AMATEUR BOXING in BC - The Road Forward

THE ROAD FORWARD:  By Brian Zelley With the 2009-2010 amateur season fast approaching the end of the current season run, it is time to look back and measure how far we have come and what needs to be done to elevate the sport on a Provincial wide level to ensure growth and acceptance, participation and an ongoing communication flow among the various boxing clubs to ensure the best opportunities are available for all active boxers, coaches and ring officials. Although there are a couple of tournaments left for BOXING BCs ROAD TO GLORY tournament series, the idea of spreading the tournaments around the Province is a great idea, but after each tournament, the individual host clubs need to capitalize on the investment of time and goodwill to consider hosting their own series of club shows  with support from other clubs in their region ************************************************************************ The tournament with the most history in the Province of British Columbia is the GOLDEN GLOVES which has operated on an annual basis since 1939. Traditionally, this tournament is staged in the Greater Vancouver area, but for 2010 a costly experiment was made with the tournament staged in Langford  which is a growing but bedroom community of Greater Victoria. The main issue with having the tournament in Victoria was the travel costs and the fact that Greater Victoria has not had a major boxing show for many years, and except for some old time members of amateur boxing, a real fan base has not been developed.  Although the kickboxing and MMA groups have been growing in popularity, the amateur boxing crowd is not necessarily the same as many of the spectators of MMA activity are not necessarily boxing fans, but are more like the old "think you are tough" or the TOUGH GUY fight crowd who appear to be interested in aggressive fights or fast knockouts or submissions. For the amateur boxing fan base, there is a need to rebuild the support that was there in the year 2000 and for the 1994 Commonwealth Games boxing tournament or the action of boxing club shows between 1974 and 1985********************************************************************* One Provincial tournament with a limited number of local boxers is the wrong path to build local support, but it does serve as a learning experience. The current active clubs need to reach out to the experienced ex-members of boxing and re-build the fan base with a steady diet of club shows featuring local talent and other Island boxers from places like Campbell River and Nanaimo.  Also, there needs to be an attempt to revive amateur boxing in other places that previously had clubs such as Comox, Port Alberni, Parksville, Ladysmith, Chemainus, Crofton and Salt Spring Island. In the Fifties to the Eighties there were a series of Island Commissions and Island Commissioners and a working body of officials that worked with the clubs to get things done on a regional basis and work with BOXING BC and other regions of the Province. Also, there once was a Greater Victoria Amateur Boxing Association in the Fifties and Sixties In 1989 the Boxing Committe for the Victoria Commonwealth Games that included former boxers and coaches Mike Sartori and Brian Zelley proposed the revival of the GVABA to assist in the long term development.  Steps were taken to revive the Association and elect a Board, but politics and other negative issues resulted in a less that perfect organization and the promised rebuilding process came to a crashing end. The organization would be formed, but some of the folks that were involved in the planning process were left on the outside looking-in.  Others would become involved that were not part of the vision or with no past active involvement in boxing between 1967 to 1989.  Most persons that had a major role in amateur boxing in the Seventies and Eighties were left in the dark by the organization which then had no real direction of how things were done on a co-operative basis throughout Vancouver Island such as the staging of the 1984 Vancouver Island Amateur Boxing Championships.************************************************************

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COACHES CORNER -  From the Ground Up -

Coaching is another important issue where the focus should be to emphasize the basic skills. The important basic skills include stance, footwork, the left jab and the basic defense skills related to the left jab.  The easiest and most basic is the blocking of the opponents left janb with the right glove and countering with the left jab.  More advanced skills would be slipping to the outside with a left to the body counter or slipping inside with a right to the body.   More advanced skills would be parrying and cross-parrying, sidestepping, and pulling back or shifting the weight of the feet .    Basic footwork would be moving forward, backward, to the left and to the right, but more advanced skills would be a combination of these moves such as moving back and then sidestepping or circling in an arc like the hands of a clock.  The important part of the footwork is to maintain balance and to move to control the bout while evading punches.  Stalking an opponent into the ropes would take a little more skill and the ability to avoid punches while moving towards an opponent in a strategic manner.     

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THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THE GOLDEN GLOVES EXPERIENCE

In any event there are always those bright side stories such as the .many side stories of the 2010 tournament.  One of the interesting side stories was the appearance of past Golden Gloves boxers appearing in the ring the first night  with noted Canadian boxer GEORGE CHUVALO including the 1960 BC GOLDEN BOY  ALAN CURTIS

 and 1960 Champion Tommy Black  Some of the others included 1967 and 1968 Golden Gloves boxers      Brian Zelley, Les Vegas and others such as Don Orr, Ian Johnston, Kevin Howard, and the following night Derryk Hoyt, Bob Pegues and Barry Creswell.