Field House Frustrations

I don't mind admitting that I've grown weary of the constant foolish actions that go on at La Follette.  The latest incident involves a female lifeguard who has developed a habit of roaming around in my office/equipment room.  The first time it happened, I was standing outside that room talking to the head lifeguard who is a very cool guy.  The female lifeguard walked past me into the room, then I heard her using a jump rope.  She didn't bother to ask me if that was okay to do that.

Yesterday, I stepped away for a couple of minutes to refill a water bottle.  I came back to find her exiting the room.  She gave me a silly grin and greeted me.  I gave her a cold hello back.  There's no swimming equipment in that room, so I'm wondering what's her fascination with being in that area.  Luckily, I don't lay my wallet and keys down in that room. 

I put some of the signs back up that I had to take down while the gym was being painted.  One of the signs was for the office/equipment room reminding everyone that the room is and should be locked when I'm not on the premises.  The sign also tells people that the boxing equipment is only to be used for that program.  If the female lifeguard doesn't get the hint from that, then I'm going to have to be more direct which she'll probably be offended by. 

A man who had been trying to catch up with me to sign up his 13-year-old daughter finally found me yesterday  But like I figured before they got there, the girl's interest in the sport wasn't that high.  She tried to negotiate only coming to the gym a few days a week because she wanted to do another activity that meets at the same time.  When I informed her that she could not participate in any boxing matches if she couldn't participate five days a week, she quickly decided to take swimming only.  The fact her dad was trying to convince her to re-consider the boxing class told me that her father was more interested in it than his daughter. 

The other day, I accidentally scratched one of my fingernails on a door.  I was shocked and irritated to see how easily the paint came up.  It was then I noticed other places on the walls and doors where the paint had been easily scratched off.  So my program was canceled for the rest of the recently ended winter session for a painting job that wasn't done correctly. 

Did I mention that I'm weary of dealing with these types of incidents?

Killing A Program By Painting

One sure way to damage the growth of any program in the Chicago Park District is to keep making the program inaccessible to everyone.  The boxing gym at La Follette Park continues to be closed because it has to be painted and the floor needs to be fixed.  From what I've seen, the work in the gym is being done very slowly, just like the last time the room needed painting. 

The Golden Gloves Tournament registration is going on, but as usual, I had no teens who were interested in training for it, let alone signing up to compete.  The City-Wide Boxing Tournament, which is also coming up soon, is not a go this year, either.  Henry was my best bet for having someone from the 12-years-old and under boxing class in that tournament.  I can only hope that he signed up at another park district gym so Henry can have an opportunity to compete in that. 

I'm never in a good mood when I show up at La Follette these days.  The loss of my car on top of weather conditions (it snowed again recently) has made my commute very difficult.  I have nothing to do when I arrive at work, and since I'm not one for gossip and giggling, hanging around the front desk is not something I do.  It's a little too early to recruit for the spring session which begins in April.  There's no information on if the work in the gym will be finished in a reasonable amount of time which seems to be a constant problem regarding maintenance issues in the park district. 

I always feel that I'm in a constant mode of re-building and re-starting the boxing program despite the fact that it's been running at La Follette Park for nearly five years.  I do know that the boxing program won't keep surviving setbacks like this on top of all the other issues that keep burying the program under the radar.

Pretty Girl and Maintenance Issues

Professor and Martin watch the sparring at Loyola Park gym.  Martin hasn't been in the gym in awhile, but he's planning to sign up again.  He told me about Grauben, whom I also haven't seen in awhile.  Grauben would like to return as well, but he lives way out on the south side these days.

I sparred with Kathy.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get in close enough to throw any hooks to the body.  "Catch her in corner," Alan said, and I only managed to do that once.  My head was easy pickings for Kathy.  I fared a little better with Melissa, but only because she is still new to the boxing game.  I was able to get a lot of body shots in, and a few good ones to Melissa's head.

Ben and Connor's first fights at the Chicago Golden Gloves take place this week. I'm planning to see Ben's fight, but because my niece and her husband are coming to town later, I may not get to see Connor's fight.  Kathy's fight is still not on the schedule according to what I saw on the Golden Gloves web site.

Meanwhile at LaFollette, most of the boxing equipment is still in plastic bags.  The painters responsible for fixing up the supply room have barely done anything.  I do know that at least one of them sat at my desk in the supply and leisurely worked on a puzzle in the newspaper.  Yesterday, I loaded up the top of the desk with bags of equipment so that whoever that person was will have to find another spot to sit and read the newspaper and eat,  and whatever else they've been doing at my desk.

Now the painters are claiming that more things have to be moved around and perhaps out of the supply room so they can do their jobs.  Well maybe that would have been a good thing for them to communicate up front so the painting job would have been done by now.  I'm not going to have my program and its participants disrupted and inconvenienced; the painters will have to work around us, not the other way around.  I'm still salty about the two months it took them to finish painting the gym last year.  It took me awhile to build back up the boxing program, which had been shut down all that time, because of that.  And trust me, it should NOT have taken two months to paint that gym.

Ben sparred with Xavier.  "It's going to be my funeral", he told me beforehand.  Xavier is bigger than Ben and older by three years.  But Xavier was giving pointers to Ben while they were in the ring, which I appreciated.  Ben's father was helpful as well in encouraging his son.  But Ben wasn't answering many of Xavier's punches, and he could not figure out the older boy's moves.  Ben received some good head shots and body shots.  "He'll be alright.  Ben is just mad," Ben's father said afterwards.

One of the teen girls whom I believe is a part of the gymnastics program told me she's like to sign up for boxing.  Yeah, right.  It's become easier for me to recognize the kids and teens who are all talk and have no strong interest in the sport.  Ever since I was a little kid, I've recognized the girly girl issues some females, no matter how old they are, have.  I don't have time for pretty girl issues in my gym.  You know the type. . . ."I can't have my hair and nails messed up!", "I don't like to sweat!" and other types of nonsense.  Those types of girls need to find something else to do other than come to my gym.