A NIce Idea

There was a woman registered for the boxing class who was interested in extra training for a charity match.  She only showed up at the gym once.  However, there are always people, even those who are members of private boxing gyms, who seek extra training time.  There is a way that the Chicago Park District could meet that need.

All of the boxing gyms in the park district could be operated as open gyms during the day.  Just like how the park district's fitness centers are run, customers could have the option of paying for a day pass, three months membership, six months of membership, or membership for a year.  The boxing gyms could be open as soon as the field houses are open in the mornings.  Customers could be issued a pass indicating their level of membership.  However, no instruction would be given during the open gym hours; a coach would just be there to keep an eye on the equipment, the participants, and the room.  One coach could run the open gym as well as the regular classes - four hours for open gym and three or four hours for the regular classes for a full-time coach. Or have one full-time coach during the day for six hours and a part-time coach for the regular classes for three or four hours.  Both amateur and professional boxers could use the facilities. 

The regular boxing classes for youths and adults would take place once the open gym hours were done.  Those in the classes would also have the option of practicing their skills during the open gym hours.  Perhaps those in the regular classes would not have to pay for the open gym hours.  But they would have to have some documentation showing they are registered in the regular classes.

This would generate more revenue for the park district.  But the main issue is park employees would have to be watchful due to the extra foot traffic coming into the field houses.  Park employees would also have to make sure they are on top of collecting the fees for the open gym time.  The park district would also have to hire full-time boxing coaches or promote some of the current part-time boxing coaches to full-time status.  It is because of the high probability that those things would not be taken care of that my plan hits a snag. 

Nice idea, however. 

A Matter Of Attitude

In addition to issues in the neighborhood that have a negative impact at LaFollette Park, there are attitudes that also present challenges to running the boxing program. 

The program is free for those between the ages of eight and seventeen (a few of the gyms will take youths as young as six years old). There are beginning and end dates for each session, but parents and guardians in the area tend to sign up their kids whenever.  Free doesn't mean the class has unlimited spots open.  In order to give proper attention to everyone, there can only be so many participants.  Yet most parents and guardians believe I should make room for youths who often don't show up until halfway through the session.  Youths who sign up later throw off the balance in the room especially when there's a groove that has already been established with those who were there from day one.

Many youths and some of the adults are in the class for the wrong reasons.  I need to talk to people, especially parents and guardians, before anyone registers for the program.  It says so online and on the class fliers.  Most parents and guardians ignore that rule, and it's easy for them to do since everyone can sign up online.  It also says on the fliers that boxing is not a self-defense class, but parents and guardians expect me to teach youths to handle bullying situations. I'm aware that schools have zero-tolerance policies for violence.  I keep wondering why most parents and guardians around LaFollette don't seem to know that or are willing to ignore those policies. 

I'm also curious as to why some parents and guardians don't feel an obligation to let me know if their youths have physical and/or mental conditions. If the staff doesn't have that information beforehand, an incident can turn tragic very quickly.  I've observed that some of the parents and guardians think their youths' health situations aren't that serious.  Some don't seem to have ever taken the time to analyze whether an activity will be appropriate for their youths in light of that.  They just want their kids in -- and I suspect information about health situations gets deliberately withheld.

I've long been tired of parents and guardians who think boxing is going toughen up kids who they believe need it.  I've never forgotten a dad who grumbled that his son's mom (whom the dad was no longer with) was raising their son "soft".  The kid didn't want to be in the class, but dad refused to accept that.  Another parent was angry when they learned their child had no interest in sports at all.  Boxing was the umpteenth sport that they had forced the kid into with no success.  "Ask them what they really want to do, then put them in activities that speak to that interest," I told the parent.  That should have been common sense.

There are the youths in the class whom the parents put in purely for babysitting purposes.  A lot of kids at the field house, regardless of what activity they are in, are not there because their parents care about them having positive experiences.  Parents and guardians who operate on that level do not support the program nor encourage their kids to be more active participants. 

