No Contenders

There will be no one at LaFollette who will compete in the Chicago City-Wide Tournament this month.  Now I'm two-for-two since I had no fighters in the Chicago Golden Gloves (which began this week) either.  The Battle of the Badges is not looking good for participants as well since that follows right behind the City-Wide Tournament.  Everyone is going to have to wait until June when the regular Chicago Park District boxing shows begin.

Only a couple of the youths had a good reason as to why they couldn't train enough in advance of the City-Wide -- there was a death in their family.  No one else had good reasons for their numerous absences.  I have to attend the City-Wide because it's a big tournament and much help will be needed for it to run smoothly.  But I'll be going alone.

The last time Malik was in the gym, I told him he wasn't going to be in the City-Wide because of being absent for most of February.  Malik wasn't around much in January either.  The few times Malik dropped in, he kept telling me about having to go to the dentist.  Malik is wearing braces now.  However, that's a one-day procedure; it didn't take all of February to have those put on Malik's teeth.  I haven't seen him since I and suspect that's because of some disappointment/resentment.  But what these youths ain't gonna do is give me an attitude because of lack of accountability and responsibility on their part.  I keep repeating that I'm not going to chase people about showing up to the gym and doing the work.  Like my late mother used to say, "People seem to think I'm playing with them when I tell them something."  

James bought himself a ticket out of the program, perhaps permanently, when he revealed that he doesn't care for sports.  I like James, but I don't need kids in the program who aren't interested.  Honestly, I don't want the other youths who couldn't only show up but once or twice a week back in the class, either.  Those youths waste their time as well as mine because they can't devote enough time to the sport, and I can't allow them to do anything regarding sparring nor competing.