walks in.
‘We came here to fight’
Rivera is
the owner and founder of the Newburgh Boxing Club, but even for those who don’t
know him, it’s instantly clear who’s in charge. With a wide barrel chest, arms
like dock pilings and a steely-eyed gaze, he quiets the room down just by
looking at it. Rivera then saunters over to three teens in street clothes who
have been silently slouched in chairs for an hour, and locks eyes with the
tallest one. “You come here looking to fight, man?”
“Yeah, we
came here to fight you.” Somehow, the room gets even quieter.
“Well, you
better get more than the three of you down here if you want to fight me, man.
You better get the whole heights down here.”
The two
stare at each other for five more seconds before the kid cracks, smiling. Then
Rivera’s face blossoms into an impossibly wide smile accompanied by the thunder
of laughter. The whole club joins in, the music turns back up, and Rivera works
the room, checking up on kids. A sense of normality returns, something that’s
missing from the lives of many of the kids training here.
Murder capital of New York
For all of
the hard-won progress Newburgh is continuing to make, the city still leads the
state in homicides. (The unflattering moniker of “The Murder Capital of New
York,” bestowed upon the city by New York
magazine a few years ago, hasn’t exactly helped matters either.) The odds are
that Newburgh kids on the street will end up involved in gang violence sooner
or later — either as a perpetrator or a victim of it. Rivera is trying to make
sure that doesn’t happen.
Rivera grew
up in the South Bronx and started boxing when he was just 9 years old. He loved
the discipline, the hard work, the dedication. The local boxing clubs held
fights every Saturday. It was fun.
Now he’s
trying to give that same experience to the kids of Newburgh who don’t have
anywhere to go after school, and to keep them away from the temptations that
come from hanging out on the corners outside. Discipline. Hard work.
Dedication. But also a shot at something bigger.
There are
other afterschool programs run by the city, some of which even offer boxing.
But Rivera’s club offers something the others don’t. “The majority of the
people running those programs don’t really know what they’re doing,” he said.
“And I’m religiously down with USA Boxing so I don’t like to bend the rules.”
The road to turning pro
USA Boxing
is the national governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing, and Rivera
wants club members to learn how boxing really works. If a kid shows promise,
Rivera takes them down to New York City so they can fight in actual amateur
tournaments. Which may lead to kids turning pro. Which may lead to big payouts,
a thriving career, a better life. And, just maybe, the chance for Rivera to
keep training more kids.
A few of the
kids that Rivera has trained in the club’s 15 year history have turned pro, and
as their manager Rivera shares in their success. His share of the winnings are
funneled straight back into the Newburgh Boxing Club. It’s one of the only
sources of revenue the club has.
Rivera asks
that all club members pay a modest monthly membership fee, but the irony is
that the kids who most depend on the club are the ones least likely to afford
it. So Rivera doesn’t push the issue. Kids who can pay, pay. Those who can’t,
don’t. Rivera only turns people away if he thinks they want to learn how to
fight so that they can cause trouble, instead of helping themselves to stay out
of it.
Lack of funding
The lack of
steady funds coming in means that the club’s future is constantly in doubt.
Sometimes the phone is in service and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the club is
open when it’s supposed to be and sometimes it isn’t. The space itself is
donated; The club doesn’t pay a dime in rent. Rivera is up front about the fact
that without such generosity, the club wouldn’t exist at all. But the phone
company and power company can’t be expected to be as altruistic as his
landlord.
In the
club’s 15 year history, including the club’s 12 years at its previous location
on Washington Street, there have been a few extended funding droughts that have
led to short term closures, leaving the kids at the mercy of the streets. As a
consequence, some of those kids ended up in jail or the hospital — or worse.
Rivera works
odd construction jobs when he can get them. Anything to keep the heat on, the
doors open and the kids in the ring. As a nonprofit entity, Newburgh Boxing
Club is eligible for tax-deductible donations and grants, but Rivera has
neither the time, manpower or expertise needed to navigate the complicated
world of institutional funding and attracting big donors. So construction it
is, even if a full day’s work building things for someone else drains him of
the energy he needs to help the kids at Newburgh Boxing Club rebuild their
lives. Or so he claims.
“I’m doin’
nothing here today, man,” he says as he slumps down in a folding metal chair
ringside. “I just got off work and I’m tired.” Fifteen seconds later he is back
on his feet, yelling out instructions to one boxer in Spanish, to another in
English, then across the ring for a pep talk to a third teenager. “I got you a
fight scheduled. End of January.” The stern tone of his voice portrays his
seriousness; the booming volume makes it clear that the pep talk isn’t just
intended for the kid he’s talking to.
Rivera
admits later that for all his guidance, in the end it’s up to the kids
themselves.
“I give them
the opportunity,” he said. “If they don’t take advantage of it, what can you
do? Once they turn 18, 19, they’re grown men. They do what they want to do.”
Still, even
with bills piling up and some kids who turn away from the club and into the
arms of the local gangs, Rivera and his volunteer trainers keep at, six days a
week. There’s always the next kid who needs a place to go. Another pro fighter
waiting to be discovered, to be given that chance.
“We got a 6-year-old
who comes in here,” says Rivera with a smile, “and he’s determined to do it. So
we work with him. Every 10 years, there’s one like that. A kid who walks
through the door who’s determined to make it no matter what. I think that’s
him.”
And with
that he turns back to the ring, barking out encouragement in Spanish, his voice
drowning out the sounds of punching bags, of feet shuffling in the ring, and
the sirens outside.