Parents and guardians don't pay attention to what time the class begins.  Time management doesn't exist, and personal responsibility doesn't seem to be taught much.  But I'm expected to work miracles with youths who are twenty or thirty (or more) minutes late to class every day.  I can't enter participants who don't train properly into the City-Wide Boxing Tournament, the Chicago Golden Gloves, nor the park district boxing shows. 

There are youths who have numerous discipline problems, but when I point that out to some parents and guardians, I get no response as to what they are going to do to put a stop to the behavior.  Even more troubling are the ones who tell me, "I can't do anything with her (or him)."  Why do they think that I should keep putting up with it?  Trust me, I won 't.

As for the adults who take boxing, time management is often an issue with them, too.  People forget about the other obligations they have like changing work shifts, dealing with their kids, going to college at night, etc.  Some adults confuse the park district boxing program with the professional boxing classes that are run out of private gyms.  Due to the issues in the neighborhood, many don't sign up because they don't want to be around when the bullets start flying across the park -- and I can't blame them. 

Parents Don't Run Programs

"The parents do not run these programs."  That statement has been repeated frequently to me over the past several weeks.

Recently, a parent told me they don't want their kid participating in any boxing shows for at least a year.  They feel their kid needs to train more. Their kid has been in the program for several months and has a good presence.  They're more than ready to take on a boxing match.  Languishing in the gym for several more months without being able to test their skills out, especially when other kids are competing, is not a good idea.  There are already signs that the kid is getting bored and treating their time in the gym as a time for socializing instead of training.

There is another kid in the class who has been there almost a year and has yet to participate in a boxing show.  Their parent has also made similar statements about not wanting their kid to be in fights until they've trained for months.  That parent also has issues about other kids interacting with their kid.  But I'm not running a private boxing gym and working with highly paid fighters who have the luxury of picking and choosing whom they will fight with and when.  I'm dealing with a city-run operation that puts heavy emphasis on the quantity of youths in the class and expects maximum participation.

There have been problems with people not attending the gym on Saturday, which is the day sparring takes place.  I changed sparring to that day partially based on some parents telling me that it was easier for them to come to the gym to watch their kids on that day.  Now I'm hearing Saturday is a problem because the parents -- not the kids -- have scheduled other things to do on that day. It was suggested to me to switch sparring back to a weekday, if only temporarily, to give at least one of the kids who has been skipping Saturdays a chance to spar.  I seriously doubt I'm going to do that because there are other kids can be present on that day and whose parents have an interest in making sure they are in the gym.

Over the past four years, I have gained a good idea of what works for the boxing program in general.  I do know that the program -- or any other park district program -- can't run properly if schedules and lesson plans are constantly being changed around based on the personal calendars of the participants. I've come to the point where I have just about set the boxing gym schedule in stone.  I'm not going to make anymore concessions to people who don't want to abide by it.

Wasting Time and Effort

As I understand it, the park district's boxing program is set up mostly for youths who want to compete.  But when there are kids in the class who can't or don't want to compete, it complicates what I do in terms of coaching.  I understand when the adults in the class say, "I don't want to hit anyone, and I don't want anyone hitting me."  It's easy to present an aerobic boxing program in that instance.  But most kids who sign up for the program expect to fight in the ring.

I've had a couple of kids flake out on me on the day of a boxing show before.  Last year, one kid decided right before the weigh-in that they didn't want to fight.  Another kid went out of town before the show, and didn't bother to tell me.  I barely speak to that kid when I see them (I had taken pains to pre-match them), and thankfully, they are no longer in the boxing class.  Now I've got a kid whose parent and grandparent don't want them to spar nor compete.  However, the kid, not being aware of their relatives' feelings, wants to do both.

Boxing involves giving and taking hits.  I can't change the nature of the sport.  So what does that kid's relatives expect me to do?  Why is the kid still in the program?  "I want them to get exercise and discipline," the parent told me.  But if focus and self-motivation is practically non-existent in a kid to begin with, as it in this situation, keeping them in the class is not going to help.

Other coaches have told me war stories of what drama they had to put up with when parents and guardians didn't want to hear that perhaps their little darlings should be enrolled in different sport.  Yet they need to hear that and respect the coach's observations.  I don't want to waste my time and effort.  I have other kids in the class who actually want to put in the work to do well in competitions. More importantly, the kid's time should not be wasted trying to plug them into an activity that doesn't suit them.

Excuses For Everything

You may be wondering why a photo of the ultimate late night talk show king, Johnny Carson, is featured here.  I've been watching reruns of his show on Antenna TV lately.  I looked him up online because I could not remember what year he passed on (2005).  I learned that Carson had boxed while he was in the Navy during WWII; he had a 10-0 amateur record.

Here lately, Earl has been offering one excuse after another as to why he can't do what he's supposed to do in the gym.  I hear a boatload of excuses especially on sparring days.  Earl's favorite one is, "I don't have my mouthpiece."  Both Earl and his cousin TJ were on time to the gym because Earl's dad had dropped them off.  When the boys come on their own, they don't show up until thirty to forty minutes of class time have passed.  Earl's dad admonished his son for not keeping up with his mouthpiece, then gave me a dollar to give him another one.  "This is the last time I'm paying for a mouthpiece," he warned Earl.

Suddenly, Earl finds his mouthpiece in his coat.  Surprise, surprise.  That always happens when Earl is criticized for supposedly not having it with him.  The excuses didn't stop there.  During the warm up and shadow boxing rounds, Earl kept whining about being supposedly hurt.  I kept ignoring him, but Earl doesn't take hints well.  Finally I said something to Earl about warming up more.  Seeing that I wasn't in the mood to play sympathizer, Earl stopped talking about his "hurt".

Another annoying thing that Earl does is always insisting he only wants to do two rounds of sparring.  Then he keeps repeating it as if I hadn't gotten the message the first few times.  He is most evenly matched with his cousin TJ, so that's usually with whom I pair him. Plus, the other kids in the class do not show up on a regular basis, or else, I would match Earl with some of them.  But I know that Earl doesn't want to spar with his cousin because TJ is faster and more   aggressive.  "Earl, the park district boxing matches are three rounds.  You will not be able to tell the referee that you only want to do two rounds," I informed him.

The sparring session went well for TJ, but not so much for Earl, who kept dropping his hands.  After two rounds, TJ elected not to continue because Earl was sniffling and crying.  I opted not to show much sympathy because all of the fighters need to learn how to take hits as well as give them.  I also was still a bit irritated by Earl's earlier antics.  If only most of the kids would get it in their heads that they would do better if they took their training more seriously!  I'm not saying there never should be time for fun, games and laughs in the gym.  But there needs to be a realization that once the bell rings to start a round, time for goofing around is off, whether it's a sparring session or a real match.

What Ice Cube Said In That Song

I fixed the snafu involving one of the kids who did not appear on my attendance sheet.  Another staff member, I don't know who, filled out a paper form when the parent came in and did not transfer the information to the computer system.  I had already told the parent that their child was welcome to continue in the class regardless, but luckily, we both found out that they were actually registered.

It was another busy day with eight of the thirteen kids who are in the eight-to-twelve year olds' class.  Another new kid, Jaydon, came in.  "I want to spar with Terry on Friday.  We go to the same school, and we're both in third grade,"  he told me.  Terry is a little skinny guy.  Jaydon is heavy-set.  I will have to monitor that sparring session very, very carefully.

Michael was playing around a little too much, consistently teasing Deja.  Deja asked me, "Can I spar with Michael on Friday?"  "Yes!" I answered enthusiastically.

I had all of the kids working on footwork.  I put the cones on the floor, and one of the boys commented, "This is the same thing we do when we play football!" The kids really seemed to like skipping and jumping over the cones, so I'll find time for them to do that in each class.

None of the teens came in, so I had some time to do some paperwork.  Jesse signed up for the adult class today and came back in with his dad.  Jesse's dad used to box, so he was also giving tips to his son.  A young woman, Yami, came in, and at first I thought she just wanted to ask questions about the class. Actually, she also had signed up.  That brings the grand total of the adults in the class to seven, the largest amount of adults I've had since that class was added.   Both Jesse and Yami are eighteen years old.  Jesse's nine year old brother, Rafael, came in to watch.

Today was a good day, because a lot was accomplished.  I'd like to keep that momentum going.